American Psycho Analysis

"Self identity may be conceived of as our project.  Nevertheless it is a sociological truism that we are born into a world that pre-exists us." (Barker, p. 218). 

After watching a segment from American Psycho, I could not help but feel a strong relation between Christian Bale's character, Patrick Bateman, and the phrase I wrote above.  Near the beginning of this film, Bateman reveals to us that his public figure, personality, and even his name are all "ideas," and that he is "simply not there."  In relation to the sentence mentioned in the above paragraph, Patrick Bateman is a project, performing all the routines he feels is necessary to maintain his social identity...the charming, handsome yuppie.  Having seen this movie before, I know perfectly well that Bateman is neither of those.  There is something dark within that makes who he is on the inside a complete opposite of how he displays himself on the outside.  He is a wolf in sheep's clothing, born into a world where he was most likely expected to live up to a set of standards which, in my opinion, is what might have caused the darkness inside him to grow.   This  leaves me with a question: Does that make him human? The secrets he wants to hide from the rest of the world, his "golden boy" persona, his sinister nature.  I believe that these are all traits we can somehow relate to as humans.  We keep secrets, we have a dark side to us, and most of us would like to create an identity for the rest of the world to know.  I myself, can admit that there are things I did in my life I wouldn't wanna share with others.  Of course, any sane individual would never do the things Patrick has done (or supposedly has done), but I hope you can catch my drift.

Another thing I found so interesting were the similarities between this film and Dexter, the television series on Showtime.  Dexter is my favorite show, so I could not help but think about it while watching this film.  Like Patrick, Dexter hides a dark secret, and creates a persona that is of  the complete opposite.


Here is a link scene from the first episode to prove my point.  What is interesting is the sudden transition the scene makes from his dark side, to his seemingly "good" side.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI9PRA9zBx0