Make America Psycho Again

With the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill, Patrick Bateman’s America has arrived.

“I had all the characteristics of a human being—flesh, blood, skin, hair—but my depersonalization was so intense, had gone so deep, that my normal ability to feel compassion had been eradicated, the victim of a slow, purposeful erasure.”

That’s a quote from Patrick Bateman, a fictional character from one of my favorite movies, which I have learned not to casually recommend. It turns out what I consider delightfully transgressive, many find downright disturbing. I’m talking about the 2000 cult classic film American Psycho, starring Christian Bale.

The story is set in New York in the late 1980s and centers on Patrick Bateman. He is a young, handsome, and well-educated Wall Street investment banker who happens to lead a double life as a serial killer. Bateman alternates between business power lunches, fine dining, writing absurd pop-culture essays, elaborate personal care routines, and dismembering people. Only his crimes may or may not be hallucinations, we don’t really know.

At its core, the story is a dark satire about consumer culture and materialism buried underneath layers of sex and violence. The movie is based on a novel with the same name by Brett Easton Ellis. In the author’s words:

“I was writing about my life. I was writing about being Patrick Bateman – a young man in New York during that era – and being lost in that yuppie culture, which is really just consumerist culture. Feeling that I had to have all of the things that a young man had at that time and hating myself for not having them and hating society and not wanting to grow up. That’s really what American Psycho was. It was a very personal novel.”

Critics generally hated American Psycho when it was published. Here’s a 1991 Entertainment Weekly opinion piece describing the blowback Ellis received:

“Not since the Ayatollah Khomeini sentenced author Salman Rushdie to death for The Satanic Verses has a work of fiction excited as much controversy as Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho. Described variously as ‘the most loathsome offering of the season’ (Roger Rosenblatt in The New York Times) and ‘a how-to manual on the torture and dismemberment of women’ (Tammy Bruce of NOW), Ellis’ novel has made even some die-hard advocates of free speech wish the book off the face of the earth.”

Its original publisher, Simon & Schuster, cancelled Ellis’ contract. The book was placed in shrink-wrapped plastic in Australian bookstores and banned in libraries across the world (The American Library Association ranked it as the 53rd most banned book from 1990-1999). Ellis himself assumed the novel would end his career.

Of course, declaring something off limits is great free publicity. It’s likely American Psycho would have languished in obscurity if it hadn’t caught the censorious eyes of moral crusaders the world over. The debate catapulted the book into a bestseller and sparked a reconsideration of the novel’s literary merits. Last year, The Atlantic magazine even ranked American Psycho as one of the Great American Novels. It’s right up there with The Great Gatsby and the Catcher and the Rye. It was also made into a broadway musical.

However, in a rarity, I believe the movie is better than the novel. It achieves an absurdist humor and camp sorely lacking in the book. In the serial killer fantasies of Bateman, the director found a playfulness that eluded Ellis due to his choice of Bateman as a first-person narrator (being inside the hallucinations of an emotionless sociopath doesn’t lend itself well to humor, even the dark kind).

There is, however, one detail from the novel I wish the movie would have kept. In the book, Patrick Bateman idolizes Donald Trump. He talks and thinks about Trump incessantly.

Bateman keeps a copy of The Art of the Deal on his desk. He lies and tells people he’s invited to Trump’s parties. He randomly points to people on the street and in restaurants and asks if it is Trump or his ex-wife Ivanna. In one scene, he debates the best New York pizza with a colleague, conceding the argument only when he learns where Trump eats pizza. At another point, he looks up at the “tall, proudly gleaming” Trump Tower, and then he shifts his gaze to the black teenagers standing nearby and contemplates murdering them. Bateman’s girlfriend even expresses annoyance at his obsession with reciting details of Trump’s luxurious lifestyle.

When the movie was released in 2000, Trump wasn’t the pop-culture icon he was in the late 1980s. It was during this time his casinos were going bankrupt and it would be four more years before Trump mounted his comeback as host of the reality television show The Apprentice. Thus, I assume the writers and director of the movie were afraid the main character’s obsession was an outdated reference and chose to downplay his hero worship of Trump. Which is too bad.

In 2016, Rolling Stone asked Ellis what Patrick Bateman would have thought about the version of Donald Trump then running for President. He said:

“Trump today isn’t the Trump of 1987. He’s not the Trump of ‘Art of the Deal.’ He seemed much more elitist in ’87, ’88. Now he seems to be giving a voice to white, angry, blue-collar voters. I think, in a way, Patrick Bateman may be disappointed by how Trump is coming off and who he’s connecting with.”

Remember, Bateman is an extension of Ellis. What Ellis is saying, in different words, is that his younger, narcissistic self would never have aspired to become the version of Trump who sells golden sneakers, novelty Bibles, and tacky perfumes. Unfortunately for us, Ellis hasn’t updated this analysis for the Trump 2.0 era. If he did, I imagine he might rethink the attraction. Bateman might not like the fact Donald Trump traded in his playboy New Yorker image for that of a faux populist, but he would love the cruelty.

Which brings me to the One Big Beautiful Bill the President signed into law yesterday. It is a regressive, deficit funded tax cut that also slashes the social safety net and environmental programs, all while expanding the military and federal police apparatus.

It reminds me of Bateman’s first onscreen murder in the movie, a homeless man named Al. Wearing a fine Italian suit and overcoat, Bateman approaches Al on a cold night in an alley and asks if he needs money and food. When Al replies yes, Bateman kneels and says, “If you’re so hungry, why don’t you get a job?” After badgering Al a little more, Bateman, in his self-assured voice of authority, says, “Get a goddamn job, Al. You have a negative attitude. That’s what’s stopping you. You got to get your act together. I’ll help you.” Al is overcome with emotion, and thanks Bateman for his offer. Bateman hesitates because he doesn’t have “anything in common” with Al. Al begs for his help, and then Bateman calls him a “loser” and repeatedly stabs him to death.

The book’s dialogue is almost identical, but in the book, Bateman tortures rather than kills Al. In the aftermath, he compares the thrill to the first line of cocaine, the first puff of a fine cigar, or the first sip of Cristal champagne. He then debates which fine dining restaurant he should eat at, but opts for a McDonald's instead. There he sips milkshakes and observes Americans less fortunate than himself, and regrets not going to a high-end bistro.

Like Patrick Bateman dangling hope in front of Al before stabbing him, this bill represents a contempt for Americans of all walks of life. It’s psycho. It would be a different conversation if the bill was slashing expenditures AND raising revenues. In that scenario, sane people could disagree about specifics, but understand the bill’s intent was to tackle America’s unsustainable deficits and ballooning national debt. But that’s not what happened. The pain is not spread evenly.

In aggregate, it is a fiscally irresponsible bill that increases the deficit by $3.4 trillion over 10 years. Given this, we must ask ourselves how money is being distributed and what tradeoff decisions were made. Who’s winning and who’s losing.

It’s a nearly 1,000-page bill with many moving parts. Thus, what follows is not an all-inclusive list of impacts, but my selection of highlights.

Winners:

• The Department of Homeland Security’s budget grows from $60 billion to $165 billion, a staggering 171 percent increase, which almost entirely goes to border security and immigration enforcement

• The Department of Defense’s budget is increased by $150 billion, an almost 18 percent increase

• The oil and gas industry receives several tax breaks, loans, and regulatory concessions

• Corporate tax rates are permanently decreased from 35% to 21%

• Marginal income tax rates remain unchanged, benefitting all taxpayers, but weighed heavily towards the wealthiest (analysis shows the impact is generally regressive)

• The deduction cap for state and local taxes (SALT) is increased from $10,000 to $40,000, benefitting wealthier taxpayers in states with high tax burdens and taxpayers with large property tax bills

• An additional $1 to $2 million in wealth is shielded from the estate tax (depending on tax filing status)

Temporary Winners:

• Up to $25,000 in tip income is now exempt from federal income taxes, but this provision expires in 2028

• $12,500 — $25,000 (depending on filing status) in overtime pay is now exempt from federal income tax, but this provision expires in 2028 as well

Losers:

• More than $1 trillion is cut from Medicaid (health insurance for the poor and disabled)—leaving about 12 million Americans without insurance by 2034 and placing rural hospitals at risk

• States must fund 50 percent more of the cost of SNAP (a.k.a., food stamps) than before, likely leading to fewer people receiving benefits

• $490 billion is cut from Medicare (health insurance for the elderly) over eight years due to statutory pay as you go rules

• Billions in previously appropriated funds for clean energy programs are rescinded

What does it all mean? President Trump and his Congressional allies will generate debt to give the wealthiest Americans a significant tax cut and expand the federal government’s capacity for violence, not to mention harm the environment. Concurrently, they are curtailing programs for the poor, disabled, and elderly. The few goodies dangled in front of working-class people, no tax on tips and overtime, will be snatched away in a few years, like Bateman’s offer to help Al.

In one of the novel’s final scenes, Bateman spots Al (remember, he tortures Al in the book, but doesn’t kill him) sitting on Fifth Avenue, in the shadow of Trump Tower. Al is holding a cardboard sign that says he is a veteran blinded in Vietnam (in truth, Bateman blinded him):

“I’ve pulled out my wallet, pretending to drop a dollar into the empty coffee can, but then I realize: Why bother pretending? No one’s watching anyway, definitely not him.

It’s all a little psycho, if you ask me.

Blake

Welcome to the Postscript

The Postscript is a compilation of jokes and interesting tidbits constructed from material I deemed tangential to the final draft.

PS — Here are a few “gentle” clips from the movie. The first provides Bateman’s motive for murdering his coworker Paul Allen, which happens in the second clip (includes murder and profanity) to the soundtrack of Huey Lewis and the News’ ‘Hip to Be Square.’

PPS — I’m by no means recommending you run out and purchase a copy of ‘American Psycho’. Between the brutal depictions of sex and violence mixed with experimental narrative techniques, it’s a difficult read. The only book I can compare it to is fellow member of the widely banned book club Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 novel ‘Lolita.’

While ‘Lolita’ is more suggestive than graphic, in both novels, the authors use the first-person point of view to climb inside the head of characters who are at once the villains, protagonists, and unreliable narrators of dark tales. Ellis chose to intimately portray the mind of a narcissistic and delusional serial killer, whereas Nabokov invites us to peer into an older man’s lust for a 12-year-old girl.

As anyone who has seriously attempted creative writing probably knows, the first-person point of view is deceptively difficult. On the one hand, it simplifies the creative process by making several significant storytelling choices for the author. When writing in the first-person, the author may only reveal to the reader what a single character knows or perceives. Unlike third-person or omniscient points of view, the author cannot hop between the thoughts of multiple characters, dispassionately describe the action through the lens of a neutral third party, or zoom out to a sweeping, god-like or historical perspective.

But here’s the rub, good first-person narratives require a skilled author who can write an entire story using the unique voice of the narrator character. All thoughts, observations, dialogue, and action are theirs, not the author’s. Even banal descriptions of scenery must be tuned to the character’s psychology. Every word must reflect the character’s age, education, and background.

I think this is the reason first-person narrative tales are often enjoyed by writers and critics more than the general reader. There is an appreciation for how difficult it is to get it just right. I mean, why else is William Faulkner’s ‘The Sound and the Fury’ lionized. The first chapter is practically indecipherable.

I once read that authors who primarily write in the first person are more likely to suffer psychological problems. I don’t know how someone could prove such a claim, but it makes sense to me on a certain level. The act of writing from the vantage of a mind apart from your own is a form of madness. It requires embodying a split personality. That personality could be a kind and happy person, or if you want to make a controversial novel that endures time, a Patrick Bateman or Humbert Humbert.

I have only seriously attempted to do this one time in a short story. It was my final project for a creative writing class. My chosen first-person narrator was a ten-year-old Austrian boy during World War I. I had a hell of a time. I would go days without writing one convincing sentence. Then, a switch would flip, and I would embody that ten-year-old boy and the writing flowed. The next day, the magic would disappear, and I was back struggling to detangle my voice and thoughts from those of my character.

This is why I compare ‘Lolita’ and ‘American Psycho.’ While reading each, I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell was going on inside the minds of Ellis and Nabokov when they wrote these books! I’m both in awe and creeped out.

PPPS — In an odd twist of fate, far-right internet trolls, misogynists, and crypto bros have non-ironically adopted Bateman as a symbol of their own. He has come to symbolize something called a sigma male in the weird fever swamps of the internet I don’t totally understand or believe reflect the thoughts of real people.

According to Dictionary.com, “Sigma male is a slang term used in masculinist subcultures for a popular, successful, but highly independent and self-reliant man. Another term for a sigma male is a lone wolf.” Apparently, Bateman’s narcissism, obsessive workout and skin care routines, casual violence, insensitivity, and obsession with money resonate with some people. Of course, the irony goes deeper. Bateman is the alter ego of Ellis, a gay man. As with everything about Bateman, his misogynistic masculinity is satire as well.

More P’s than I can count — I stole the title from a remix album by Fall Out Boy. I’m not a fan of their music, but I have to give credit where credit is due.