He is vain, self-centered, materialistic, and shallow; he cares for nothing but his own gratification and, by his own admission, has no real personality beneath his attractive exterior. In the film, he claims that his only emotions are greed and disgust.
Personality. As written by Ellis, Bateman is the ultimate stereotype of yuppie greed; wealthy, conceited, and addicted to sex, drugs, and conspicuous consumption. All of his friends look alike to him, to the point that he often confuses one for another; they often confuse him for other people as well.
Patrick Bateman is the protagonist in the film "American Psycho", and he suffers from three personality disorders, Antisocial Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and Borderline Personality Disorder.
You must have no personal qualms with stealing, lying to, raping, killing or torturing anyone or anything in your path. In fact, you must revel in these things. That doesn't mean that you will do these things, just that you have no problem doing them. Patrick Bateman is a psychopath.
Despite his temper, there is little to indicate Bateman stands above his peers. But, as he can make himself appear deadlier than others, he would align as an Alpha. Regarding socialization, Bateman is almost instantly introverted by choice at the beginning of American Pyscho.
Bateman represents a new model of masculinity: The “sigma male”, inexplicably named with another random ancient Greek letter. According to Google trends, the “sigma male” search term first appeared in early 2021 and quickly gained popularity over the past two years. In 2023, #sigma has over 46 billion views on TikTok.
Patrick Bateman: I have all the characteristics of a human being: blood, flesh, skin, hair; but not a single, clear, identifiable emotion, except for greed and disgust.
This, combined with sex, violence, drugs, and other desires of the id, is how Bateman enacts his sociopathic violence in a superficial world. Bateman's episodes of schizophrenia also shows clear signs on how he copes with being an affluent person living in a superficial world, fashioned on consumerism.
In entertainment, the disorder has been misrepresented in characters like Monica from Friends and Adrian from Monk. Patrick Bateman's psychopathy also shows up with his OCD as his thoughts directly impact his behavior, which he seems to not be in control of either despite his consciousness in murdering people.
His lack of empathy also goes hand in hand with him having difficulty forming relationships with others. As Bateman is known to use others for his advantage and his realtionships with his fiance and coworkers seems to be very superficial and lack depth.
I was today years old before I realized that Spongebob characters represent different disorders. Spongebob: ADHD, Patrick: Down syndrome, Squidward: depression; Mr. Krab: Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Plankton: Bipolar, Mrs. Puff: anxiety, Sandy: OCD???
In Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho, the protagonist, Patrick Bateman, is apparently simply a psychopath. However, Bateman can be diagnosed with other mental illnesses such as Asperger's syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, narcissism, and antisocial personality disorder.
Patrick Bateman's feelings of anxiety and low self-esteem is the basis of his activities, killing his victims simply because they make him feel inadequate, a broken way of dealing with his neglected emotions.
He displays a high functioning form of Asperger's syndrome, yet there are still symptoms present in Bateman of which even the highest functioning people with Asperger's syndrome cannot rid themselves. One of the key symptoms in Asperger's syndrome is the need for strict routine.
No fictional character is strictly in line with an actual disorder. But Patrick Bateman is one of the characters that are closest. Patrick Bateman in American Psycho can be regarded as a malignant narcissist, in a most extreme incarnation.
For instance, in the Huey Lewis monologue, he says he likes "Hip to be Square" because it's about "the pleasures of conformity, and the importance of trends." It's pretty apparent throughout the movie that Patrick is all about conformity, like when he tells Evelyn he keeps working at Pierce & Pierce because he wants to ...
American Psycho explained that the idea that Bateman is in the throes of an identity crisis also fits with the film's message about greed. Though Bateman has been enjoying the affluent lifestyle his own greed and corruption have bought him, he's no longer sure exactly who he is.
While it's true that Patrick is experiencing delusions and hallucinations, it doesn't mean that the murders are in his head. Turner blames the muddiness of the ending on the dichotomy between the fantasy world that Bateman is currently living in and the reality of the murderous situation at hand.
Bateman and his friends are also heavy drug users. Early in the novel, Bateman's cocaine use is largely social, but he later does more and more of the drug and his attitude towards it become increasingly aggressive. Bateman begins taking pills, too – downers like Halcion, Valium, and Xanax.
American Psycho explores the inherent violence of corporate greed, using Patrick Bateman's sadistic acts as a metaphor for the callousness of Wall Street. The film's ambiguous ending signifies Bateman's moral awakening, as he tries to hold himself accountable for his actions while those around him remain indifferent.
Although Manhattan is a real place, American Psycho is a work of fiction and imaginary locations in the city are part of the story. An imaginary space is a space that is figurative, like a city in a book. To say that a space is imaginary is not to deny its relation to reality.
In Bret Easton Ellis's novel American Psycho (1991), Patrick Bateman is the insanely neurotic antihero who must have the best of the best. Among his many material possessions, he owns an apartment on the Upper West Side that should be sufficiently capable of causing envy among his peers.
The only person in his life he has anything approaching feelings for is his secretary, Jean, who he knows is in love with him and who he passively accepts that he will probably marry one day. Even then, however, it is made clear that he sees her not as a person, but more as a beautiful object not to be destroyed.
He was having a psychotic break, hallucinating and panicking. Those weren't tears of regret or remorse. He literally imagined the entire task force coming after him, which explains it quite nicely.
American Psycho ends with Patrick staring into the camera, with his voiceover confessing, “There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it I have now surpassed.
