236 - American Psycho (feat. JP Brammer)

Also, regarding Phil Collins, he was the first and most important investor of my friend’s dad’s old A/V company. By all accounts, he’s The World’s Sweetest Man.

BEE said, like the descriptions of the food and Genesis credit details, his exhaustive rundown of the fashion Patrick sees is totally batshit bananas if you were to actually dress motherfuckers as he illustrates.

It’s wild that this came up on my feed as I was just thinking about the novel recently. I had come back to it in a kind of roundabout way. I had done a road trip with a couple friends, and we had been talking about books we were reading, and one of my friends mentioned they had just read “In Cold Blood”, by Truman Capote. I ended up picking up that book and reading it covered to cover on one long flight, and for some reason, it just made me think of American psycho. Of course, the Clutter family killers are from a different class and background than Patrick Bateman, but both reflect people who developed into what they are, in large part, because of a society that has encouraged it. Maybe it’s because I am just adjacent to the “Bateman class”, but this story sticks with me because I feel like I can almost see it playing out all the time in my work in tech - in fact, I would argue that the the techbro has probably usurped the finance guy in the popular consciousness for “rich psychopath that is nurtured and shielded as they develop due to their perceived importance in society”. Also shout out to AJ mentioning his early wrestling with queer thoughts about 42 minutes in. I was nodding my head and thinking of very salient similar experiences. I’m so glad that you had on JP! I hope we can hear more from him on here!

The interstitial me thinking, can you guys do a Neon Genesis Evangelion episode?!

I couldn’t finish the book because I hated Bateman’s genesis opinions

Such a wonderful episode discussing the merits of adaptation and original work. Think yall will have JP back to discuss the sequel?

Also I feel the need to mention the end credits feature David Bowie’s Something In The Air which is peak music for realizing you’ve unleashed something horrifying but are ultimately cloistered in your glass tower far beyond the mob

I kind of prefer The Rules Of Attraction movie adaptation as being more honest to BEE's whole deal, none of these people really do anything or care about anything and they will keep being shallow and careless regardless, nobody wins!

As an Elizabeth, I hope I have time to do everything I want to in life before my Elizadeath.

The weird thing is that even with how detailed the descriptions are of the food and clothes, I still can’t picture when any of it actually looks like or would taste like, except for the salmon with guacamole I guess. That sounds good. It’s probably because I’m not rich enough for this. But I do like some of the music he mentions; I don’t know what that says about me

On the subject of adaptation Excalibur 1981 would be an excellent fmt maybe you could get Jeremy kaplowitz as a guest

vis a vis the food stuff.... as someone who has worked in fine dining, I gotta say: all of Bateman's POV in the book (less so in the movie) is pretty clearly just showing up to a three-star dinner having spent half the day skiing the nose candy mountains. I've served these people. they go to the bathroom five plus times during a two hour service that's $300-500 a plate (depending on wine pairing). cocaine is an appetite suppressant, but it's endemic to the lifestyle. also yeah, definitely an eating disorder. but coke is part of that too, I'm sure.

Patrick Bateman is not a person, he's a feral animal, an entity driven by primal and violent urges. He has no authentic identity, instead attempting to assimilate the things in his environment and create a persona to function within it. But the environment he finds himself in, that of postmodern late capitalism, is antithetical to his nature, and it traps him within it, unable to engage with his urges and actions in a meaningful or cathartic way. American Psycho needs to be understood as a story taking place with and satirizing this late capitalist hellscape. One where value and meaning have been completely disconnected from material use or truth, where signs and brands become signifiers of value. This completely alienates us from authenticity, we are told to pursue the image and idea of a thing, a thing which will grant us no satisfaction. Patrick, being a creature of pure Id, hunger, and craving, living in this society, is taught to pursue these things as well. He tries to latch onto the common denominator signs of conformity, pop music, talk shows, high end restaurants, things which he is told are what people care about. But he finds no satisfaction in them, only an avenue to direct his urges. He seeks to find some stability and authenticy, but cannot attain it. He kills Paul Allen over the business card because the idea that having the best card means that you have the most value, meaning Paul Allen has a primal power over him, which Patrick cannot abide. This seems absurd to us, but when the signifiers are all equally meaningless, only acting as a funnel for his urges, it becomes everything. And this meaninglessness is universal in the system. The very identities of all the yuppies become just as inauthentic and interchangeable as the products and brands they value. There is no difference between Patrick Bateman and Paul Allen, or any of the others. They are totally subsumed by the system. There is no authentic identity to any of them, just the performance or a certain kind of Wall Street businessman. However, it is because of this emptiness of this system, and the self perpetuating nature of capitalism, that Patrick gradually loses his grip on things. As a beast of urges, he is driven to extreme acts of experience. But because they are kept secret, because they do not affect the mainstream reality, there is no catharsis for him. There is a total disconnect between the constructed self that he lives in the day and the feral actions he is driven by at night, and he is actively prevented from integrating the two. He commits all sorts of atrocities, but none leave him fully satisfied, and he keeps acting out in more and more extreme ways to try and find fulfillment, but never can. This cumulates in the ending, where he finally does things which cannot be hidden, or at least he believes. As much as he is in tears of fear at the prospect of being caught, he truthfully desires it, because having his actions affirmed by the world susumed by ideas, the mainstream world, would validate his actions, would mean that what he has done had some true reality to them, and then he could experience the satisfaction of them finally. But of course, this is denied to him. The system is unable and unwilling to accept their primal truth within his nature, within the nature of everyone in this system. His confession is denied by his lawyer, the evidence if covered up, he is given nothing, and is forced to return to living his persona. All his attempts to do and experience something authentic have been thwarted, he is unable to escape the system. He remains a feral, scared animal, made powerless, unable to truly engage with his true nature, or even know if his actions truly happened or if they were simply fantasies. In truth, Patrick Bateman is pitiful. While he is indeed a monster, he is trapped in a cage, driving him to endlessly consume but never be satisfied or find meaning in what he does. He is a tragic figure.

I know that the scene with Louis does a lot with the sexual, masculinity and power dynamic themes of the works but just examining it plainly: a man was so gay and that he hard countered a serial killer. Incredible work.

It's very funny how Patrick's secretary Jean, from her perspective, basically thinks she's in a tragic romantic relationship with her boss who's already in a relationship, and it's so tragic that they both have feelings for each other but it's forbidden and they can't be together, and then behind her Patrick is holding a nail gun to her head and is just saying these phrases that are being misinterpreted by her.

I feel like the film not depicting the violence so graphically really helps it. You mention Sam Raimi movie violence, and I think that's a perfect reference point, because Sam Raimi violence is not horrifying, it's hilarious. Seeing bodies getting hacked apparently is ridiculous, and it's difficult to portray that in a very serious way in a movie already loaded with comedy like this. Instead, by not directly showing the violence and instead implying it makes it far more viceral, contrasting the comedic moments far better. The horror doesn't come from the level of violence being committed, but the violence itself and how it is being done to people in a relatively normal situation. It leaves more to the imagination. If you see a woman being stabbed by Patrick you're mostly just grossed out, but if that's just being implied you can imagine and feel it internally far more directly.

Something that it's so perfect in the movie is that literally every character is white men. The only non-white or non male characters are in a service role such as a waiter, the unhoused man, or the women victims of Patrick. The non-white characters are excluded from the elite society that Patrick and the other characters exist in, and are used by them as tools, either to serve them food or to be killed by him, and the women are objectified and interchangeable to Patrick (he specifically wants blondes). The film is very clearly calling out racial and gender character of the capitalist ruling class, and how they view and treat non-white people and women.

Killer guest. JP is so insightful man

My Mom knew Easton-Ellis at Bennington!

Oh my god. It even has a Cool Voltaire

Josh correcting the record on Genesis made my heart glad, as the quoted passage was giving me agita. Which I guess is credit to Bret Easton Ellis.

Per an earlier discussion about dudes: as an assigned male at birth person who has been attracted to the worst of all possible men since puberty, I can assure you: nothing is gayer than a straight man

The funniest edit I’ve seen of the business card scene has to the one where they’re comparing JD Vance photoshops

I wrote an essay on American Psycho (book) for 10th grade English. To be edgy, I quoted part of the rat scene. I got an A. I really played with fire on that one.

weird podcast synergy today: American Psycho referenced on the Pete Buttigieg episode of No Gods No Mayors and Pete Buttigieg referenced on the American Psycho episode of TWOAPW

I'm glad y'all bring up how he's just straight up wrong about music despite talking so much about it, he like does not take in art at any level. Also him watching porn and slashers is so interesting because they're both body genres, art meant to get a physically reaction out of the audience, but he just doesn't get ANYTHING from it.

JP JP JP JP JP

Folks don't listen to this one while you're drifting in and out of sleep

AJ doing a sly sideways six-degrees cut into SOCIETY, nice.

So glad you decided to cover this! I have mixed feelings on Bret Easton Ellis as a writer. American Psycho I think is his best work from what I’ve read and I don’t even like it that much lol. Compels me though. I have very uncomplicated feelings about the movie though: I love it. I think the film works so well (and better than the book imo) because Ellis sees too much of himself in Bateman to fully see how pathetic he is and lean into that; Mary Harron has no such qualms. She strikes this excellent balance for Bateman’s character between him being a genuinely dangerous exploitative man (even if the murders aren't real) and a pathetic empty being who has nothing to hold onto except for purchasable goods and his power over others. A great episode :). This is one of my favorite movies. I rewatched it a few months ago right after rewatching Citizen Kane and tbh I think American Psycho makes a weirdly good double feature with Kane lol

LET'S FUCKING GOOOO! I've been waiting for this episode since I found the podcast.

The musical was also genuinely phenomenal, truly. Give it a shot.

Watching this movie on a heterosexual date was certainly a choice. So glad you covered this.

I thought I could hang until the axe scene, seen too much for that description

Definitely heard "cruise people" like "cruising" like "gay" and thought "yes, a skill I will never learn"

I saw the title and I got really hopeful that you were going to talk about the musical 🤣 its inexplicably quite good

I literally JUST bought the audiobook last week, you guys are in my walls