Analyzing Evil: Patrick Bateman, From American Psycho

hello everyone and welcome to the 13th episode of analyzing evil in this video we'll be reviewing the character of patrick bateman as he appears in the film american psycho this is yet another character that seeks to terrify viewers of this film with reality the reality that a monster like patrick bateman could be sitting next to you right at this moment the very definition of a wolf in sheep's clothing though we're treated to quite a lot of heinous acts throughout the film that seem to paint patrick as a murderous deviant his character is actually quite ambiguous there are many instances throughout the film that leave questions without answers and in an attempt to understand who exactly patrick bateman is we're going to examine these questions and attempt to provide some clarity to some of the unknown regarding patrick this film as well as many other films often have underlying themes that they're trying to get across to the viewer and i may touch on some of those themes at points but this video is going to be about patrick the character and not what he is intended to represent there's one last thing i'd like to touch on that's been requested a fair amount down in the comments section before we begin if i could i would include audio from the scenes i quote from the film but i have a hard enough time as it is getting past the system with the footage i include i've tried it before with mixed results and i feel that it's best for the long-term health of this channel that i go about it this way now with that out of the way let's begin on the surface patrick is fairly normal well for the time and place at least he's a rich handsome well-dressed 80s yuppie he has a pretentious way of speaking but for someone akin to him in the real world that's nothing surprising he's extremely fit and puts an inordinate amount of care into preserving his skin and his health well-educated wealthy and sociable patrick really does fit the archetype of the boy next door one thing to keep in mind as well is that patrick likely was born into the life he lives as evelyn states during the film that patrick's father practically owns the company he works for the only surface level characteristic of patrick that's odd is the way he speaks and moves when talking with his friends or colleagues it's not overly noticeable but he does seem a bit off in these moments and here is where you can get some indication that much of what he's doing and saying in the presence of these people is fabricated we're given reinforcement for this notion in his first monologue of the film where he states that everything about the person he presents to the outside world is nothing more than a facade a carefully crafted mask sculpted to perfection and molded into the image of a sane human being to quote patrick there is an idea of a patrick bateman some kind of abstraction but there is no real me only an entity something illusory and though i can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable i simply am not there as the title would suggest this description he gives of himself is our first introduction to the many traits that patrick has that indicates he is indeed a psychopath there are a few qualifiers a person must have in order to be a psychopath and they don't necessarily have to have all of them for patrick his distinct lack of empathy his irresponsible behavior absence of remorse massive ego and his regular use of lies are enough to put him into this category this monologue doesn't contain all of those things at once but these traits are all prevalent at points throughout the film from this monologue it's plain to see patrick considers himself an empty person it could be that his description of himself as an abstraction and an entity indicates that patrick has never known who he really is on the inside in a scene with evelyn where they're arguing about whether or not they should have a wedding he tells her the reason he won't quit the job he hates is because he wants to fit in we also get another inner monologue from patrick later in the film that expands upon the void inside him he states 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 something horrible is happening inside of me and i don't know why my nightly bloodlust has overflown into my days i feel lethal on the verge of frenzy i think my mask of sanity is about to slip these three scenes are the best descriptions of who patrick is or more appropriately who he isn't he isn't like you and i he's an emotional void a husk of a human being though he might feel he is empty he does contain something within him and that's a creature hiding under a cover of humanity emerging when opportunity allows to state its greed and bloodlust or when its desires become too much to bear and it can no longer contain them within the shell that is patrick in a sense we can view patrick as having two different sides there's the crafted patrick and the primal patrick his primal side is what carries his greed disgust and envy and his husk contains all the artificial emotion he needs to be able to get by in the outside world his disregard for human life his obsessive desire to always be the best among his peers and his insatiable lust for both sex and violence lie at the heart of his primary emotions his desire to kill comes from either a place of disgust as seen with the homeless man in the alley bloodlust as is the case with his murder of various women or jealous rage in the case of paul allen he describes himself as being on the verge of tears when he fears they won't have a good table at a restaurant and has a near nervous breakdown when he realizes paul allen's business card is better than his own a hypersensitive reaction to an otherwise non-threatening situation whenever he's alone the only things we see playing on the tv are pornography or something horrific like when he's listening to the texas chainsaw massacre as he works out side note here i think the fact that he's playing the texas chainsaw massacre is meant to be a little easter egg considering he mentions ed gein at one point in the film and the creation of leatherface was influenced by gein the only real insane characteristic patrick has is his apparent love for music this could be another way for him to put on airs and impress his friends but i feel that what we see and hear from patrick regarding music is genuine love and appreciation for the art he makes a few socially conscious and politically correct remarks throughout the film that leave us believing that he's just putting on another face but the way he makes these remarks when he's applying them to music makes me think that perhaps when he tells mcdermott to cool it with the anti-semitic remarks and when he goes on a diadrive at a spouse about the problems plaguing the world he's being genuine and somewhere within patrick under the weight of consumerism and his wild bloodlust is a deeply caring man now this is what we get from patrick in the film and at face value it's fairly easy to write him off as a monster but now we have to try and delve into the big unknown regarding patrick that big unknown being did patrick actually commit any crimes in the film or is he just suffering from a case of severe delusion and schizophrenia this is intentionally left ambiguous at the end of the film and while i do think it's best left this way i'd still like to attempt to make inferences on what we're given there are two very distinct possible delusions that can make or break our view of patrick the first is people's blatant disregard for the horrible things patrick says to them and the second is whether he commits any murder at all for the first i'd like to think that this part is not a delusion people all around patrick are constantly mistaking one person for another and it's their self-absorption that is the primary reason this happens i think this is very real and patrick really does talk about murders and executions rather than mergers and acquisitions people are just so wholly unaware of what's going on outside of their own bubble that they could care less what anybody else has to say this ties into whether or not patrick has killed anyone as everyone having constant blinders on could be a reason why patrick gets away with what he does and i think i'm going to have to go 50 50 on this one i believe a large number of his killings are delusions especially the more public ones i don't think he could have gotten away with chasing a woman naked down the hallway of an apartment complex with a chainsaw yet another reference to the texas chainsaw massacre by the way and i think it's highly unlikely that he had a shootout with the police but i believe whatever murder he committed to make his sheets bloody the murder of paul allen and perhaps his murder of the homeless man were all real patrick does state in that second monologue i quoted that his mask of sanity is about to slip when he's talking about this i believe he's saying so because he thinks he will soon be unable to control his bloodlust and will embark on a deadly rampage before long but with the delusions taken into account i think it's rather that his schizophrenia is getting so much worse that reality and delusion are beginning to merge into one and he soon won't be in control of his own mind so yes while patrick is certainly ill and suffering from severe delusions by the end of the film i do believe at least some of the murders he commits are very real as far as remorse goes the only instance in the film where patrick seems to be showing any remorse for what he's done is when he's leaving a voicemail for his lawyer he's clearly having a hard time talking about all of these things and for a moment we're almost made to believe that he could be experiencing genuine remorse but then he says he's not sure he's going to get away with it this time he isn't having a breakdown because he feels guilty rather he's in such distress because he's afraid he's going to get caught at the very least he does put in that he must be a pretty sick guy but even that seems like a half-hearted admission so what does all of this exactly make patrick if i were going to give him a moral label i believe i would give him the benefit of the doubt in saying that he is partially evil if his killing of paul allen the mystery girl who provided the blood on the sheets and the homeless man are in fact real then that is a blatant case of conscious and deliberate malice that is definitely evil however he is absolutely suffering from a mental illness and his delusions no matter how vile cannot be considered evil in my mind terrible thoughts made manifest by a schizophrenic mind absolutely i can say with certainty that everyone has had a terrible thought at least once in their life but thoughts aren't what make a person evil it's the actions that come as a result of those thoughts so in the end i believe patrick is an intensely disturbed psychopath whose lack of identity has caused him to try and fit into a world where humanity has already taken a backseat to materialism and consumerism he has deep-seated desires to kill and what care he might have for humanity is buried beneath an avalanche of disassociation from human emotion perhaps he's a product of his environment and in a different life patrick may have been able to keep his worst impulses in check but the patrick we see is without a doubt a malevolent unpredictable entity and a horrifying example of our inability to know just exactly who some people may be on the inside thank you for tuning in to this episode and i hope you've enjoyed what are your thoughts on patrick let me know in the comments down below and feel free to suggest a villain you'd like to see in an upcoming entry in this series while you're at it if you like the video and you want to see more subscribe to find more videos like this popping up in your feed regularly for occasional updates on this channel you can also follow me on twitter at theviali or by clicking the link down in the description as always thanks for watching and i'll be seeing you soon

Channel: The Vile Eye

Views: 1,339,924

Rating: 4.9542809 out of 5

Keywords: Patrick Bateman, American Psycho, Evil, Film, Analysis, Psychopath

Id: yQx2e_WlSaI

Length: 10min 45sec (645 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 18 2020