‘American Psycho’ director calls out glorification of movie’s sadistic protagonist by fans

American Psycho director, Mary Harron revealed during a recent conversation that she feels “mystified” by the glorification of the film’s iconic anti-hero, Patrick Bateman by “sigma male” fans of the work.

While addressing the strange phenomenon of the character, and subsequently the film itself, being so largely “embraced by Wall Street bros”, Harron expressed her uneasiness with serial killing Bateman being hailed as a role model.

“I’m always so mystified by it. I don’t think that Guinevere and I ever expected it to be embraced by Wall Street bros, at all,” the 72-year-old filmmaker told Letterboxd Journal, while also mentioning the film’s screenwriter, Guinevere Turner.

Further explaining that it was “not our intention”, the Canadian director also wondered, “So, did we fail? I’m not sure why, because Christian’s very clearly making fun of them.”

For the unversed, Christian Bale played the anti-social and murderous Patrick Bateman in the 2000 film, a story which is a satire on the finance industry and the men who work within it, from its eponymous source novel by American writer Bret Easton Ellis.

Speaking about the film’s subject and it being misunderstood by male followers of the work, the I Shot Andy Warhol director also said, “It was very clear to me and Guinevere, who is gay, that we saw it as a gay man’s satire on masculinity.”

She also emphasised that the source material’s author “being gay allowed him to see the homoerotic rituals among these alpha males” a characteristic trait which she proceeded to connect with the concept of sports and the Wall Street culture “and all these things where men are prizing their extreme competition and their ‘elevating their prowess’ kind of thing.”

It is to be noted that American Psycho recently celebrated its silver jubilee anniversary, since its release in 2000.