American Psycho
Plot
It's the late 1980s. Twenty-seven year old Wall Streeter Patrick Bateman travels among a closed network of the proverbial beautiful people, that closed network in only they able to allow others like themselves in in a feeling of superiority. Patrick has a routinized morning regimen to maintain his appearance of attractiveness and fitness. He, like those in his network, are vain, narcissistic, egomaniacal and competitive, always having to one up everyone else in that presentation of oneself, but he, unlike the others, realizes that, for himself, all of these are masks to hide what is truly underneath, someone/something inhuman in nature. In other words, he is comprised of a shell resembling a human that contains only greed and disgust, greed in wanting what others may have, and disgust for those who do not meet his expectations and for himself in not being the first or the best. That disgust ends up manifesting itself in wanting to rid the world of those people, he not seeing them as people but only of those characteristics he wants to rid.
Overall Series Review
Categorical Breakdown
The film centers on the white, male, privileged Wall Street elite and relentlessly vilifies this demographic, depicting them as shallow, vain, interchangeable, and psychopathic. The narrative's critical focus is an extreme vilification of this specific, powerful demographic. The main characters are depicted as morally incompetent and empty, fulfilling the criterion of the 'White males depicted as incompetent/evil' trope.
The entire film is a brutal and sustained satire of American culture, specifically the late 1980s capitalist and consumerist society, which the narrative frames as fundamentally corrupting and dehumanizing. The title itself, 'American Psycho,' suggests the antagonist is a product and personification of a morally bankrupt nation and culture. Institutions like business and wealth are shown to shield and enable a monster, framing home culture as fundamentally rotten.
The main male characters are relentlessly critiqued as toxic, self-obsessed, and interchangeable idiots whose masculine pursuit of status leads to cruelty and violence. The central antagonist is a misogynist whose victims are primarily women. While this is presented as a critique of 'toxic masculinity,' the execution involves the intense vilification of males as a class. A moral counterpoint is provided by a female secretary who embodies genuine humanity, but there is no explicit 'Girl Boss' or anti-natalist messaging.
Alternative sexualities are a minor presence, primarily through a peripheral character who is subject to the main character's homophobia and violence. The film's overall focus is on generalized yuppie hedonism and lack of commitment, not centering on sexual identity as a theme. There is no lecturing on gender theory or deconstruction of the nuclear family as a plot device; its collapse is merely a backdrop of the hedonistic lifestyle.
The core theme is the complete breakdown of objective morality, which is replaced entirely by status and material desire. The characters exist in a moral vacuum where a lack of empathy is the norm. Bateman's confession is ignored and dismissed, demonstrating that objective truth and moral law have no power in his world—only the subjective power dynamics of wealth and social standing matter. The spiritual vacuum and moral relativism are a central message of the film.