Postmodernism In American Psycho
(Does American Psycho represent hyperreality? – Patrick Batemans identity as Baudrillards simulacrum)
Patrick Bateman as Baudrillards simulacra – hyperreality in American Psycho
The hyperconscious Patrick Bateman serves as the narrator to Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho and the film of the same name directed by Mary Harron. Although not mentioned by Baudrillard, can American Psycho be considered a hyperreal piece? This essay serves as an analysis of the question and focuses on Patrick Bateman as the impersonation of simulacra as defined by Baudrillard. American Psycho can inarguably be classified as a postmodern film which will be proven below. But is Bateman and his mundane, image-ridden world (quote) an example of simulation and more …show more content…
This proves to be difficult as postmodernism is not a style per se but rather a mix of key features which can be examined in contemporary feature films.
According to Frederic Jameson there are three different types of mode rétro that characterise postmodernism. Chinatown depicts the past, Star Wars shows us an imagined future while Body Heat echoes earlier films (Jameson, p.23). Jameson says that postmodern films are selective in what they show. Chinatown for example doesn’t accurately depict the entirety of the 1930s but only what it wants the viewer to know about the 30s. Jameson calls these films nostalgia films and says that they use pastiche (p.24). Pastiche is something that the audience has seen before, something that seems familiar, usually achieved through reproduction of earlier themes and styles or a familiar setting or …show more content…
Neville Langley states that postmodernism is a “problematic term used to describe many aspects of cultural production and experience” (p.89) but agrees with Jameson and Hutcheon that it borrows from earlier styles to create something new and plays with paradigms intertextuality (Langley, p.89).
American Psycho repeatedly displays features of these definitions of postmodernism. It is clearly set in New York through narration and imagery – we see streets of New York and Patrick Bateman states that he lives in an exclusive part of the city.
Loss of affect – as mentioned by Brooker and Brooker – in American Psycho is shown through the excessive violence that Bateman influences on his victims. He cannot control a compulsion to dismember his victims while they are still breathing (quote Sean A Spence) and an argument with his fiancée poses the same degree of bemused consternation for him as an appliance problem
Patrick Bateman as Baudrillards simulacra – hyperreality in American Psycho
The hyperconscious Patrick Bateman serves as the narrator to Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho and the film of the same name directed by Mary Harron. Although not mentioned by Baudrillard, can American Psycho be considered a hyperreal piece? This essay serves as an analysis of the question and focuses on Patrick Bateman as the impersonation of simulacra as defined by Baudrillard. American Psycho can inarguably be classified as a postmodern film which will be proven below. But is Bateman and his mundane, image-ridden world (quote) an example of simulation and more …show more content…
This proves to be difficult as postmodernism is not a style per se but rather a mix of key features which can be examined in contemporary feature films.
According to Frederic Jameson there are three different types of mode rétro that characterise postmodernism. Chinatown depicts the past, Star Wars shows us an imagined future while Body Heat echoes earlier films (Jameson, p.23). Jameson says that postmodern films are selective in what they show. Chinatown for example doesn’t accurately depict the entirety of the 1930s but only what it wants the viewer to know about the 30s. Jameson calls these films nostalgia films and says that they use pastiche (p.24). Pastiche is something that the audience has seen before, something that seems familiar, usually achieved through reproduction of earlier themes and styles or a familiar setting or …show more content…
Neville Langley states that postmodernism is a “problematic term used to describe many aspects of cultural production and experience” (p.89) but agrees with Jameson and Hutcheon that it borrows from earlier styles to create something new and plays with paradigms intertextuality (Langley, p.89).
American Psycho repeatedly displays features of these definitions of postmodernism. It is clearly set in New York through narration and imagery – we see streets of New York and Patrick Bateman states that he lives in an exclusive part of the city.
Loss of affect – as mentioned by Brooker and Brooker – in American Psycho is shown through the excessive violence that Bateman influences on his victims. He cannot control a compulsion to dismember his victims while they are still breathing (quote Sean A Spence) and an argument with his fiancée poses the same degree of bemused consternation for him as an appliance problem