American Psycho Director Shocked Movie Is Embraced by ‘Wall Street Bros’ – ryan

• American Psycho director Mary Harron opened up about the response to the movie among “Wall Street Bros,” who’ve idolized Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman.
• Harron said the character is “dorky and ridiculous” and “very clearly making fun” of that type of person.
• Still, she said she’s “delighted” that young women have come to love the film and its satire of masculinity.

If American Psycho is your favorite movie, director Mary Harron has some follow-up questions.

Harron, who helmed the 2000 satirical horror film, opened up about its legacy in an April 14 interview with Letterboxd Journalthe editorial arm of the film-based social media site. Harron directed the film from a script by writer-actress Guinevere Turner, adapted from Bret Easton Ellis’s 1991 novel of the same name.

“I’m always so mystified by it,” Harron, 72, told the outlet of men who see the movie — and particularly Christian Bale’s main character Patrick Bateman — as a role model. “I don’t think that Guinevere and I ever expected it to be embraced by Wall Street bros, at all. That was not our intention. So, did we fail? I’m not sure why (it happened), because Christian’s very clearly making fun of them.”

Harron said some of the popularity is from “memes” and “TikTok,” and noted, “there’s (Bateman) being handsome and wearing good suits and having money and power.” But the aesthetics of the character are just the surface level. “He’s played as somebody dorky and ridiculous,” she said.

“It was very clear to me and Guinevere, who is gay, that we saw it as a gay man’s satire on masculinity,” Harron said. “(Ellis’s) being gay allowed him to see the homoerotic rituals among these alpha males, which is also true in sports, and it’s true in Wall Street, and all these things where men are prizing their extreme competition and their ‘elevating their prowess’ kind of thing. There’s something very, very gay about the way they’re fetishizing looks, and the gym.” The way the men in the book talk to each other is “like teenage girls in a locker room at school,” full of “ insecurity and vanity and competition.”

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Harron noted that the story has aged well, unfortunately.  “It was about a predatory society, and now the society is actually, 25 years later, much worse. The rich are much richer, the poor are poorer,” she said. Connecting the themes to the political sphere, she added, “I would never have imagined that there would be a celebration of racism and white supremacy, which is basically what we have in the White House. I would never have imagined that we would live through that.”

Still, Letterboxd noted that many of the movie’s fans seemingly do understand the satire; it’s the 23rd most popular film on their website, and more viewers with she/her pronouns have it listed as one of their four favorite films than those with he/him pronouns. “I’m really delighted that young women have started liking it,” she said, saying that, to her, the book and the movie are a “clear critique.”

The novel is set to be adapted again, this time directed by Luca Guadagnino, with Austin Butler playing Bateman.