American Psycho and American Frontiers

American Frontiers in American Psycho

Although the female body primarily bears the brunt of masculine exploitation in American Psycho, Bateman also misuses more traditional frontiers where cultures clash and both a land and its people are threatened. As David Eldridge reiterates, Bateman’s “main victims are [according to Faye Weldon] ‘the powerless, the poor, the wretched,’ those who ‘don’t rate’ in Reaganite America” (23). The same could be said of those exploited at a distance.

In a conversation with friends in one of the many restaurants cited in the film, for example, Bateman challenges his colleague Timothy Bryce (Justin Theroux) about the extent of the massacres in Sri Lanka. Bateman exclaims, “There are a lot more important problems than Sri Lanka to worry about. Sure our foreign policy is important, but there are more pressing problems at hand.” He then delineates several more potentially exploitative clashes: “Well, we have to end apartheid for one. …We have to provide food and shelter for the homeless and oppose racial discrimination and promote civil rights while also promoting equal rights for women.”

When Donald Kimball (Willem Dafoe), a private investigator, interviews Bateman about the last time he saw Paul Owen, one of Bateman’s victims, Bateman again invokes frontiers, claiming, “We had … gone to a new musical called … Oh Africa, Brave Africa. It was…a laugh riot … and that's about it. I think we had dinner at Orso's. No, Petaluma. No, Orso's.” Both these examples connect the consumption of food with the figurative consumption of cultures, updating the American frontier in a late 20^th century upper class economy. They also introduce an indictment of Wendigo/wetiko that Bateman reifies on the bodies of his victims.