A movie is a weapon. A movie can swing with vim and vigor like a sword, protect like a shield, or lie like a word.
Most dangerous of all, a movie can reflect like a mirror.
Psychological satires like American Psycho and Fight Club have acquired massive cult followings from their release to today, having profound impacts on the culture of their genres and audiences.
Every Halloween, countless numbers of teenage boys dress as Patrick Bateman, the Joker, and Tyler Durdan in Fight Club. Edits on TikTok praising these characters gather hundreds of thousands of likes every day. Trends like “looksmaxxing” (the practice of improving your appearance in the belief that being more attractive leads to greater social acceptance) and “mogging” (dominating over someone in appearance or status) are associated with characters like Patrick Bateman. Some young men aspire to replicate the attitudes and demeanors of these characters who are seen as the “pinnacles” of masculinity.
While their respective stories are complex with individual themes and storylines, these movies all share the same ironic contemplation of the cultural expectations and ideals about how men in the United States are supposed to behave—but are the popularities of these films rooted in this contemplation, or despite it?
Film critics worldwide have attempted to dissect the phenomenal craze of young men idolizing characters like Patrick Bateman and Tyler Durdan from Fight Club and praising them for the very vices their respective films criticize. Articles published in The Harvard Crimson and The New Yorker analyzed what is particular about these films that allow for this miscommunication of messaging. These articles focus on the ironies of the multifaceted natures of these movies but are ultimately unsuccessful at dissecting a reason why.
One film that is particularly interesting, and perhaps the most popular, in this discussion is American Psycho. This story follows Patrick Bateman, an investment banker on Wall Street who has a secret life as a serial killer. Bateman is obsessed with physical appearance and success and continuously unravels throughout the movie as he attempts to hold onto his mask of humanity as he kills more people. A horror-comedy, American Psycho blurs the line between violence and reality, attempting to critique consumer culture and toxic-masculinity of the ‘80s.
So why does Bateman often become a misunderstood hero instead of a cautionary tale?
“[Patrick Bateman] is considered a psycho, because his moral compass is whatever he deems it as. Hence, we call him a psycho. When in all reality, somebody can easily see it and see freedom that they don’t get to be afforded in their normal life,” said Anthony Flucker, fine arts and humanities faculty. “They can see a space in a place where things and thought processes that have just been intrusive thoughts to them, get fleshed out and are given life.”
Under the rigidity of real life, many people tend to turn to movies for solace. In fiction, one’s deepest and darkest impulses can be fleshed out before them cathartically. This is especially prevalent in youth, during ages when life seems to pull from directions with paralyzing strength. The adolescent mind aches for individuality, a solace movies like American Psycho offers in its own twisted way.
“The scariest thing to a young man trying make his individuality apparent is to be the same, and to never actually achieve difference, or anything, at the level of greatness that separates him,” Mr. Flucker said. “So, if he knows that the normal thing is, to be a reasonable human in society, get a job, but he also sees that everybody that he’s ever known does that is just regular. Why would he want to go after regular?”
Characters like Patrick Bateman are worshiped for their shameless individuality, but is it really shameless? Bateman is not a regular man, but he is not a superior one neither. It is often this glamorization of these dominating male characters fails to acknowledge the intent of the creators of the story—to critique and mock.
Chuck Palahniuk, the author of Fight Club, wrote the novel as a satirical exploration of nihilism and search for identity, through the story of an office worker who starts a fight club that transforms into an anti-corporation terrorist group.
“Chuck Palahniuk clearly wrote this as a satire. It clearly is such, but when you don’t examine for context, then you’ve missed the critique of a society that needs to rely on fight clubs in order to access any kind of emotion or have emotional release,” Dr. Maxon said.
While the authors and filmmakers of these stories have attempted to disengage society with the allure of machismo, male audience members have, intentionally or unintentionally, rewritten the messaging.
With the rush of social media flooding the screens of susceptible young people, we have had to work less hard to form individual opinions. The issue may be that audiences, especially young men raised on algorithm-driven content, consume satire without context.
So perhaps the question is not whether these movies create toxic mentalities in young men, but if society lacks the proper media literacy skills to productively dissect these stories?
“I feel like a popular way to think of films is to take the general opinion, and I feel like that kind of just skews your opinion already,” Joshua Akoji (‘27) said. “You don’t really know what to believe. So based on the opinion you saw first online, you go with that.”
When a young man is searching for identity and belonging, he is likely to absorb the messages he encounters most often. If the internet consistently offers characters like Patrick Bateman as symbols of superior masculinity, it is unsurprising that he might begin to believe in those illusions.
There is nothing wrong with community, but things like this become pressing issues when they have negative effects on relationships within a community. Young men are becoming increasingly more worried about “mogging,” being a “Chad,” dominating, cutting and bulking, rather than valuing substance.
“I feel like this whole new wave to be nonchalant and trying to bottle up your emotions and be angry— it can come from online,” Joshua (‘27) said. “I feel like that model man that people are just unhealthily trying to push, they don’t realize it’s just a movie, and that’s not how they should actually act.”
With this interpretation gap, it’s important to consider who is at fault, and how do we change this. Are the filmmakers and authors at fault for not addressing their intended messaging in the proper ways? Do film critics faulter by adhering to popular opinions, rather than ones with more depth? Or is it the fault of the audience member for what they take from the media they consume?
Various members of the Webb community share differing opinions on this matter:
“To some degree, we have to understand that people are going to misinterpret things. It’s always going to happen. You cannot get around it,” Dr. Maxon said. “And I think that if you are creating something that is maybe vague or nebulous or up to the viewer, but you really have a message that you do want to promote, maybe you do that in interviews afterwards. You’ve got some responsibility for this.”
Dr. Maxon offers the idea that filmmakers have a responsibility for the messages they promote. Here’s another idea:
“It’s the fault of the person viewing the film. Not that the person’s wrong, but I feel like if you take the meaning, and in some way, that meaning makes you a worse person, that’s just on you,” Joshua (‘27) said.
Maybe the responsibility is in the hands of the beholder. Here is another idea that expands further on both perspectives:
“Filmmakers only have the responsibility to express ideals, because when it comes down to it, American Psycho needs to happen. Or else, how do people that are neurodivergent that might see some similarities in themselves in some of the positive aspects of his character, have a mirror,” Mr. Flucker said. “Censorship is just the stealing of choice for someone, because you don’t really understand what good is unless you understand what bad is.”
The impact a film has on its audience is influenced by the state of the environment that it engages with. Perhaps the problem is not the films at all, but the viewers. Critics may be too quick to blame psychological cinema for toxic mindsets instead of confronting the cultural forces shaping young men’s interpretations.
It can be argued that storytellers should be held accountable for vagueness in their craft, but it can also be argued this accountability strips away agency in art. “A film with no thrill and no spectacle is a useless film,” Mr. Flucker said.
We need morally grey characters, because they are reflective of the quiet aches and wishes of society. Stories like American Psycho should not be punished for discomfort, for placing a mirror in front of its audience. As consumers, it is pertinent that we can muster the courage to see past the hands that hold the mirror, and into the reflection itself.
In an age where identity is curated and performed, the antihero offers an easy script for existence. But imitation is not individuality, and spectacle is not substance. If we cannot teach young audiences how to read stories critically, they will continue trying to live inside them and the cult will continue to grow.
