From incel culture to the White House: American Psycho's dark hold on modern masculinity

"I have just witnessed a murder. Spattered against the white walls of the Almeida theatre are several thin streaks of blood. Underneath them a particularly gruesome-looking hand axe rests on a table. And on the other side of the room, a clue to who the perpetrator might be. Discarded next to someone's laptop is a business card bone-coloured, raised black lettering bearing a familiar name: Patrick Bateman. Him again."

"It's 35 years since Bret Easton Ellis's third novel, American Psycho, unleashed Bateman on his rampage of sadistic violence, and it seems we've never stopped wanting more. In the decades since, Bateman has stabbed and slashed his way through a Hollywood movie, an unlikely hit musical and all kinds of internet memes (I have to return some videotapes). A remake of the film, reportedly starring Austin Butler as Bateman, is in the works, but before that a reworked musical is returning to the place it first appeared, hence my visit to rehearsals at the Almeida today."

"Obsessed with designer labels, male grooming and ludicrous fine dining (swordfish meatloaf with onion marmalade, anyone?), Bateman's money and status-obsessed existence was a pitch-perfect send up of US capitalism during the Reagan era. Yet the satirical element seemed to be lost on critics at the time. The Guardian's Joan Smith, using a line as brutal as any Bateman murder, dismissed the novel as nasty, brutish and long, whereas a moral panic about the book's graphic acts of violence against women prompted Simon & Schuster to pull out from publishing it at the last minute (Ellis kept his $300,000 advance, then found a new home with Vintage)."

Blood spatter, a bloodied hand axe, and a business card bearing the name Patrick Bateman set a theatrical crime scene at the Almeida. Thirty-five years after American Psycho's debut, Patrick Bateman endures as a cultural figure who has migrated into film, a successful musical, internet memes, and a forthcoming film remake reportedly starring Austin Butler alongside a reworked musical returning to the Almeida. Rehearsals blend dark comedy and obsession with design and status. Bateman's fixation on labels, grooming and extravagant dining satirizes Reagan-era US capitalism, and early critical responses included dismissal and a moral panic over graphic violence.

Read at www.theguardian.com