American Psycho and Imitative Desire -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

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Date Posted: 19:24:18 01/27/08 Sun
Author: JD
Subject: American Psycho and Imitative Desire

After reflecting on all of our discussions of mimetic desire thus far, I cannot help returning to the movie american psycho over and over. Patrick Bateman is a wall street type figure who has urges for violence yet covers (or tries to) it up by being a suave businessman. He and his "friends" live excessively superficially (in the book it even imitates their style by spending pages describing an outfit everytime Bateman sees someone) in that they are all concerned with the highest fashion and trends etc. I guess what gets me is that Bateman seems to try to be both model and the imitator in that he lives the way he does to simply hide his true self, yet he is also extremely concerned with being the one after which everyone models themselves. It is even ridiculous to the point of Patrick wanting to kill someone for having a better business card than he does. Even in his psychotic behavior we see imitation, as there is a point at which he is working out while watching the texas chainsaw massacre, and he we see his next killing occurs with a chainsaw. I really have two ideas that come from this movie/book. The first is that Bateman is an imitator and a model in the exact same way that he is an imitator (in his superficial behavior) yet I cant seem to fully play out the implications of this. Second, it just raises the question of the operation of mimetic desire in people who have a psychosis; can they become both the model and the imitator for themselves (if they are a schizophrenic, for example) and if so, can they ever be conscious of and have the ability to see this process at work?

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