Thursday, November 28, 2013

American Psycho: perfect skin


When I first heard that American Psycho was being made into a musical I wondered on what elevated level of irony we were working. Was the whole thing a wry joke, or are there people out there who take Patrick Bateman’s evaluation of Huey, Whitney and Genesis as legitimate music criticism? OK, the blurb describes the show as “a satirical commentary on capitalism” but Oliver Stone said much the same thing about Wall Street and plenty of punters walked out of that movie determined to become bankers.

Of course, such responses may be ironic in themselves. So I’m prepared to be charitable about Karen Dacre’s article in the Evening Standard, which focuses almost exclusively on the sartorial aspects of the show. After all, when someone comes up with a sentence like
Bateman’s preoccupations — sourcing the right suit, maintaining perfect skin, looking his best — are the same worries faced by Londoners today and explain why Easton Ellis’s tale remains so compelling 22 years on.
...she has to be joking. Right?

Right?

4 comments:

Swazi said...

It is possible she is a bit too in love with Matt Smith or there wasn't much to commend the show itself.

GreatSheElephant said...

Dacre? As in related to Paul Dacre?

Tim F said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tim F said...

Well, the show hasn't opened yet so I suppose she can be forgiven, Swazi, although she evidently hasn't read the book or seen the film either. I'm guessing she's just read the press release from the suit company that's sponsoring the show. These days that's called research.

According to her Twitter account, not so, GSE.

But here's a slightly more aware overview of Bateman's fashion choices, from the Never Underdressed blog.