The Identities of the American Psycho

After watching some scenes from the 2000 film American Psycho on Thursday, we discussed identity, agency, and subjectivity.  Within the first few minutes, Patrick Bateman, played by Christian Bale, gives an impression of all of the "selves" he is made up of, whether fake or real, and we get a glimpse into all of the external and internal forces that make him who he is and who he appears to be.

I am very much a postmodernist when it comes to the topic of identity.  As Barker states, "the decentred or postmodern self involves the subject in shifting, fragmented and multiple identities.  Persons are composed not of one but of several, sometimes contradictory, identities" (220).  Depending on the contexts in which you place yourself in, you are bound to have more than two identities, if not several.  Teens act different at home than they do with friends at school, and different again when they are sitting in class.  It would seem, then, that what actually defines us is not one but several costumes, so to speak, influenced by the people around us and the experiences we have and will have in life.  Further, even though language is a key identifier for each individual, language itself is a medium that societies create to explain who we are and what we believe.

Nevertheless, there is no person in the world that is not a product of the forces, controllable or not, they encounter and the world they are born into.  Barker describes identity as "...both unstable and temporarily stabilized by social practice and regular, predictable behaviour" (225).  Individuals are first defined by their parents and backgrounds, and the list of forces only expands rapidly as they are thrown into the world -- interests, hobbies, friends, culture, etc.  Those who accept the surrounding culture identify with the majority, and those who resist the majority culture construct their own identities.  And why?  Merely as a result of the rejection of the majority's ideas.  Ironically, many of these "resisting" identities become trends and subcultures themselves -- hippies and punks, for example.  In the end, we can't change who our families are and where we come from, but we have some agency to choose who to be.

Barker, Chris.  Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice.  Los Angeles: Sage, 2008.  Print.
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The revival cast of the Broadway musical Hair at the 2009 Tony Awards, performing "Hair", a song about the ideas of identity, culture, freedom, and...well, hair, in the 1960s.