Masculine Capital / Yuppie Patriarchy: Visualizing the Noir Commodity in American Psycho

In American Psycho, Patrick Bateman's narratological function is as a pastiche of cognitive and cultural dissonance resulting from deregulated commodity fetishism. Mary Harron's film adaptation sharpens his schizoid parody of 1980s Wall Street with film noir elements such as low-key lighting, subjective A/V techniques, and minimalist mise-en-scène, which enables opportunities for critiquing the relationship between commodification in the yuppie cultural mythos and visual consumption of the body.