American Psycho is excellent though, if someone walks out of that film thinking Bateman is a cool guy then there's probably not much hope for them
American Psycho is excellent though, if someone walks out of that film thinking Bateman is a cool guy then there's probably not much hope for them
This is true.
But I'm also willing to admit this used to be me, back when I was 17. I was a clueless, sheltered, misanthropic spoiled white boy from the suburbs, and I was trying on any/every male archetype I could find, like a series of costumes, desperately trying to find one that fit, to feel like a man.
I emulated Ron Swanson too, and Dr. House, and probably some other awful male characters that men use to fantasize about being awful and getting praised for it.
Luckily I got over it, grew some humility, rediscovered my sense of empathy, had a year-long existential crisis, a bit of ego death ... and now I'm a Marxist woman. :trans-uno:
I guess I should just be grateful that I wasn't born into a wealthy family. Getting my first warehouse job woke me the fuck up.
House was the opposite of "getting praised" for it though. Everyone around him hate him and basically just tolerates him. The one woman he loved abandoned his marriage and he lived in constant physical pain.
I still like the House show, the character had some problems but I can't imagine overall someone unironically wanting to switch places with a guy that is constantly shown to be living in physical and mental misery. He literaly only had one friend his entire life. Yeah he is probably living well off being a doctor and all but nobody in that universe is "praising" House.
IMO the whole atheism thing was more a matter of the timing, these days nobody would give a shit he is atheist. Yeah I get the appeal of being told it is ok to be a jerk to religious people, but again this is what 2005 teenagers wanted to hear and it was relevant like maybe half a dozen times over the entire series.
They routinely praise his accomplishments and his genius. His patients regularly praise him, to the point of dancing and crying.
That's what keeps him coming back (and gainfully employed besides) to the job. That's what makes him a figure of fixation. The tortured genius who everyone is periodically forced to admit is better than them.
Praising his work as a doctor doesn't mean "praising him" for his personality which is I think is what they meant.
Of course patients would praise their doctors after they save their life. They will only ever deal with him once for a few days. But as I said everyone else in the show either just tolerates him or hates him. His only friend constantly berates him and openly says he is an asshole.
Yes Lisa says multiple times he is good for the hospital and that is why she kept him, literally the only reason. If someone thinks being tolerated at their job and at risk of falling out of grace as soon as you are no longer "good for the hospital" is inspirational than that is on them. There was a whole arc on him trying(and failing) to rehab from addiction too, was that inspirational?
I maintain that with regards to media literacy, if they can't see how fickle and miserable his existence was then that is their fault.
And yet the show commands a large audience for years on end. So he's only "insufferable" in a comedic or dramatic sense. The character reactions are in relief and there to distinguish him as exemplary. They can't operate as objectively and brilliantly as House, so they burn out dealing with him for petty emotional reasons. Meanwhile, the viewers stick with him season after season because only the audience truly understands his tortured genius.
Its inspirational in the same way a child swearing that they're going to run away or die, and then everyone will be sorry that he's gone is inspirational inside their own heads. So, more self-pitying and self-aggrandizing. But yes, it absolutely fuels the delusions of grandeur that people idolizing the character have of themselves. "House is just like me! A brilliant man surrounded by people too stupid to realize how desperately they need us!"
It was more about the high drama interspersed with disability comedy than rehabbing him. And, in the end, he's back to work doing his genius thing. Turns out he didn't really need rehab after all, just like he always said.
I don't think the audience is blind to his misery. I think they sympathize with his misery because they are also miserable. And they conflate their misery with genius. "He's miserable because his intelligence has alienated his peers. So if I've alienated myself from my peers, then ipso facto... :very-intelligent: !"