Casting a white man as Patrick Bateman is extremely important

Fan casting for the role of Patrick Bateman in Luca Guadagnino and Scot Z. Burns’s take on American Psycho was inevitable—the problem is that many people are missing an important point about how the character exists in society.

Variety published a list of actors they thought could take on Bateman. Included on the list were several women and men of color. However, unless Guadagnino and Burns are planning on changing the setting and tone of the story, a gender-bent/color-blind casting choice for Patrick Bateman won’t work given that Bateman’s villainy is irrevocably tied to his status as a white cis man.

American Psycho‘s setting in the novel, the Mary Harron movie, and the musical is the ’80s, during the Wall Street boom. Bateman gets away with literal murder (if you think he is killing people) as the people around him ignore the warning signs he exhibits because he’s a white man. His status in a patriarchal society allows him to operate through the world differently. He can say things like that he’s into “murders and executions” and everyone hears whatever they want to hear. They don’t listen to him talk about serial killers and murders and see any danger there.

Bateman’s whiteness and gender allow him to succeed in his career. There is no way that someone like Bateman would get away with what he did had he not been a straight white male during this period. This is why the (fan) casting lists for Patrick Bateman published online show a lack of understanding of the themes presented in this story.

He’s not just a serial killer, he’s a reflection on privilege

There is a misunderstanding about characters like Patrick Bateman. For instance, some people think that a woman could play this role. That was already attempted with American Psycho 2, however, and it didn’t work because Bateman isn’t just a random serial killer. He’s the product of a society that honors white men above all else.

Again, if Guadagnino and Burns changed the setting, and let it reflect the societal dynamics of a modern world, I could see a non-white and/or non-male Patrick working. But if we’re telling this American Psycho as a story that reflects the source material, his whiteness and male privilege is part of who Patrick Bateman is and how he gets away with his heinous crimes.

It is the same argument I have for James Bond as a character. I believe that Bond himself has to be a man because of how he operates as a 00 agent. A woman would not exist in the world in that same way and unless that were the point of the franchise, he’d need to be male. You can look at real-life examples of men like Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer who let their white male privilege work to their advantage. The same principle works in favor of fictional killer Patrick Bateman.

With a character like Patrick Bateman, his proximity to the highest level of privilege allows him to look down upon others, kill them without remorse, and be the monster that he is. Sometimes, it is necessary to cast a white man, especially when that man is Patrick Bateman.