Mary Harron's movie adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho. A feminist movie

Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject American Studies - Literature grade: 10 Catholic University Eichstätt-Ingolstadt language: English abstract: I'm always shocked when people want to make movies out of my books. [...] They have cinematic scenes they have a lot of dialogue but often they don't have that narrative momentum a movie needs (Shulman par. 12) said Bret Easton Ellis the author of the novel American Psycho in an interview about movie adaptations of his books. Ellis wrote a total of seven novels and became one of the most famous authors of postmodern American literature. His third novel American Psycho was published in 1991 and turned into a movie in 2000 by Mary Harron. Yet the missing narrative momentum Ellis mentioned was not Harron's only problem while adapting the novel. When American Psycho was published in 1991 it was not well received. Because of its extremely graphic scenes of violence and pornography the novel caused a chorus of outrage among critics. Female activist groups complained that it was a how-to novel on the torture and dismemberment of women (McDowell par. 1). Ellis even received death threats and had to face furious outcries from women...Ellis was surprised that the novel provoked such reactions because he intended the novel to be a black comedy and a critique of the capitalist society in New York City in the 1980s. His intention was to decry the greed envy and the urge for conformity present at Wall Street at that time. However the satiric elements of his novel were almost completely overshadowed by the violent and pornographic passages which led many people to misinterpret the novel's message. The reactions to Mary Harron's movie adaptation of American Psycho were much friendlier:Watching American Psycho is like witnessing a bravura sleight-of-hand feat. In adapting Bret Easton Ellis's turgid gory 1991 novel to the screen the director Mary Harron has boiled a bloated stew of brand names and butche