My Rough Draft

Shivani Avasthi

Greenlee

English 201

1/10/16

            Health is described as the balance of the self, as having all of your biological needs met first and then mental. Mental health, or the way one experiences the self, is crucial in whether one can be described as a healthy person. The bodies discussed challenge the idea that the social acceptance of gender, femininity, and perfection, which represents Patrick Bateman, is good health; furthermore, bodies such as Roxanne Edwards demonstrate how individuals can innovate ideas about gender, mental health, femininity, and perfection thus challenging the status quo.

            Patrick Bateman from the movie American Psycho directed by Herron is a prime example of perfect physical health not equating to good mental and overall health. One of the first scenes on the movie in Bateman talking to a bunch of his friends and reprimanding them when they start to say anti-sematic slurs, this contrasts when he goes to the nightclub with his friends at the club and getting frustrated at the waitress he asserts, “ You’re a fucking ugly bitch. I want to stab you to death and play around with your blood.” ( Herron) Interestingly this insight into how messed up his mental health is done in a very noisy club, a space where his mental health is hidden by the events going around him. This demonstrates that even though he may smile and look charming how easily bad mental health can be hidden and a person can be perceived as healthy. Furthermore, this is the first instance in Bateman’s character that shows that acceptable physical appearance is not a sign of a person in good health.

            Bateman is the perfect example of how wanting to achieve perceived normalcy and perfection is harmful to a person’s mental health. For example he goes through a intense morning routine, “ [using ] a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub and on the face an exfoliating  gel scrub” ( Herrod). Additionally, later on when Evelyn learns he hates his job and asks, “ Why don’t you just quit” he replies, “ Because I want to fit in” ( Herrod). These are just a few examples of how much trouble he goes through to come across as normal. This is his coping mechanism for feeling crazy, and knowing he is not “ normal”. He is the perfect metaphor for people ignoring and not embracing their differences and ending up with poor mental health as a result. Instead of addressing his problems and accepting who he is, he goes overboard trying to appear normal and healthy- even murdering people who one-up him on being physically perfect, not saying that cold-blooded murder is ok, but it is a metaphor for how not embracing your true self means that your overall health is not good even if the outside exterior is “perfect”. ( Herrod)

            Furthermore, society ignoring that perfect physical health does not mean good overall health is played brilliantly at the end of the movie, when Bateman’s lawyer does not believe that Bateman committed all those murders because he is “ good old Bateman” who is always put together and charming. The lawyer ignores that Bateman is telling the truth, because Bateman has always yearned for and presented perfection and presented himself par to the status quo. The character of the lawyer shows how normal people are willing to overlook things they know for truth because they refuse to acknowledge how much mental health plays into good health. This becomes the catalyst for Bateman realizing this exact same thing as he remarks, “  My punishment continues to allude me and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself” ( Herrod). This is the moment he realizes how deep he has gone trying to show perfection and trying to be normal, that now even when he wants to reveal himself he can’t. This serves as a warning to the audience that a person has to accept themselves the way their mental health works or end up very broken and miserable and very unhealthy.

            In stark contrast, is Roxanne Edwards in the radio interview “ Roxanne Edwards is Superhuman” by S. Adrian Massey.  She actively goes against what the status quo for femininity is and actively challenges traditional gender roles as she boldly declares, “ Femininity isn’t necessarily your breasts” and that, “ Most women are very strong, but they keep that shit to themselves”. This shows she refuses to clog up her mentality with the status quo that there’s only one “right” way to be feminine. She is taking the physical appearance out of it and uplifting other women instead of looking down on them. She is helping spread the healthy idea that femininity and women’s strength is very diverse and encouraging women that they should accept the way that they themselves define these terms is valid and to accept themselves instead of pushing it away, in a short term doing exactly the opposite of Bateman, and being much more healthy and happier as a result, even though her body does not meet the socially accepted definition of a healthy body. ( Massey)

            She is even challenging the socially accepted idea that femininity is restricted to one gender as she states:

I know some very unique looking women, all across the spectrum, and when I say unique looking women I mean unique women period. Drag queens, transvestites, body builders, you name it, the whole gamut and they are quite elegant and just amazingly feminine without having to have not one breast amongst them.

Furthermore, she is challenging the very restrictive social norm that expression of femininity is only restricted to one gender and rejecting it. One might think that she gets her idea of femininity from weird places but this just shows how open her idea of expression of gender and femininity is. It is drastically different from what the general public assumes to be feminine. She believes she can be completely ripped and still be feminine, that anyone can be no matter the gender a person identifies as, biological build does not and should not restrict how a person chooses to represent themselves. She is projecting the idea that a person accepting the way their brain processes concepts such as femininity and gender is a representation of a healthy person even though it goes against the status quo.

A Body such as Patrick Bateman represents how having a perfect body does not mean that a person is healthy; in contrast, Roxanne shows that the way to be healthy is to go against social norms and make your own definition of “perfection”, and achieve healthiness that way even if it might go against what society physically deems to be so.