Bret Easton Ellis on ‘American Psycho’, Hollywood Hypocrisy, and the Excesses of #MeToo

Author and filmmaker Bret Easton Ellis talks with Reason's Nick Gillespie about film and pop culture in a wide-ranging interview. Subscribe to our YouTube channel:    / reasontv   Like us on Facebook:   / reason.magazine   Follow us on Twitter:   / reason   Subscribe to our podcast at iTunes: https://goo.gl/az3a7a Reason is the leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won't get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines. ---------------- In the 1980s and '90s, novelist Bret Easton Ellis captured more fully than anyone the excitement and ennui of a wealthy and smug America that was stumbling without knowing it into a century filled with terror, disruption, and generalized hostility. In the book and movie versions of Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, and American Psycho, Ellis dissected what happens to a society in which depth of feeling is synonymous with failure to thrive. In this century, Ellis is back in his hometown of Los Angeles writing and producing movies like The Canyons with the likes of Lindsay Lohan and porn star James Deen, whose shambled personal lives might as well have been scripted by Ellis in one of his most darkly comic moments. He's also putting out one of the most engaging and insightful podcasts available on Patreon, in which he talks with guests like Kanye West, Rose McGowan, and veteran writer/director Walter Hill about the ways the entertainment industry is built on an unstable foundation of economic, sexual, and political hypocrisy. Reason's Nick Gillespie talked with Ellis about the ways Hollywood is failing to come to terms with ever-changing methods of production and distribution, what Ellis sees as the excesses of the #MeToo movement, our rapidly changing and failing public discourse, and the enduring interest and relevance of his work in 2018. Produced and edited by Paul Detrick. Shot by Detrick and Zach Weissmuller. "Shibuya" by Bad Snacks is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...) Source: https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary_... Photos of Bret Easton Ellis, Credit: Marechal Aurore/ABACA/Newscom Photo of James Deen, Credit: David Tonnessen, PacificCoastNews/Newscom Photo of Lindsay Lohan, Credit: Anthony Devlin/ZUMA Press/Newscom Photo of Kanye West, Credit: MEGA / Newscom Photo of Rose McGowan, Credit: Everett Collection/Newscom Photos of Harvey Weinstein, Credit: Louis Lanzano/Sipa USA/Newscom Photos of Aziz Ansari, Credit: Birdie Thompson/AdMedia/Newscom and USA/Newscom Photo of Walter Hill, Credit: Van Tine Dennis/ABACA/Newscom Photos of Steven Spielberg, Credit: akg-images/Newscom Photos of Richard Dreyfuss, Credit: COLUMBIA PICTURES / Album/Newscom Photo of Close Encounters of the Third Kind Poster, Credit: COLUMBIA PICTURES / Album/Newscom Photos of Kim Kardashian, Credit: Richard Beetham / SplashNews/Newscom Photo of Kim Kardashian and Donald Trump, Credit: SMG/ZUMA Press/Newscom Photo of Kim Kardashian leaving White House, Credit: Carlos Barria/REUTERS/Newscom Photo of Kim Kardashian leaving White House, Credit: Abaca Press/Douliery Olivier/Abaca/Sipa USA/Newscom Photos of Kim Kardashian leaving White House, Credit: Douliery Olivier/ABACA/Newscom Photos of American Psycho, Credit: LIONS GATE FILMS / Album/Newscom Photo of Mark Duplass, Credit: AXELLE/BAUER-GRIFFIN / Newscom Photo of Donald Trump, Credit: Xinhua/Sipa USA/Newscom Photo of Roseanne Barr, Credit: Mario Anzuoni/REUTERS/Newscom