Ted Cruz Gets the Patrick Bateman Treatment in ‘American Psycho’-Themed Attack Ad

Senator Ted Cruz has been given the Patrick Bateman treatment in a new political ad that heavily references the 2000 cult classic film American Psycho to call out the senator for his infamous 2021 Cancun vacation, which was taken as Texas was thrown into chaos when a massive power outage hit the state.

The spot from liberal environmental PAC NRDC Action Votes, connected with the Natural Resources Defense Council, casts Cruz as Bateman, the anti-hero of Mary Harron’s 2000 film adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ 1980s-set satirical novel, which is in talks to be remade by director Luca Guadagnino. In both works, the dark internal monologue of the beauty- and pop music-obsessed yuppie investment banker is used as a narrative device as the possible serial killer moves through the worlds of New York finance and upper-crust Manhattan society. 

For its attack ad, NRDC Action Votes reworks a classic bit of the film’s narration where Bateman (Christian Bale) monologues about how he feels “not a single, clear, identifiable emotion, except for greed and disgust,” and that his “mask of sanity is about to slip” while removing a face mask in his condo’s bathroom.

“There is an idea of Ted Cruz. Some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me,” the ad’s voiceover declares as the scene pans across a chic hotel room, in what could be Cancun, and the headline “Texans Struggle Through Unprecedented Power Outages After Storm” Is seen on a wall-mounted TV. “You can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours. And maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are comparable.

“That is until the power grid collapses, and I flee to Cancun,” the voiceover states, as the tone of the ad shifts. “While families huddle together, freezing in the cold. I sip margaritas under the sun. You might look at me and think we’re the same. But behind the smile, the staged apologies and the photos of me boarding a plane back to Texas … I simply am not there.”

The ad also includes some Cruz-centric Easter eggs. A police sketch rendering of the Zodiac killer adorns the hotel wall, which is a nod to the facetious conspiracy theory that the senator was the mysterious murderer who terrorized the Bay Area and has never been found; a canister of “Big Boy Beard Cream,” references the facial hair Cruz has been sporting for the past several years; also in the medicine cabinet, some “Scent of a Human” cologne is there for the senator to apply (that one can speak for itself).

NRDC Action Votes’ stated aims, as shown on its website, are to avert climate change, support healthy people and communities and to conserve and protect nature and wildlife. The PAC’s director Jocelyn Steinberg tied the ad to the issue of climate change in a statement provided to The Hollywood Reporter this week. 

“At its core, this is a climate ad – and at NRDC Action Votes we think it is critical that climate opponents like Ted Cruz be held accountable,” she stated. “It takes a special kind of apathy to deny that climate change will cause more severe weather: harsher hurricanes, hotter heat waves, bigger floods and stronger winter storms and then when a storm causes massive grid failure, to flee to Cancun while your constituents freeze. Our hope is that this ad captures the essence of Cruz as someone who only looks out for himself.“

This election year, Cruz is defending his Senate seat against Texas Rep. Colin Allred. He and the Democratic challenger are in a virtual dead heat in the race, according to a poll released Wednesday from Emerson College Polling.

The “Cruz Psycho” ad will begin airing statewide in Texas this week across multiple streaming platforms, the PAC said in a statement.