"[6] Namedropping and commoditization have a depersonalizing effect (a world reduced to "sheen and brands"); as the reviewer for The Harvard Crimson observes, "When Victor undergoes a transformation to a law student, we know he is different because he now wears a Brooks Brothers suit and drinks Diet Coke.
London and Paris become nothing more than a different collection of recognizable proper nouns (Notting Hill and Irvine Welsh in the first case; Chez Georges and Yves Saint Laurent in the second).
"[4] A writer for the New York Times observes "much of his prose consists of (intentionally) numbingly long lists of his characters' clothes and accouterments ... out of which his loft-dwellers somewhat hopefully attempt to assemble something like an identity".
[8] In parody of how people now think in modern terms, Ellis "annoying[ly]" lists "the songs that are playing in the background, or even quoting them, as he does with Oasis' "Champagne Supernova"; in effect, the novel is provided with a movie soundtrack.
[4] As such, "meaningful identity is obliterated"; this furthers the recurring joke from American Psycho wherein "characters are always getting confused by their friends with other people, with no noticeable consequences".
Reviewer Eric Hanson writes, "Their [models'] selfishness and brutality, he implies, are simply an extreme manifestation of what consumer culture encourages in everyone.
As Harvard Crimson observes, "His lifestyle is the extreme of everything the current culture worships: he can't avoid thinking in brand names and image and speaks with lines from pop songs."
"[6] As narrator, "Victor's perceptions" sum up "[the glamor world's] disconnection from what the rest of us consider "real life"... [where] Everything he sees is a brand name".
[10] Victor comes across "oddly homophobic for a member of the pansexual New York fashion scene";[9] when his gay assistant accuses "I know for a fact you've had sex with guys in the past", he retorts that he did "the whole hip bi thing for about three hours back in college".
In 1999, the contemporary Italian composer Lorenzo Ferrero wrote a composition for chamber ensemble entitled Glamorama Spies, which was inspired by the novel.
"[14]Glitterati is a 2004 film directed by Roger Avary assembled from the 70 hours of video footage shot for the European sequence of The Rules of Attraction.
It expands upon the minimally detailed and rapidly recapped story told by Victor Ward, portrayed by Kip Pardue, upon his return to the United States after having travelled extensively around Europe.
[citation needed] In 2009, Audible.com produced an audio version of Glamorama, narrated by Jonathan Davis, as part of its Modern Vanguard line of audiobooks.
From the same interview, Ellis mentioned that an idea for a mini-series adaptation was brought forth to HBO though it was ultimately declined and further stating the movie would be left in Roger Avary's hands if one was to be made.
[15] On October 13, 2011, Bret Easton Ellis reported on Twitter the following: Just finished reading Roger Avary's adaptation of "Glamorama" which he will direct next year.
The Star Tribune notes Victor's lack of depth, malapropisms, overuse of the word "baby" and the novel's "enchantingly disaffected monotone" of "a been-there-done-that Valleyspeak".
"[4] The New York Times question the choice of subject matter as well: "Ellis's satirical message is, essentially, a one-liner, and hardly an original one at that – celebrity culture is vapid, yes, and?"
[18] In an otherwise damning review, the New York Times commented "[Ellis] has an uncannily keen eye for the tiny details of the lives of the abel-obsessed yuppies and would-be celebs he's sending up".
"[10] The world Ellis evokes, through the eyes of the male model, Harvard Crimson notes is one "where no one has any emotions beyond the visceral response, where all the sex scenes are described in purely pornographic terms.