Consumer Culture In Hitchcock's Film Psycho

In Hitchcock’s film Psycho (1960) the entry of the plumb businessman Cassidy (Frank Albertson) can be compared to Hitchcock the businessman and this can be taken as a joke on the culture ie the consumer culture which Hitchcock lets the viewers to enjoy at his expense (Erb 59). Cassidy has purchased the Harris Street property as a wedding gift for his daughter and he paid $40,000 to the realtor Mr. George Lowery (Vaughn Taylor). He flirted with Marion (Janet Leigh) in at the real estate office and later executes a private investigator Milton Arbogast (Martin Balsam) to trace her when she steals the money. First part of Psycho revolves around terms of production and reproduction: Sex on lunch hour; office labour; a house as a wedding gift; a fast-talking car salesman

On the way she is struck by guilt conscience as she has unlawfully acquired the money. She is not a thief. To flee successfully from the place she must sell her car and buy another, for that she had to spend $ 700. But after the transaction she makes up her mind to return back to Phoenix with the remaining money intact after taking rest through a stormy night at the Bates’ Motel. But her plan doesn’t come off. She wanted to go back to her traditional American values of honesty, self-reliance, privacy, and keeping up fences to esteem one’s neighbours. According to Pomerance:“The lapse occurred back in the city, a place full of strangers with strange values, where too much cash floats around unattached and too many dreams collide” (145). There is a slight difference between taking something that is not one’s own and possessing something by persuading an innocent to hand it over to you. Roger O. Thornhill belongs to the latter category. Roger an advertising executive is not a thief but also not in a habit of cheering others to be satisfied and content with what they have. Marion is a victim of the consumer age, imperilled/endangered because a prize came too close to her to