Pain in the Neck

I watched Whiplash yesterday afternoon. I found it disturbing. The film even enraged me more than once. The movie focuses on a young drummer who dreams of becoming a great jazz musician. He believes that band leader and music teacher Fletcher will help him achieve his goal. Fletcher pushes his students to be great, or at least that’s what he claims to be doing. ***Spoilers*** Except “pushes” isn’t quite the right word for what Fletcher does. Fletcher is aggressive and abusive toward his students. He relentlessly and ruthlessly belittles them. He even smacks them and throws furniture at them. At one point, he went so far as to threaten to rape one student. Fletcher ridicules his students almost constantly using sexist, homophobic and racist putdowns. Fletcher is a sadistic asshole, and I found it hard to believe his aim was to inspire his students.

I thought maybe this movie was playing with me and that maybe I wasn’t supposed to take Fletcher literally. I thought maybe he was a personification of that evil part of ourselves that tells us we’re no good and that we’ll never amount to anything. I thought maybe Andrew, the young drummer, had to learn to ignore this part of himself before he could be the musician that he wanted to be. I thought maybe Fletcher represented the struggle of life and all the snares that might hold us back. Maybe Fletcher represented all those people who enjoy tearing others down. If you’re going to be an artist and put your stuff out there, you have to get used to destructive criticism because there’s a lot of people in this world who will leap at the chance to rip you apart.

Or maybe Fletcher was just an asshole music teacher who drove at least one of his students to suicide. While watching the film, I thought of Claire’s art teacher Olivier from Six Feet Under. Olivier was also an asshole who bullied his students. But Olivier warned his students that he was an asshole, and he told them they shouldn’t care what he thinks. Olivier was trying to get his students to find their own voice. He wanted his students to stop trying to please others and use their art to express something honest. I think Olivier was a much better teacher than Fletcher.

I fear that Whiplash is an homage to machismo. I fear this film was saying there’s something heroic and admirable about being a dick. I think pushing students to do better can be helpful, but there’s a scene late in the film in which Andrew asks Fletcher about the danger of breaking a student if a teacher pushes too hard. Fletcher claims the true geniuses wouldn’t break. What horseshit. I don’t think that’s true at all, and in any event, what about all those musicians who aren’t going to be legendary? The ones who are merely pretty good. The accompanists. The ones who perform in bars. The ones who usually don’t have a spotlight on them. Are we to believe that they’re worthless garbage and that it’s okay to ruin them? I think music would soon die if most young musicians were subjected to the cruelty on display in this film.