Whiplash is a movie about a white guy trying to get good at black guy music. This is an oversimplification, but a useful one; it conveys the story of the movie, the critical discussion around it, and my ‘sure, whatever’ emotional reaction all at once. The story is about a young man named Andrew (Miles Teller) and his attempt to please a dictatorial jazz teacher (JK Simmons). General consensus is that it has about as much relationship with the reality of teaching and jazz as that scene from Star Wars; some more interesting takes are about the relationship between the whiteness of the characters and their using a traditionally black form of music. And personally, I think the movie is beautiful and even compelling but ultimately hasn’t got much to actually say that hasn’t been said before – yeah, sure, pushing yourself for ambition fucking sucks and can make you miserable.
What I think is more interesting is that I do get it.
Sometimes I find myself baffled by the bafflement other people have, in particular when it comes to the motivations people can have. A lot of people watched Whiplash and came away confused as to why Andrew would go so far and suffer so much under Fletcher just to be good at the drums. Now on one level, I have to ask: did you not watch the fucking movie? He explained multiple times. The sequences in which he played the drums were beautifully shot, conveying his feeling beautiful even as he was suffering terribly. There’s that famous scene where Fletcher essentially explains the entire desire to chase the feeling of ‘good enough’.
I think that, actually, many more people understood the film than they realized, they simply disagreed with the character’s conclusions. I, on the other hand, am someone who disagrees with them specifically because I get where they’re coming from. Granted, I grew up in an environment where I was pushed to achieve as much as possible – where an ‘A’ was a failure to achieve ‘A+’ – and actively chose to turn away from that, but I must admit, there is a core of ambition to me that I’ve learned to channel only into worthwhile pursuits.
The philosophical battle between the individual and the collective is one that has raged for what feels like forever, and it’s one of those philosophical questions completely resolved by empirical evidence: collective action wins every single time. Four mediocrities working together will take down four geniuses who can’t collaborate, and history, pop culture, and countless Reddit threads are littered with individuals bitter that their talents are ignored in favour of people with better social skills – who will lie, downplay, and kiss ass to get what they want. Ambition and antisocial attitudes are two things in contradiction to each other.
(This is not even getting into the fact that very intelligent people do tend to be more socially skilled and vice versa)
But that doesn’t stop the drive from being there. A while back, I read The Cave and the Light by Arthur Herman, which suggests that all of Western civilization comes from either Plato or Aristotle; I notice both of those men lifted heavily from Homer, and Homer’s works were about ownage. The brutal, terrible consequences of chasing it, of course, but always with the assumption that chasing domination and glory is a fundamental drive of human beings. It’s an oversimplification to say all of Western civilization comes from chasing materially meaningless glory, but it’s a useful one, and it comes back to Whiplash.
I think the main objection people have to Andrew’s views as a philosophy (as opposed to the function of making music, which I think makes up the lion’s share of the reaction) is that he’s suffering for no pragmatic reason. The sympathetic way to explain Andrew’s view is that he’s delaying gratification for a greater cause; that cause is an imaginary idea of a Great Artist he has cobbled together from pop culture and his own mind. Floating back to Western civilization again, the main criticism I’ve picked up – one from which all the pollution and colonization and slavery and whatever comes from – is that us Westerners are, stupidly, chasing Number Going Up.
Obviously, that refers to profits most of the time – whoever gets the most money wins – but it refers to a more general sense of quantifiable results over more abstract concepts like family or community; the most views, the most friends, the number one show in town, whatever. Whether this actually applies to my civilization and only my civilization, I don’t know, but I do recognize this as a legitimate criticism of my thinking; I know whenever I hear there is a number associated with what I’m doing, a part of my brain lights up, and I become infuriated when I don’t hit it.
Andrew technically has no one big number he’s chasing; he’s not even looking to get a number one hit or be the most popular show in town or anything, he’s just trying to be the best jazz drummer in the world. But there are objective measures he’s holding himself to, like trying to keep on the beat; one could arguably say he’s trying to hit the drums the most. I think this is something the movie successfully conveys cinematically; at the end of it, I’m wanting Andrew to hit the drums the most.
If you tell me this is a stupid thing to aspire to – that, whatever its consequences, chasing money also give you the ability to spend it, whereas Being The Best Jazz Drummer In The World has absolutely no material benefit and indeed can undermine not only an actual career in music, but the ability to find anyone to play music with at all… then I would agree. But again, that doesn’t stop the drive from being there, and I think the critics of this film genuinely don’t understand that. The usual response to this kind of guy is mockery, something that works somewhat on people whose drive is to be liked by you, rarely on people motivated by pride (which is most people, who will generally respond by acting even tougher in response), and never on people for whom the suffering – and thus the story over overcoming it – is the point.
About the writer
Tristan J. Nankervis
Tristan J Nankervis (aka Drunk Napoleon) has been a writer, pop culture critic, dishwasher, standup comedian, waiter, potato cake factory worker, gamer, TV worker, and various other things. You can find him in Hobart, Tasmania.
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Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
Happy Endings, Season One, Episode Six, “Why Can’t You Read Me?
Interesting story: my friend has to pause her HBO Go account (which I leech off to watch, amongst other things, this) and refuses all attempts to give her money for it, so last week I watched a very legal version, which means I jumped ahead. I was too impatient to work out how to get to this episode, so I just reactivated Binge for this. It’s like – I have money! Why am I burning up what’s left of my life dicking about trying to get a torrent or shitty streaming site for a low-quality rip when I can spend twenty bucks and be done with it.
“Now you replace the penguins with Hassidic Jews and the loft with a houseboat, you got a show.”
“I know. I just can’t keep serving a grown man Sangria.”
Brad is definitely a quiet powerhouse on this show. Like, Jane is the MVP, but Wayans locks into the exact sense of humour of the show.
“This phone looks complicated. And I just took a picture of my cleavage. And I sent it to my stepdad.”
“Yeah, totally, it’s really really fine.”
[Dave dies a little inside.]
“That’s terrifying.”
“And yet it’s all I ever want to listen to ever again.”
“Save me a ‘B’, though. Those are the best.”
“They all taste the same.”
“Well… ‘B’ is for my name…”
“Get a tan. You’re pretty white. Like the ghost of Tilda Swinton.”
“My fault. I shouldn’t have picked a book that’s like 80% made up words.”
This show really knows what to do with its guest stars.
“Really? This code you stand by, but ‘don’t apply for a boat licence in my name’ is fair game?”
“How am I supposed to rent a boat using your credit card?”
“Why would you say I went to Epcot? That is so weirdly specific.”
“We could all stand to learn more about the ol’ bathing suit area. Of course, by ‘we all’, I mean ‘you guys’, because I’m gifted.”
“Next you’ll be telling me you’re not racist because you have a black friend.”
“… but I dooooo…”
“That stapler on your desk? Not a camera.”
“Boom. Keepin’ ya guessing.”
“Yeah, I read the apron.”
“Should try one of these. Not today though.”
Bob’s Burgers, Season Six episodes
One thing I appreciate about the show is how it commits to Bob being a chef. Like, that always ends up driving plots. I also like Gene’s little dance in the opening. I also appreciate that the show has a knack for putting characters in situations appropriate for their character – like, just uncomfortable enough for them.
Five Card Stud – I really didn’t set out to watch five westerns in a month, but so many times when I go streamer diving for something to watch, it’s either westerns or noir that look interesting now (and I am also reading Shawn Levy’s bio of Clint Eastwood, so that also whets one’s appetite). In an 1880 mining town, a stranger cheats in a poker game and one of the other players insists they lynch him. Before long, someone is killing all the players in the game one by one, and the local professional gambler (Dean Martin), who tried and failed to stop the lynching, desperately tries now to stop the murders. Directed by Henry Hathaway, a long time western director, this is reasonably solid if somewhat predictable (not exactly hard to guess who the killer is), with a good cast including Martin (who I haven’t seen much of as an actor but who is credible lead and a good action hero even in his later years), Robert Mitchum, Roddy McDowell (who can’t quite lose his accent), Inger Stevens, and most interesting Yaphet Kotto. Kotto plays a bartender who’s close with Martin, and whose character is somewhere between servile Black sidekick and a more modern portrayal of a proud freedman with agency. Kotto unsurprisingly endows everything with dignity, even if the film isn’t entirely sure how to address racism then and now.
Frasier, “I’m Listening” – Despite his best efforts, Frasier keeps being in the wrong place at the wrong time and eavesdrops on Martin and Ronee’s temporarily complicated dating life. It’s funny if a bit hard to watch the third time around. We also get Martin pretending Roz is his other girlfriend to make Ronee jealous when he learns she has another boyfriend, and for a few minutes that’s pretty funny.
Elementary, “On the Line” – It begins with a woman making her suicide look like she was murdered (using the method for the murder in the OG Holmes story “The Problem at Thor Bridge.” But while Holmes quickly deduces the truth, he then realizes the man who was framed is in fact a serial killer. A big leap, but within the context of the hour it makes sense. How Holmes solves things is done well, but of more interest is that Holmes’s behavior to a cop who worked an earlier case is out and out insulting, leading to both him being off the case and Watson pushing him hard to be just a bit nicer. And we learn that many cops do not like Gregson’s use of Holmes and Watson, and Gregson makes it clear to all that if they don’t like it, they can go elsewhere. Given the show’s baseline of copaganda, it’s always refreshing when cops are portrayed as territorial and lazy. The awareness is limited but it is present that the thin blue line is often populated by idiots and troublemakers.
Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon – I say affectionately that this is essentially Weeaboos: The Movie, but it’s actually about multiple ethnic characters chasing mastery of different cultures, or their idea of them, including Chinese guys smoking joints and shooting dice, in very deliberately silly ways. This makes Leroy’s arc work (and Taimak’s very sincere performance) because he learns that he’s his own master without undercutting his genuine love of Bruce Lee, martial arts, and Buddhism. The sheer intensity of his cultural appropriation IS kind of crazy and this gives him what the kids now call “rizz.” (Good tie-in to this article.)
Robocop – Still a masterpiece. Peter Weller acknowledged that the difficult time he had in the massive Robocop suit made his performance better and this is more apparent on rewatches; by the end, he’s a hybrid of Murphy and the robot he’s become (The sheer gratified deadpan of his “Thank you”) and it makes the final line incredibly beautiful and satisfying.
What did we play?
I keep not watching Whiplash, and this review is not going to change that for now. I love Simmons overall but I think I can find better places to watch him. Like insurance ads.
Supporting part in Palm Springs and he’s funny and then pretty devastating.
“I think the main objection people have to Andrew’s views as a philosophy (as opposed to the function of making music, which I think makes up the lion’s share of the reaction) is that he’s suffering for no pragmatic reason…. But there are objective measures he’s holding himself to, like trying to keep on the beat; one could arguably say he’s trying to hit the drums the most. I think this is something the movie successfully conveys cinematically; at the end of it, I’m wanting Andrew to hit the drums the most.”
I think your conclusion here is correct, but that points back to the pragmatic problem I have and that the Iverson article gets into — it’s not that “being the world’s greatest drummer” is unquantifiable and egotistic, it’s that “hit the drums the most” is a dopey way to seek that goal. There’s a general read on Whiplash as a sports movie in structure and I think Chazelle would agree with that, the specifics of this structure would be analogous to Teller wanting to become the world’s greatest basketball player and JK Simmons abusing him to become the world’s greatest basketball player and they spend the whole movie working on dunks. A viewer of that movie would likely have questions about how they’re defining greatness! I think Whiplash ends with ambiguity, there is a fair likelihood that the judges’ reaction to this performance is a version of the Billy Madison verdict (“At no point in your rambling, incoherent accompaniment were you even close to anything that could be considered a collaborative groove”), but that ambiguity is after asking me to take not just the goal but the methods seriously.