LogFAQs > #979194577

When Fletcher reveals he knows Andrew got him fired, you recall his message to the band that the performance can make or break your career and thus that Fletcher is trying to ruin Andrews life one last time by not giving him the sheet music. The bassist near Andrew is pissed as hell because Andrew cannot manage to improvise the drum line, and after the performance he walks off stage humiliated.

His father embraces him and says to go home, but Andrew turns around and begins drumming on his own cue and manages to convince the bassist to follow his lead into the piece Caravan. At first this is framed like Andrew finally taking control away from Fletcher, but soon you realize Andrew is speedrunning Fletchers story about the famous musician who was laughed out of the stage and came back a year later with the greatest solo in history. Fletcher starts smiling in approval and directs all the band including Andrew. Andrew looks elated not just at his own victory but seemingly at Fletchers approval. Andrew plays a crazy solo directed by Fletcher that causes his hands wounds to open up. End of movie.

Fletchers justification for his abuse is unfalsifiable. If Andrew perseveres then Fletcher thinks that proves him right, and if Andrew quits then Fletcher was right about him.

Because of this, I think a key element of the movie must be the suicide of Fletchers former student. Fletcher appears genuinely shaken up about the death; it causes the one time hes truly off his game when he tells Andrew to go away after the core seat try out. Yet he reports the death to his students as a car accident. This isnt even technically true because the former student had hanged himself.

So, does Fletcher know the full truth of what happened? It seems like he may by the time hes fired, because he tells Andrew he thinks someone from that class year spoke up. (While this was a lie, it still shows Fletcher had information that suggested the students death could be attributed to him.) But what does it mean to him? Is he capable of accepting his method can both create a great musician and destroy them at the same time? Is this a burden he accepts and chooses to carry? Or does he invent a fiction for himself, or run away from his responsibility in it? Its hard to say for sure because Fletcher intentionally guards what he really believes from Andrew. He does seem to genuinely believe himself when he says there is no line that can be crossed in terms of pushing someone.

When I started typing this topic the title was Whiplash has a bad message, on the premise that the movie ultimately vindicates and practically celebrates Andrews abuse and his abuser. I still kind of feel that way but Im also confronted by the feeling that Fletcher is constructed so nefariously yet also in a way that really reflects real life. People like Fletcher are everywhere, people you cannot convince they are wrong about something because they have shaped their understanding of the world in a way that comforts and validates themselves no matter what outcome of their actions. As long as you want to defeat such a person and define defeating as changing their mind, you will never win.

And thats the nuance with Fletcher, he is genuinely happy that Andrew succeeded. Both for Andrew and for himself. He is a true believer in the value of what he did, and that somehow makes him so much more disgusting to me. And I dont know how to defeat such a person, so maybe its unfair to expect Whiplash to know either.