(((I am NOT a jew)))
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2022
Sorry if this is more of a discussion for the multimedia board but I thought it was more philosophical in nature.
I remember watching the film Whiplash (2014) and thought it was a phenomenal film. J.K Simmons being an abusive sociopath who serves as the necessary evil for pushing an ambitious college jazz student to push beyond his physical, mental and emotional limits to become an ubermensch at the drums.
I thought it had a decently clear message that it takes a very specific type of person to become a savant and the road to perfecting an art/technique sometimes involved making hard sacrifices to become what you desire to be, sometimes everything. But the film seemed to portray this in an ultimately somewhat positive way.
But as it turns out, there's a dominant opinion that seems to have popped up through reddit/youtube analysis videos and "media literacy" discussions that it's "um actually" a cautionary tale and a bleak look at how a young boy is gaslighted into destroying his social life to become a fledging, depressed jazz artist that will kill himself within twenty years of the films' ending.
I believe some of that to be true. Fletcher is objectively an abusive, narcissistic piece of shit, but his "philosophy" is almost justified by his results. Miles Teller does push away his family, but it's shown that they're not completely supportive of his goals either. He dumps his girlfriend in a non-graceful fashion, but they were never portrayed as being anything serious.
But apparently, that big drum finale doesn't mean anything except the death knell for a happy life of it's main character and any motivation or inspiration that was received was just not reading the "true intent" of the film.
That just seemed like an overly bitter deconstructionist "reddit" take of the film.
Did anyone here have any official thoughts on either position?
Is Whiplash an inspirational story about a man achieving his dreams through great sacrifice or a lament for a boy gaslighted by an abuser into ruining his life? Or possibly neither?
I remember watching the film Whiplash (2014) and thought it was a phenomenal film. J.K Simmons being an abusive sociopath who serves as the necessary evil for pushing an ambitious college jazz student to push beyond his physical, mental and emotional limits to become an ubermensch at the drums.
I thought it had a decently clear message that it takes a very specific type of person to become a savant and the road to perfecting an art/technique sometimes involved making hard sacrifices to become what you desire to be, sometimes everything. But the film seemed to portray this in an ultimately somewhat positive way.
But as it turns out, there's a dominant opinion that seems to have popped up through reddit/youtube analysis videos and "media literacy" discussions that it's "um actually" a cautionary tale and a bleak look at how a young boy is gaslighted into destroying his social life to become a fledging, depressed jazz artist that will kill himself within twenty years of the films' ending.
I believe some of that to be true. Fletcher is objectively an abusive, narcissistic piece of shit, but his "philosophy" is almost justified by his results. Miles Teller does push away his family, but it's shown that they're not completely supportive of his goals either. He dumps his girlfriend in a non-graceful fashion, but they were never portrayed as being anything serious.
But apparently, that big drum finale doesn't mean anything except the death knell for a happy life of it's main character and any motivation or inspiration that was received was just not reading the "true intent" of the film.
That just seemed like an overly bitter deconstructionist "reddit" take of the film.
Did anyone here have any official thoughts on either position?
Is Whiplash an inspirational story about a man achieving his dreams through great sacrifice or a lament for a boy gaslighted by an abuser into ruining his life? Or possibly neither?
