I admit I'm
a little late to the party on this film. Whiplash
was released in theaters way back in January and has since
collected three Oscars, but it can still be seen in select theaters
and is now available on video, so I highly recommend checking it out
if you have not already.
Whiplash,
by all traditional measurements was a sleeper hit. A small-budget
independent film, no A-list actors in the cast, and a premise which
does anything but scream high-concept. Though a lot of credit it owed
to its great performances and the amazing on-screen musical skill of
its star Miles Teller, the secret to the film's success as a work of
storytelling originates from the fact that it takes a tried-and-true
(and due to its constant overuse in Hollywood, all-too-familiar)
narrative Plot Pattern and renders it almost unrecognizable to the
viewer into something which seems altogether fresh and new. Whiplash
manages to nail what often seems
to be a contradictory demand made of writers and filmmakers, to “give
something new, yet familiar.” Though the film's surface content may
seem to be material which seems rarely if ever explored in a major
feature film, under that surface Whiplash
follows a specific and distinctive Plot Pattern (also known on this
blog as a “Story Type”) which we have all seen and enjoyed many
times before.
A more or less unremarkable protagonist is selected by an outside
power to fulfill a role through which he or she is expected to
achieve greatness. Unprepared and often unwilling to fill this role,
the protagonist first requires the guidance and nurturance of
supporting characters to expose and eliminate the flawed attitudes or
behaviors that block the hero's path to greatness. Later developments
present a series of tests which force the hero to recognize and then
prove his or her great potential value, usually failing before
finding success.
The
key defining traits of this plot pattern are first that the hero is
chosen by an outside power
to participate in the story's quest. Second, the hero's strongest
obstacle is not physical, but internal; usually a flaw in
the hero's sense of self-worth, value to the world, or personal
identity.
This
plot pattern can be further broken down into two subtypes:
The
Summoned Hero
An
inexperienced hero is plucked from obscurity by a higher power to
fill a role of great importance. Mentors and other supporting
characters nurture the hero in preparation for a final confrontation
with a force of antagonism in which the hero must finally prove his
or her worth. (Examples: The Matrix, Men in Black, Silence
of the Lambs, Kung-Fu Panda)
The
Breakaway Hero
A hero is ushered into a system or given an opportunity through which
he or she is promised fame, glory, or great personal achievement.
However, the protagonist comes to realizes this system is not acting
in his or her best interests, often using him or her for its own
questionable purposes. The hero then breaks away from the system
(often inciting open conflict between the two), whereafter he or she
transforms into an independent hero fighting for his or her own
personal cause. (Examples: Batman Begins, Rocky, 12 Monkeys)
The most obvious difference between these two subtypes is that, in
the Summoned Hero, the protagonist has a positive relationship with
those who have chosen him or her for the role, while in the Breakaway
Hero, the protagonist develops an antagonistic relationship,
ultimately standing against the mentor/higher power in direct conflict.
Plotwise,
Whiplash belongs to the second subtype. Its
protagonist Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller), an ambitious young drummer
at the Shaffer Conservatory of Music, is plucked from obscurity by
revered instructor Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons) to join the Studio
Band, Shaffer's elite group of musicians. However, Andrew soon
realizes that Fletcher is not a benevolent, nurturing mentor, but an
ogre and a tyrant who (much like Ra's Al Ghul in
Batman Begins)
uses harsh methods to mold and warp Andrew into the type of person
Andrew did not formerly wish to become. (See
this previous article
for more information on mentor-antagonist relationships.) Due to the
love-hate relationship found between protagonists and such
mentor-antagonists, Andrew tries to meet all of Fletcher's
unreasonable expectations, but eventually rebels against this
treatment, turning into Fletcher's enemy and ultimately defeating
Fletcher to become an independent hero living on his own terms based
on his personal standards of greatness.
As seen in the other examples of Small Man/Woman Rises narratives
listed above, this plot pattern usually lends itself to stories with
fantastic premises or those with protagonists put into extraordinary
situations. Whiplash, however, is noteworthy for adapting this
form to a premise which is much smaller and more personal, one
the audience can better relate to their own
struggles for worth and accomplishment. Whiplash gains its
dramatic impact by taking a superhero-type narrative and placing it
into the far more accessible context of the everyday; into a
coming-of-age tale of growth and maturity with which the audience can
directly identify.
An essential part of the Small Man/Woman Rises is the way the greatest obstacle
standing in the protagonist's path to victory comes not so much the
force of antagonism, but the protagonist's own Fatal Flaw. The “Fatal
Flaw” is a concept often misunderstood among developing
storytellers because it is often addressed with so much
vaguery. The Fatal Flaw is always psychological. All of the
protagonist's negative or self-defeating traits arise from a warped
or incorrect paradigm – that is, a system of beliefs which negatively influence how the
character sees him or herself, others, or the world in general.
Andrew's Fatal Flaw is that he suffers from what psychologists refer
to as an “external locus of self-worth.” This means Andrew views
his personal value not on his own terms, but based on approval
received from someone or something outside of him. Namely, Andrew judges his own value insofar as he can receive
Fletcher's approval. Because of this, Andrew willingly puts up with
all of Fletcher's abuse because Andrew can only receive a sense of self-worth from that very same abusive mentor. This however proves
to be an absurd quest as Fletcher will never, ever give Andrew praise
no matter how hard he works or how much he is willing to give. But
Andrew does not realize this, and like a hamster on wheel, keeps
charging harder and harder after what he will never receive, becoming
miserable and destroying himself in the process. If Andrew is ever to
find success or happiness, he must first abandon his flawed paradigm
in favor of one which is healthier, more productive and more
accurately reflects the truth of the world in which he lives (a
process known in screencraft as conversion or value
realignment). Andrew must shift away from an external locus of
self-worth to an internal one, one where his sense of personal value
is based on his own standards rather than any imposed from outside.
Conflict is always the key to character change. Conversely, character
change is always the key to overcoming that conflict. They are two
problems which solve each other. Andrew's external locus of
self-worth drives him in reckless and obsessive pursuit of Fletcher's
impossible standards. But by following his flaw, Andrew is pursuing
his goals the wrong way. His actions do nothing to solve the
conflict, rather they only make it worse. Continually denied what he
desires, Andrew eventually snaps, attacks his mentor, and in the
process loses everything he has so far struggled to achieve.
Fortunately, these mounting failures provide Andrew with a mountain
of evidence that, once reflected upon, lead Andrew to a moment of
self-revelation. He comes to realize that it is foolish and
self-defeating to bank his sense of personal worth on the approval of
a person who is too cruel and indifferent to give it. True self-worth
can only come from oneself. To be at peace with one's own
value, a person must set their own standards of accomplishment and then
pursue those standards for no one's approval but one's own. So, like
the title character of Rocky (another Breakaway Hero
narrative), Andrew reevaluates his goals and sets new objectives through
which he can achieve a sense of worth on his own terms. By shifting
from an external locus of worth to an internal one, Andrew finds the
strength of will to finally stand up to and ultimately defeat his
oppressor; not by playing by Fletcher's rules, but by his own.
In the end, like in other Breakaway Hero narratives, Andrew stands on
his own two feet as an independent hero who find greatness by acting
according to his own personal values and beliefs.
“There are no two words in the English language more harmful than
'good job'.” This is the philosophy that Fletcher lives by. Though
this may sound cruel, Fletcher does make a good point. By withholding
praise, Fletcher pushes Andrew to become the best he can
possibly be. But as the narrative plainly shows, this has both a
positive and a negative impact upon Andrew's struggle for
accomplishment. By combining Fletcher's philosophy with Andrew's
absurd quest for approval, the whole of Whiplash is unified by
a thematic message on the potential damage of an external locus of self-worth (even if the attention received from the
external locus is positive). As long as someone lives their life by
another person's standards, their life will be limited by those
standards. If those outside standards are too low, the individual
will stop once they are reached and may never realize their full
potential. If on the other hand, the standards are impossible to
reach, the individual will live in constant misery. Through the
pressures of the story conflict, Andrew transforms his
character and in the process learns (along with the audience) a valuable lesson about leading a healthy and productive existence. Though its story may be small and intimate, though
its content may seem very different, Whiplash brings the same
emotional impact as films like Rocky, Batman Begins, or
other Breakaway Hero narratives by following the same structure and
delivering the same basic message: true heroes first accomplish
greatness by finding the will to stand on their own two feet and base their
actions on their own personal standards, values, and beliefs.
