Analyzing Evil: Terence Fletcher From Whiplash

[Music] hello everyone and welcome to the 89th episode of analyzing evil featuring terence fletcher from whiplash a brutal disciplinarian that's attempting to bring out the best in his students terence is a volatile sadist one who forces his students to undergo unjust torment in the name of perfection a man who would see every person under his charge worn down to a stub so he might remake them into something great in this video we're going to cover every little take of this musical madman examining his methods mannerisms and personality to discern where a man who while being an incredible jerk might not pop into your mind when you think of a villain before we begin though let's first talk about our sponsor for this video audible as some of you may already know i'm a big fan of audible not only do i use audible to find and listen to new and exciting titles in my free time but having access to any book i need to read to cover these characters in spoken word form is incredibly helpful as you can utilize audible from anywhere and on virtually any device their expansive library is host to an unmatched selection of audiobooks and podcasts from any genre you can think of and audible also produces their own original content a portion of which you can access totally free by signing up for their audible plus membership package one that i highly recommend as not only will you have access to these free choices each month but you'll also earn a credit each month that you can use towards anything in the audible library recently i listened to latvona biotessa moshfig a harrowing tale about a medieval village plagued by disasters both natural and human and the struggles that its inhabitants have to overcome in the face of the villains amongst them it's quite the graphic and sorrowful tale so keep that in mind but i highly recommend it to anyone looking for a beautifully heart-wrenching story right now you can try audible free for 30 days by going to audible.com vile and using the 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amongst the stars with the help of mr fletcher in the first scene of this film we're shown a flash of who this man is when he enters andrew's practice room to listen to a session asking andrew why he stopped and then reprimanding him for starting up again without his permission before he hasn't run through his fundamentals our first impression of terence is already one of command a man who knows what he wants and expects others to follow through and if they don't he's more than happy to turn away from someone mid-sentence or in this case mid solo and slam the door in their face however this small show of force was nothing compared to what's to come and when terence recruits andrew as an initiate into his band we're given insight into the most brutal aspect of his personality perfectionism this perfectionism is reflected in his appearance which say for his performance in a jazz club later on in the film always consists of a black suit jacket a form-fitting black t-shirt a black belt black slacks and black dress shoes and with his clean-shaven face and head he projects a sleek faultless persona one that reflects his no-nonsense attitude though his appearance certainly sells his perfectionism it's everything else about this man that gives us the perfect image of a cruel taskmaster who flinches at the slightest flaw during andrew's first sit-in with the band terence unfortunately picks up on an instrument that's out of tune amongst his players and he proceeds to play a sadistic game with them ordering each terrified section to play in order to discern the culprit and on supposedly finding it he targets mets a person who we can assume was already on his excrement list considering he tells him that he's carried him for too long after he so expertly instills fear into this man by berating him and questioning him on his instrument's tuning rather than simply identifying the problem and helping him fix it but help isn't a word in terence's vocabulary if you aren't able to operate under the unspoken standards of terence fletcher you'd better leave and return when you're up to the challenge because he won't be assisting you in any way should you need it however this notion is seemingly challenged in the following scene when he's having a friendly conversation with andrew as here we see him taking an interest in his background and encouraging his newcomer telling him to relax and to start listening to the greats so he can get a feel for what's expected of him and when he's done speaking to him he even tells andrew to have fun though this seems like a genuine moment of mentorship this is actually terence using the sharpest tool in his arsenal next to intimidation that is manipulation andrew walks back into the classroom filled with confidence and without a care in the world andrew in this moment is likely thinking i've got nothing to worry about i'm better than the rest of these wannabes they all probably had to apply it seemed like terence really was going to give him preferential treatment when andrew doesn't keep to the right tempo rather than scream at him as he did to mets only a moment ago terence goes easy on him seemingly letting him adjust to the new atmosphere and giving him some leeway as he gets used to his new surroundings but the image of an understanding terence fletcher is soon shattered when he makes a complete 180 and begins berating andrew for not instinctively knowing the tempo that terence would like him to keep here we see terence bringing up the information he learned when he was acting as the kind mentor railing andrew with homophobic slurs and telling him that his mother left him when he was a baby because his father is worthless and here we get to see that his almost sentimental up close and personal interaction with andrew in the hall was simply one of the textbook tactics that someone well-versed in manipulation and intimidation uses domination through body language this was also prevalent in his chastising of mets but in this scene and in both situations it's not so much terence's screaming as it is his closeness to his victim it's one thing to throw a chair at someone and then yell at them from across a room but it's another thing entirely to scream in their face and even physically assault them as we see when terence begin slapping andrew but there's an even more sinister component to factor into terence's brand of manipulation his complete dominance of the conversation he's having with his victim terence isn't just browbeating andrew here he's backing him into a corner by forcing him to respond to his barrage of insults and condescension by making him say what he wants him to say leaving him no room whatsoever to offer any sort of rebuttal or any excuses for his supposedly dreadful misconduct the end result of this kind of treatment in most people who are unfortunate enough to receive it is typically some sort of emotional distress even more so when you're young impressionable and on the receiving end of this behavior from someone who you both look up to and are counting on to be the vessel for which your dreams can be realized and that's reflected here when andrew begins crying after he's been put through this physical and psychological torment add in the fact that he accuses his players of sabotaging his ban when they don't perform exactly to his specifications and you have the perfect recipe for a tyrannical perfection-driven control freak with a serious temper problem this type of behavior continues for the remainder of the film and anytime someone displeases him andrew or otherwise terence reacts in a similar fashion even when andrew has a perfectly good excuse for being late to a performance when the bus he's writing gets a flat tire now the reason that terence conducts himself in this way with his students is revealed to us towards the end of the film here during a conversation with andrew terence explains that the reason he treats people like this is in fact not because he's a jerk but because like joe jones before him he's looking to create the next charlie parker through a combination of tough love and perfection terence believes that what he was doing was pushing people beyond what was expected of them and if people like him weren't around to push people the world might have never had some of the all-time greats like louis armstrong or charlie parker and he cites the current state of jazz as being an afterthought in a starbucks display as an example stating that the words good job have forced people into complacency rather than pushing them into greatness this is certainly the biggest reason why terence acts this way but there's a few more things to factor into his behavior that gives us greater insight into why he believes what he believes to start his age likely plays a big factor in how he found his beliefs at the time this film was made jk simmons was 59 years old and if we take that to mean terence is the same age or at least around it that would mean that he was a kid in the mid 50s and early 60s in the late 60s and early 70s a time period where jazz was still at the forefront of people's minds as one of the most popular music genres around and there were all-time greats like sunny rollins john coltrane and art blakely regularly coming up in the jazz world and providing people with unforgettable performances jazz is still alive and well today but it's far and away from being the cultural phenomenon it once was and considering that jazz is terence's passion and that he lived in an era when it was much more than a staple sound in coffee shops it's understandable that he'd be actively trying to nurture the next great jazz artist who might shake up the world of music once again the second thing to note about terence is that aforementioned passion for jazz when you're a purist of any kind and even more so a person who seeks to foster greatness in others in their chosen fields you tend to have a cynical attitude towards anything that runs contrary to your preconceived ideas about what something can and should be and this in combination with his experience living in a time when jazz was prevalent has left terence yearning to light the world up with a jazz superstar once more something else that may factor into his views as well might be his incredibly macho personality now there's something that might put what i'm about to suggest into question that being his offer to the daughter of a former student of his the opportunity to play in his band when she grows older but terence seems to prefer to be surrounded by men and not just men but manly men the first indicator of this is the fact that his entire band is comprised solely of men and this could be just a coincidence but if it isn't it does coincide with how terence talks about men in general he sometimes calls his band members ladies which is not too uncommon but the fact that his go-to insults when reprimanding these men tend to be homophobic in nature and he feels the need to insult one of his students over his weight is a testament to the fact that terence likely has little respect for anyone other than men who show him that they are men who have discipline and drive and we can also take his claim that the first chair saxophone in mr kramer's class is only in the first chair because she's cute as another sign of his preference for men however there might be some truth to that statement so who knows but this notion is also supported by his hard-line attitude towards his students as forcing them into acquiescing to his demands is terence's way of toughening them up and when you consider that terence frequently talks solely about men in reference to jazz greats or former and potential students it seems to be the case that terence has quite the misogynistic streak i don't think terence would ever shy away at the chance at including a great female player into his band but i do think he has a preference for men because he believes that they can handle his brand of tough love education just like the jazz heroes of old so with all of these elements combined we find a man whose desire is to shape the next jazz great just as his idols once did and although i'm sure he's trying to do this with every single one of the members of his band the result of this behavior is readily apparent in andrew his would-be protege after his initial brush with terence andrew undergoes a drastic change he starts talking and acting in a similar way to terence and he totally immerses himself in practicing at the expense of everything else in his life even his newfound girlfriend whom he leaves after letting her down in an incredibly harsh way throughout his tenure as terence's student andrew grows increasingly agitated and confrontational and his desire to prove himself to both terence and his family by ascending to the stars even brings him immense physical harm not just through practicing non-stop but when he's so desperate to reach a performance that he gets into a car wreck yet even then he continues on and attempts to perform but when he does he finds that all his strength has been sapped and after having suffered terence's repeated barrages andrew finally snaps here overwhelmed that this man could be so callous in the face of his suffering however his callousness doesn't only apply to andrew as you all well know and outside of his harassment of his students this is perhaps reflected best in the way in which he presents the death of one of his former students sean casey to his band in a heartfelt speech about who shawn was and his time at shaffer terence mentions that sean unfortunately died in a car accident earlier that day now it's clear that terence cared a lot about sean but the way in which he cared about him is revealed to us once andrew is speaking with a lawyer who's representing sean's family here we learn that sean did not in fact die in a car accident but committed suicide by hanging himself and he started suffering from depression and anxiety around the same time that he joined terence's band knowing this it's hard to take terence's outpouring of emotion as serious sorrow over the death of a student as now after learning this information it appears to be more of a tearful lamentation at the fact that he's lost someone who could have potentially been as charlie parker and this is further supported by his claim during his conversation about his methods with andrew that he doesn't believe there's such a thing as going too far showing us that he refuses to believe that anything he could ever do could bring harm to anyone well that is anyone who's worthy of being counted amongst the greats now it might not have paid off with sean but after inviting andrew to play with his jbc band he attempts to exact his revenge on him for getting him fired from schaefer by switching up the playbill to something andrew has never played an act that harms his own standing as leader of this band which shows just how vindictive and spiteful terence can be but his moment of triumph over andrew is shattered when andrew resolves himself to return to the stage to overtake the ironclad will of his former instructor by switching the next song to one of his own choosing with his own force of will after which he proceeds to hammer out a drum solo that even art blakey would have been proud of finally giving terrence his very own charlie parker and at this end what is there to say about terence and his methods well he's clearly a man who's intensely passionate about his chosen field one who would sacrifice both the physical and mental well-being of his students to elevate them into super stardom and his forceful personality is one that's derived from an intense drive to fulfill this mission he's misogynistic homophobic and sadistic but it's the methods he employs while teaching that really tell the story of terence fletcher on a certain level i agree with terence when he claims that a soft approach is simply not enough when you're trying to bring out the greatness in others if you want to bring out a person's full potential sometimes it's necessary to push them beyond what they believe they're capable of doing however resorting to brutality is not the way to do it there's a fine line between emboldening a person and driving them into the dark recesses of emotional despondency you can be both fair and firm you can still push your students to be better while nurturing them taking terence's approach has undoubtedly produced some of the greatest talents the world has ever seen in any field but is it worth it when you have the chance of pushing someone to the point that their entire well-being is damaged beyond repair i think not i think a single sean casey is more than enough reason to condemn this type of behavior as having a death or perhaps many deaths on your hands is not worth the potential greatness of one individual terence might have been trying to bring the best out of his students but at the end of the day his brand of teaching is more akin to torment and i for one would be more than happy to live in a world with one less charlie parker than to allow even a single person to perish at the hands of instructional evil thank you all for tuning in to this episode of analyzing evil and i hope you've enjoyed what are your thoughts on terence did i miss anything let me know down below and leave a suggestion for a villain you'd like to see featured while you're at it if you like this video hit that thumbs up button and make sure to subscribe if you haven't already a big thank you to all of my subscribers my patrons and anyone who's decided to honor me with a super think a feature which i've recently enabled so a most wild thank you to them whose names you're seeing on screen now as well as our most dedicated patrons [Music] join the channel's discord server and reddit to interact with myself and the community and follow me on the social media 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Channel: The Vile Eye

Views: 593,495

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Id: 3ixabhe6o44

Length: 17min 2sec (1022 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 21 2022