Denzel Washington, Flight and ‘New Negro Exceptionalism’
Under normal circumstances, this would make him an instant hero. However, Whip is totally drunk and has serious amounts of cocaine in his veins during this flight. The rest of the film proceeds through Whip’s challenge with his addiction along with an NTSB investigation and a hearing that threatens him with prison time.
Reminiscent of the young black pilot who crashes his plane during a Tuskegee training flight in Ralph Ellison’s short story Flying Home, Whip (also) has to come to terms with who he is not in the skies —a space historically cherished by many African Americans as an abode away from socio-political realities of oppression, violence and inequality— but rather on the ground, and finally rise up again in the vein of the mythological Phoenix.
Flight’s arc operates on a failure to accept and deal with addiction. Nevertheless, upon a closer reading, the core issue is control. Cynthia Fuchs writes in popmatters.com, “[Flight] makes it too easy to read addiction as a moral failing, a lapse of judgment that the rest of us might judge easily. But the issue is not morality. It’s not having control.”
Possibly, hidden underneath Whip’s drug and alcohol addiction is an internalized reflex to control his black image. Throughout the film, Whip operates with an illusion of control. In an effort to help him, Whip’s recovering addict white girlfriend Nicole (Kelly Reilly) invites him to an AA meeting. Whip unwillingly obliges. In the middle of the AA meeting, Whip feels extremely uncomfortable with what he perceives to be preachy, and goes home alone.
Later, when questioned by her, they argue and she leaves. Whip yells behind her “I choose to drink!” He actually yells at the audience too, as he almost directly faces the lens. This urge to underscore his control, by denying a major weakness, works against Whip accepting his lack of control.