The Complete Overview Of Orcas' Life In Blackfish

The brain of an orca is scientifically proven to be as structured and as developed as the human brain. With the exploitation of them in the past half century, it is certainly a question of ethics of whether we keep these intelligent creatures and maximize profits, or we choose to advocate to let them be free in the wild and live as they are intended to. While the rhetoric in Blackfish brings about a good message about animal conservation, the documentary certainly becomes manipulative by playing off the trainers’ death as pure shock value, while also interviewing trainers with zero credibility, and romanticizing and downplaying the true nature of orcas in the wild.

Blackfish, a very popular documentary about the abuse of orcas in marine parks worldwide, brings to light certain issues that have not been brought to light as widely as it has. Such issues include Seaworld violating OSHA standards with the treatment of their animal trainers, or keeping highly intelligent orcas in such small confines? While these are all very certainly true and are backed up by legal documents, Blackfish leaves out very vital information that changes the entire rhetoric and credibility of the entire documentary. For example, the cinematography used to convey their message is done so expertly woven, that it is designed to tug at one’s heartstrings and almost manipulate the viewer into believing what Blackfish is conveying. In the opening scene, the viewer watches footage of random orca whales in their tanks and footage from unrelated performances over the audio of the fateful 911 call of Dawn Brancheau’s death. However, this footage does not contain Dawn or Tilikum, thus misleading the viewer in believing that this footage is from the fateful day. More importantly, the way that the trainers’ deaths is played out in the film is definitely reminiscent of a horror movie, with the music and camera angles that these scenes are shot in. An opinion article on Blackfish states that “For those who’ve said that Blackfish succeeds as a “psychological thriller,” did we see the same movie? Perhaps to those completely unfamiliar with reality, the movie will seem shocking, and that's probably where most of the emotional reaction stems from. This film doesn’t leave much room for free thought, and instead assaults the naïve viewer with an incomplete perspective, while also encouraging a flawed view of zoological facilities and animals in general. Blackfish reinforces no novel arguments in the noisy captive cetacean debate, but rather just re-illustrates them in 2013 HD.” The opinion piece also brings to light that on that Blackfish used footage from incidents that were not talked about in the film, such as the woman in the bikini riding an orca. She was then later attacked by the orca and dragged into the water repeatedly, gasping for air. She later made a full recovery after 76 stitches to her leg. However, the video of the woman in the bikini was a publicity stunt with a theme park secretary from 1970 and does not reflect how Seaworld regularly treated its orcas at the time. The footage that Blackfish uses to push its rhetoric does not hold up after even merely twenty minutes of research by the average joe, and it fails to honor these people but instead very disrespectfully play these tragic deaths off as pure shock value.

Next, there are very many fallacies within the interviews conducted for this documentary. Many of the trainers, such as John Hargrove, worked at Seaworld San Diego. John Hargrove speaks very frequently throughout the documentary about Tilikum, however because of never being employed at Seaworld Orlando, he has never interacted with Tilikum in the slightest. Another trainer, Samantha Berg, who worked at Seaworld Orlando from 1990 until 1993, speaks very frequently about Tilikum as well. She, however, primarily worked with beluga whales and dolphins and had very limited experience with any killer whale training. In an email dating back to September 7, 2011, she confided in a lead OSHA agent who was investigating the case that “Mainly, I am concerned that because I only worked at SWF for 3 1⁄2 years – and one year at Shamu Stadium that my testimony may not be credible compared to a guy with 25 years of zoological experience. My direct knowledge of SeaWorld’s Procedures for training their staff only extends to what was in place up until August of ’93 – I question whether this qualifies me to speak to SeaWorld’s current safety or training procedures.” Lastly, another trainer who was introduced, Kim Ashdown, who worked at Seaworld Orlando, worked with sea lions and dolphins, thus never being an orca trainer and never even worked with killer whales throughout her career. All in all, it very much raises the question, How, and why would this documentary hire such unqualified trainers to be interviewed on a whale that they never even interacted with, never been granted the clearance or the proper training to even be around these whales, and in some cases, work in an entirely different theme park all the way across the country? It is very clear that Blackfish uses unskilled ex-trainers to further push their rhetoric, and it certainly makes the entire documentary lose its credibility as a whole.

Finally, Blackfish spreads blatant misinformation on orcas, their behavior in the wild, all while romanticizing and downplaying their true behaviors. Firstly, the documentary blatantly states that there have been no recorded orca attacks on human beings in the wild, and that they are peaceful creatures. However, a brief expository article shows that there have been numerous yet rare orca attacks in the wild. “the 1910s, the Terra Nova Expedition recorded that killer whales had attempted to tip ice floes on which an expedition photographer and a sled dog team were standing. On June 15, 1972, 43-foot-long (13 m) wooden schooner Lucette (Lucy) was holed by a pod of killer whales and sank approximately 200 miles west of the Galapagos Islands. The group of six people aboard escaped to an inflatable life raft and a solid-hull dinghy. On September 9, 1972, a Californian surfer named Hans Kretschmer reported being bitten by a killer whale at Point Sur. His wounds required 100 stitches. In August 2005, while swimming in four feet of water in Helm Bay, near Ketchikan, Alaska, a 12-year-old boy named Ellis Miller was 'bumped' in the shoulder by a 25-foot transient killer whale. The boy was not injured. During the filming of the third episode of the BBC documentary 'Frozen Planet' (2011), a group of orcas were filmed trying to 'wave wash' the Film crew's 18-foot zodiac boat as they were filming. The crew had earlier taped the group hunting seals in the same fashion. It was not mentioned if any of the crew were hurt in the encounter.” While the article also states that these attacks are theorized to be mistaken identity attacks, meaning that the orcas could have mistaken them for seals, or another prey animal, such as sharks are scientifically proven to do, Blackfish continues to mislead the viewer and it certainly perpetuates false information that could leave the viewer doing the exact same.

Blackfish, from a filmmakers standpoint, certainly does its job at tugging at the audience’s heartstrings and plays the emotional moments like a fiddle. It is certainly a well-shot, well put together film. While the rhetoric in Blackfish brings about a good message about animal conservation, the documentary certainly becomes manipulative by playing off the trainers’ death as pure shock value, while also interviewing trainers with zero credibility, and romanticizing and downplaying the true nature of orcas in the wild. If the film only did its job and told cold hard facts instead of perpetuating blatant misinformation, it would very much be a great documentary.