Blackfish: The Orca Whales At Seaworld

The movie Blackfish is a documentary about Orca whales and their abhorrent treatment throughout SeaWorld’s history, detailing how the whales should be freed from their enclosures and sent back into the oceans where they belong to protect not only themselves, but to the trainers and visitors of SeaWorld as well. Blackfish revolves around one Orca named Tilikum, at 12,000 pounds he was the dominant one at SeaWorld. However, Tilikum’s public murder of three trainers changed the way people looked at SeaWorld. Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite released a documentary in 2013 titled Blackfish detailing SeaWorld’s horrific treatment of its marine animals, especially the Orcas, in captivity. Ms. Cowperthwaite’s vision of Blackfish entailed “reaching

Cowperthwaite carries out her argument by illustrating just how naive the public is behind the treatment of the whales at SeaWorld. Throughout the film, former trainers at SeaWorld recall what it was like to work there, training the Orcas and performing with them in different shows. Their expert testimonies alongside with witnesses of differing attacks allow for the credibility of the film. One man in the beginning of the film, John Crowe, a retired “fisherman” for SeaWorld recalled a horrific account of taking baby Orcas from their families as if they were “kidnapping a little kid.” Cowperthwaite digs out newspaper articles long before SeaWorld was established which wrote about the mistreatment of captive whales in places like SeaLand that had lead to deaths of multiple trainers. By bringing the past into the present, the audiences realizes that SeaWorld is intentionally putting their trainers in danger despite the fact that they know how these whales behave in captivity and just how dangerous they are to not only the other whales in captivity, but the trainers and the guests as well. Alongside newspaper articles, Cowperthwaite injects news footage from sources like CNN and Fox News which also gives Blackfish credibility because of the legitimacy of the news

Incorporating personal testimonies of the former trainers pulls at the heartstrings of the audience in which they can feel sympathy for the trainers and the whales for what they have gone through and endured through their time at SeaWorld. Adding witnesses’ claims to the film also allows the audience to feel sympathy for them and what they might have seen and can connect to them since they are ordinary citizens like the majority of the viewers watching the film. Not only do trainers employ an emotional appeal, but the Orcas do too. The capturing of the recent newborn Orca from the mother details in the mother’s wrenching cries that trainers had never heard before they had to call in a specialist to decipher them. What he found was so heartbreaking, the mother whale was sending out cries in an attempt for her baby to hear, wherever he/she went. After multiple attempts in trying to get her/him back failed, she soon fell into a depression. This makes the audience sympathetic to the Orca and furious at SeaWorld for taking away a newborn from the