Ethos In Blackfish

Joshua T. Brooks
Professor Patty Chaffin
English 111
8 February 2023
Blackfish
Blackfish is a documentary filmed in 2013 directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite. This film was produced following the lawsuit against SeaWorld where people have died while training with killer whales. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) ruled that it was dangerous for humans to be in the same water as Killer Wahles in captivity because the only deaths by whales have come from them being in captivity, there have been no reported deaths by whales that live in the wild. This shows that you do not know how animals will react when you get them into the wild. Gabriela Cowperthwaite shows all of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos in the film. When people get in the

These interviews show the truth behind the SeaWorld and behind the Whales. It always shows what SeaWorld employees were led to believe lies, but they later realize that it wasn’t the truth after all. The documentary Blackfish also uses Ethos by showing how the Killer Whale were being captured. It showed that there was an air team and a water team to help capture the baby whales. It showed that the adult whales with no babies went right, and the boats followed them, however the air team spotted the babies and told the boats, and they went over there in the documentary Howard Garret says that “Well, you understand then what you’re doing.” Another way the Blackfish documentary uses Ethos is by lying to the audience by saying the whales live much longer in their care than they do in the wild. This is ethos because you think a SeaWorld worker would tell you the truth about the Killer Whales, however they lied to make you feel better for the Killer

Logos is also shown in the documentary by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) acting against holding Killer Whales in captivity when they should be wild animals in the ocean. This happened because and OSHA employee spoke out about the wrongdoing and the malpractice that SeaWorld is doing to these Killer Whales. Logos is also used by no Killer Whales death have been reported by wild Killer Whales. All Killer Whale deaths have come from whales that have been in captivity, so it is logically to think they become more aggressive, and you don’t know how they will react once you put them in captivity. In the film is also talks about how Killer Whales can form human like bonds and have humanlike emotions, with this being said we know that Killer Whales can experience a variety of emotions when their kid is being taken from this. This evidence is also supported in the documentary by talking about a Killer Whales brain Lori Marino says that “They’ve got a part of the brain that humans don’t have” (25:52-25:55). Furthermore, in the documentary Lori also says that this part of the brain that Killer Whales have, and humans don’t “process emotions. The safest inference would be these are animals that have highly elaborated emotional lives”