Documentary Movie Reviews
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Blackfish (2013)
Rate:
9
Viewed:
6/21
6/21:
Whenever I heard or saw the name SeaWorld, I thought of negative connotations but didn't know the reasons why until
I saw Blackfish for the first time.
I'll say the documentary explains why I subconsciously hadn't visited zoos, aquariums, circuses, roadside zoos, and so
on for more than two decades despite experiencing them when I was a kid.
It's because of one simple fact: these animals don't belong in a cage or a tank but in the wild. The bigger they are, the more
impossible for me to envision them as happy by going around in circles repeatedly in such a small enclosure.
Sometimes, there are news stories (think of Siegfried & Roy) about a trainer or a performer who was mauled or killed by a
dangerous animal. The best guess I can proffer about why it happened is the animal had been abused a great deal behind the
scenes and then one day just lost it out of frustration.
Nothing in Blackfish surprises me the least bit (okay, okay...it's the appearance of James Earl Jones that did). In
fact, I recently saw the movie Orca, and it's practically the same thing in terms of how the
whole business of capturing killer whales began. The filmmakers might have pasted logos all over Richard Harris' character as
a representative of both SeaLand and SeaWorld.
What bothers me about the interviews with the former employees is they didn't seem to be telling the full truth. However
long these people spent with killer whales, they didn't realize what they were doing was animal abuse? I would've
known that within a week of working there. Possessing no degrees or certifications to begin with, they must be
stupid after all and only got chosen for their looks and ability to entertain crowds.
A few facts that I found interesting are the average lifespan of killer whales in captivity compared to those in the wild,
the abnormal collapse of their dorsal fins, and the definition of a rake. Think about it, if they swim up to a hundred
of miles a day, how big is the water tank holding them at SeaWorld? Incredibly, there were talks of capacity expansion which
got scrapped anyway. I remember this innovative idea failing miserably in Jaws 3-D.
There are some more that weren't told in the documentary. One, because killer whales swim in shallow pools, they're sunburned a lot;
those in the wild don't because they swim deep into the ocean to get away from the sun. Two, when the show is over,
killer whales often have to keep going the rest of the day for additional performance training. Three, as taken from IMDb:
"During his time at Seaworld, Tilikum was housed in a tank containing 0.0001% of the quantity of water
that he would traverse in a single day in the ocean."
"Conservation" is a popular word used by those who defend using animals for entertainment. Nah, it's only an excuse to keep
their enormous money-making enterprise intact because without them, there's no business. "Research" is, of course, another
popular word, but no...they can observe them just the same in the wild. Besides, what more is there to know after
all?
In the case of SeaWorld, it's a billion-dollar industry that's predicated on animal abuse just like rodeo. Guess what?
SeaWorld contributed less than one percent of its profits to conservation efforts during the past decade. Being the
world-class liar the company is, it doesn't care about animals in general. By the way, Tilikum died in 2017 at age
35 from a fatal form of lung bacteria.
Unlike Michael Moore's films, Blackfish actually produced changes. SeaWorld no longer do shows with killer whales.
The current orcas in captivity will be the last of them as the breeding program has been effectively shut down. The company got
caught in a series of lies, refuting everything in the documentary by blaming the decline in revenue on other factors, and
was forced to make a $65 million settlement which is a chump change to them. Southwest Airlines broke off its ties with
SeaWorld although that came after a lot of pressure from the people.
All in all, Blackfish exposes SeaWorld for what it is: a giant marine animal abuse factory.