Blackfish is a documentary with the sole purpose being to put SeaWorld out of business. In this documentary the filmmakers show many examples of evidence proving SeaWorld's marine life being held captive causes the animals to suffer mentally. The film focuses mainly on Tilikum, one of SeaWorld's most well known orcas. Over the course of his life, Tilikum killed three people, two of whom were killed even before he was brought to SeaWorld and the third being one of SeaWorld's very own trainers, Dawn Brancheau. Many former trainers were brought in and interviewed for the film to give their perspective on their experiences with the way SeaWorld treats their marine life. They also brought in many so called "professionals" to view the footage and give their opinions. The documentary film, Blackfish tries to prove to the viewers that SeaWorld is well overdue of boycotting, and they do a good job showing us that. This film is very biased and the viewer should be aware of that when watching and critiquing it. The whole purpose is to show SeaWorld in a bad light, so of course they would not show the good SeaWorld does for their marine life and the community. In the film they never reveal SeaWorld's side of the stories at all. They show us what a lot of people have to say about the incidents, but they never give us a witness' account. SeaWorld is like a silent killer on trial where he is consistently being put under pressure and not allowed to speak for his cause. We are never told what the actual case report is, we are just told the interviewees' take on the footage they are shown, not even being shown a statement from SeaWorld. This makes this film appear to be very biased because it seems they are afraid to show us any of the actual events in case we may decide on our own who is right. Most, if not all of the former trainers in the film haven't been employed at SeaWorld in over 10 years. This makes them unaware of current conditions at the park as they may have changed in the past decade. These individuals have little to no experience with the orca in question, or the orcas in the park at all for that matter. One of the former trainers, Samantha Berg, mentioned training with Tilikum, but after further research it is found out that she never trained with him and only very briefly worked in the killer whale section of the park. The footage that is meant to be assumed as being Ms. Berg was actually footage shot over 10 years previous to her leaving SeaWorld. Just by viewing the interviews it becomes obvious that the former employees have some sort of resentment towards the park. Animal rights activists masquerading as scientists seems to be yet another way to pull at each viewer and convince us to respect this film. Howard Garret, Lori Marino, and Ken Balcomb are just a few of the activists that were portrayed as being professionals or even scientists specializing in marine life. Each of these people have no experience with orca behavior in captivity. A few of the other "professionals" in the film were also part of a lawsuit against SeaWorld stating that they were going against the 13th amendment, and even calling what SeaWorld is doing an act of slavery. The film also uses statements from David Duffus, who is not a marine life specialist, but instead a professor of geography. An OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) judge even stated "he has no expertise in the training of captive killer whales," referring to David." This film seems to try to hide a lot of truth behind these masks they've created. Overall the documentary Blackfish proves to be very biased in their reasoning. Even just scratching the surface you can see that they use a lot of false testimonies and experiences. They do a very good job making the viewer feel attached and the heartache for the animals through the footage and the stories, but those very stories are twisted to fit their own perception of the reality of the way SeaWorld treats their marine life.
Review of Blackfish
