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Seaspiracy (2021)
Irritating, ego-pleasing methods
As an advocator for life, and someone with an endless love for sealife, whales and dolphins especially, this documentary irritated me immensely, even though the message was absolutely correct. The guy is not presenting facts in most cases, and simply comes off as what he at one point in the movie critisized; namely a "feel-gooder" for lack of a better word.
Here are some observations to strengthen this claim:
1. The "interviews" with companies and people who did not directly agree with him were conducted in a way where he, instead of having a conversation, simply started off by calling them murderers. The phone call to a restaurant at the start of the documentary where instead of going "Hey, I see that you're using plastic straws, could I make a case for switching to paperbased alternatives?" he simply says something along the lines of "You're using plastic straws and are murdering sealife, you monsters". Of course they're gonna hang up on you, you sound like an agressive, extremist lunatic. All the "interviews" with these people made him sound like he WANTED them to ignore him, just so he can say he's the good guy, and they're bad.
2. In the case of Dolphin Safe, instead of praising them for being honest, accepting the interview, and doing the best they REALISTICALLY can, he simply bashes them for not meeting his absolute ludicrous, idealistic standards of perfection. He later uses the fact that they can't guarantee no dolphins are killed to insinuate some conspiracy amongst other well-meaning groups.
3. Some presented "facts" are straight up misleading. Yes, 35 billion are subsidised to fishers. Yes, 30 billion could combat world hunger. But fish is food. Take away those 35 billion and you'd need 65 to combat world hunger.
4. At the start of the documentary he's leading us to believe he wants to save the ocean life from plastic pollution and unsustainable fishing, and then does a complete 180 turn once we've started to believe he's being realistic, to stating there is no such thing as sustainable fishing and we should all just stop eating fish because they have feelings. I signed up to watch a documentary about how to save the ocean, not whatever it turned to. Vegan activism? I don't know what to call it.
5. He states we should all stop fishing, and talks about how sad it is that west africans can't fish anymore and the sad effects it has animal life on land in the same breath. What? You think if all the fishermen stopped fishing they'd just disappear and not do something else, just like those africans, to make a living?
This may have become a bit ranty and hard to understand, I apologize for that.
The documentary is still worth a watch, just be prepared for it to be 60% informative, good content and ethical values next to 40% cringey youtube compilation worthy vegan activism.