{"id":5907,"date":"2013-04-28T21:48:13","date_gmt":"2013-04-29T04:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=5907"},"modified":"2013-04-28T21:48:50","modified_gmt":"2013-04-29T04:48:50","slug":"blackfish-film-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/blackfish-film-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Blackfish — Film Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blackfish<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite<\/span><\/p>\n

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I have never been to SeaWorld, and I’ve never had any desire to go there.\u00a0 It always seemed to me like shallow entertainment which gives people the wrong impression of orcas in particular, and the relationship between humans and the animal kingdom in general.\u00a0 This film starts to set things in the right relationship.<\/p>\n

It is a documentary about SeaWorld, the whales that perform in their shows, the trainers that train them, and whether or not it makes sense to be doing this.\u00a0 The impetus and center of gravity of the film is the death of trainer Dawn Brancheau, who was killed on February 24, 2010, by Tillikum, a 12,000 pound male orca at SeaWorld, Orlando, Florida.\u00a0 Brancheau was 40 years old and a senior trainer who knew Tillikum well and was comfortable with him.\u00a0 SeaWorld blames Brancheau for the mishap, but Tillikum had killed at least two other humans prior to Brancheau, and he also had a history of maltreatment, not only at SeaWorld, but also before he came to SeaWorld from Sealand of the Pacific in Victoria, Canada.\u00a0 The film explores all of this material in great detail.\u00a0 It is well documented and accentuated with interviews with former trainers who know Dawn Brancheau, and who provide much background and insight into the world of training orcas, the relationships of the trainers to the whales, and the conditions the whales are forced to live under at SeaWorld.\u00a0 Did Dawn Brancheau make a mistake that cost her her life, or was this a ticking time bomb destined to go off sooner or later?\u00a0 You decide.<\/p>\n

The film makes the case that it is not such a good idea to be keeping these huge animals in the cramped quarters of the SeaWorld pools, separated from their natural social connections, and it is even less prudent to be letting young trainers, who don’t really have a clue what they are getting into, to swim into a tank with these powerful undomesticated animals.<\/p>\n

How do you think a behemoth like Tillikum gets to be 12,000 pounds?\u00a0 Not by eating potato chips in front of his TV.\u00a0 These animals are top predators.\u00a0 There are good reasons why they are called “killer” whales.\u00a0 There is one dramatic sequence in the film of several whales attacking a seal that is stranded on an ice floe.\u00a0 The whales work together to tip the ice floe enough that the seal is toppled into the water.\u00a0 Once that happens, it is all over for the seal in seconds.\u00a0 It seems to me that this is the truth that people — including children — should see about these whales.<\/p>\n

There is a video on YouTube of a man clowning on a beach at the water’s edge.\u00a0 Two orcas creep up on him right at the shoreline, knock him down, and devour him in seconds right before your very eyes.\u00a0 Some people think the video is fake.\u00a0 It shows you how strong is this will to believe in the benign nature of fierce predatory animals.\u00a0 Perhaps it is a way of denying our own vulnerability and how quickly we can be snuffed out and disappear at the hands — or rather jaws — of natural enemies.\u00a0 But this sort of thing goes on in the animal kingdom all the time every day.\u00a0 An animal can be placidly going about his business, and suddenly, without warning, be beset and completely devoured within seconds.\u00a0 \u00a0It is a discomfiting thought which we would prefer to dispel, how sudden our lives can be snuffed out by powerful predators, who don’t really hate us, they just want to consume us.\u00a0 It’s nothing personal.\u00a0 Just as it is nothing personal when we raise chickens, or pigs, or cattle on factory farms in minimal conditions feeding them just enough to get their weight to a certain point in an optimal number of days at which time they will be abruptly and unceremoniously slaughtered.\u00a0 You don’t stew about that when you sit down and enjoy a sumptuous steak in a fine restaurant, do you?\u00a0 Predators cannot afford to be sentimental about the animals they must kill in order to survive and thrive.\u00a0 The orcas did not feel sorry for that seal they toppled from the ice floe, nor for the man they probably mistook for a seal on the beach.\u00a0 Rather than dwell on that unsettling thought that these animals in their natural habitat would kill us in a moment, we turn them into friendly teddy bears, companions who can communicate with us and be friends with us.\u00a0 Denial is a first line defense against anxiety.<\/p>\n

The film does not mention the parent corporation of Seaworld (which used to be Anheuser-Busch until it was sold to the Blackstone Group in 2009).\u00a0 It is now called Seaworld Entertainment Inc., which is 63% owned by Blackstone.\u00a0 The Blackstone Group is a multi-billion dollar private equity firm based in New York City, with offices around the world.\u00a0\u00a0 Just this week Blackstone held an initial public offering of Seaworld Entertainment stock.\u00a0 According to the Wall Street Journal the stock went up 24% on the first day of trading (Wall Street Journal<\/em>, April 22, 2013). \u00a0After this film circulates I wonder how well the stock will do?<\/p>\n

Blackstone cares about making money, and they’re making a lot of it on Seaworld.\u00a0 They don’t particularly care about the trainers at Seaworld, much less the orcas.\u00a0 They refused to be interviewed for this film or make any comment about its findings.\u00a0 This is an entertainment business that sells illusions.\u00a0 Illusions are strongly held beliefs or viewpoints that are in contradiction to facts or conditions that should be obvious.\u00a0 They reflect a human need to see things in a certain way in order to allay anxiety, to provide a consoling view of life that offers comfort or a feeling of security.<\/p>\n

The illusion in this case is the belief that the natural world is a benign place where humans are in control and living in harmony with the other creatures in nature: that orcas, who are top predators in the wild, are actually benign, friendly, good natured companions to humans who can be domesticated to behave like entertaining pets.\u00a0 However, this illusion is starting to wear a little thin and fray around the edges.\u00a0 In order to maintain it, much truth has to be concealed, downplayed, and outright falsified, which the film documents very effectively.<\/p>\n

The Seaworld trainers seem to be goodhearted, but naive, young people who have very little background in orca behavior or ethology, but are possessed of the illusion that you can get into a tank of water with a 12,000 pound captive whale that lives by killing, make him do all kinds of ridiculous things that he would never do in the wild, and be perfectly safe.\u00a0 People want to believe that they can be friends with their natural enemies, that the most fearsome predators can be tamed and transformed into loving companions.\u00a0 Yes, the animals have personalities, they have intelligence, they have a complex social life, they have sophisticated ways of communicating among themselves.\u00a0 Some people seem surprised and charmed to discover this.\u00a0 But it doesn’t mean you can be friends with them.\u00a0 They cannot be a substitute for wholesome, loving human companionship.\u00a0 The captive environment is very artificial and the animals understand their dependence on their human handlers in this extraordinarily unnatural situation.<\/p>\n

The film points to a record of at least 70 incidents where killer whales have attacked their human trainers and several where the trainers have been killed.\u00a0 Seaworld consistently blames the trainers, saying they made errors which led to the attacks.\u00a0 In some cases this was true, but on the other hand, you don’t have a lot of margin with killer whales, and it is also true that the whales are kept under inhumane conditions and often treated badly, which, over time, probably builds up a lot of rage and resentment.\u00a0 Sometimes the whales reach a point where they decide enough is enough.<\/p>\n

The film brings to light a lot of unsavory conditions in an inherently perilous enterprise that SeaWorld would prefer to keep under wraps, and which they have done pretty successfully for many years.\u00a0 This speaks to the power of this illusory phantasm of the benign natural world in the public imagination.\u00a0 People want to take their kids to this grandiose spectacle and be dazzled by huge powerful animals cavorting to entertain human audiences pleased with themselves to have subdued and dominated these breathtaking creatures.\u00a0 But it is insipid and barbaric.\u00a0 It gives kids the wrong message about the relationship between humans and animals and it gives them a very wrong impression about killer whales.\u00a0\u00a0 Don’t go to Seaworld.\u00a0 Watch this film instead.\u00a0 Seen at the San Francisco International Film Festival, Sundance Kabuki Cinema, April 27, 2013.<\/p>\n

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Blackfish Directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite     I have never been to SeaWorld, and I’ve never had any desire to go there.\u00a0 It always seemed to me like shallow entertainment…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[837],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5907","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-joe-cillo"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"