Review of Blackfish (2013) by Jenna I — 13 Jan 2017

Watching this movie upset me on multiple levels.

Mostly, watching this movie really disturbed me in the same way watching news about those psychos who kidnap women and keep them in their basements to torture for a dozen years disturbs me. Seeing the footage of Tilikum being kidnapped as a child, with his family crying out for him is disturbing. Seeing the rake marks and hearing stories of the clashes with other whales is disturbing. Seeing how little they move in the holding tanks is disturbing. Seeing them, erm, harvest sperm from him feels like you're watching a sexual assault. This documentary very skillfully, and I believe truthfully, establishes the inner life of the orca, so the rest of this doc just sort of turns into a horror movie after you accept that.

I also felt for the trainers and it's just as sad to hear about how they died or were mauled. I genuinely believe these are people who loved these animals, even if they were misguided or mislead by Sea World.

Then on a personal level it bummed me out because I have really fond memories of visiting Sea World as a child. Even after watching this I have mixed emotions about the park. Though on one hand, coming to this as late as I did was interesting because a lot has happened in this documentary's wake. Sea World lost tons of money, they stopped Orca shows in California, they stopped their Orca breeding programs and Tilikum died a week ago (which hurts more now knowing his life story). So I'm glad changes are being made, and I do hope Sea World can survive in the long run, though of course with some major overhauls.

As a documentary in general, this clearly captured the hearts and minds of enough people to have made changes in the world. It is one sided, though having seen what their response was in the last three years (re: denial, sidestepping, etc) the viewer doesn't miss out on much from their perspective.