Blackfish is a documentary film that shows us the inside world of Orcas; beautiful Killer Whales, in captivity and the endangerment to the trainers and the whales themselves. These Orcas perform dancing bear tricks for you, the complicit, paying audience at Seaworld and many other animal parks around the world.
This film has been out for a few years now and caused a big splash when it was released. As terrible as watching the immoral activities of big business exploiting these innocent creatures is, this is a must-see.
This film has had a big detrimental effect on the Seaworld shares. It contains interviews from many previous employers of Seaworld telling the truth about how these magnificent creatures are treated in this water-prison/circus.
Watching this is not always easy but is very important. Apparently these creatures, named Killer Whales by mistranslation, the term derived from ‘asesina de ballenas’ meaning whale killer named after the whale hunters, and the misappropriation of these Spanish words made way for this moniker, Killer Whale. In fact, there have been no cases of these Blackfish killing humans in the wild, in captivity however…….
We find out that Orcas are closely related to dolphins and experts tell us that their brains contain the part that deals with emotions; they have feelings and intelligence and any experience they go through they are, like humans, massively affected by. A trapped animal will attack when given the chance and a traumatised one will kill. Enter Tillikum, whose story is tragically chronicled here in this film.
This should be the nail in the coffin of Seaworld, what we are shown here is that the trainers love the animals and the top tier management in the company seem to care little for the safety of the whales and the trainers, being wholly interested in revenue. Aaah….big business.
There are many moments in this film where your heart is literally in your mouth and director Gabriela Cowperthwaite puts the documentary together with skill and heart. If you haven’t seen it yet, watch it………and don’t take your kids to Seaworld.
4/5
DOWNLOAD THE FILM ON iTUNES HERE
the movie musings 