An Entirely Too Long Criticism of Blackfish
Presented by: Shane
In general, posts on Side Pieces won't be this long. However, I started this project awhile ago and didn't have anywhere else to put it. It's long. Like 3500 words long. So for those who won't read it, here's the TL;DR for you: Blackfish is not a documentary. It takes assumptions and makes them facts. It doesn't supply actual facts. It uses testimony from people presented as unbiased experts who are anything but. It also changes opinions of orcas and trainers based on convenience for a narrative.
Blackfish has been presented as a documentary wishing to
expose the underbelly of SeaWorld’s treatment of killer whales. I think the
makers of the movie would admit that it was one-sided, which is somewhat
defensible considering SeaWorld declined to make any statements. However, the
movie makers would also likely say that taking sides is irrelevant and that
they presented the facts only. Full disclosure: I viewed this movie entirely
with a skeptical lens. However, I am not biased against animal rights groups. I
am very much for reasonable animal rights. What I am entirely against is making
dishonest arguments for animal rights (or any movement). I believe that the
cause of animal rights is strong enough that exaggeration, dishonesty and
manipulation are not needed. Further, these tactics do nothing but drive
opposition away. Also, some question or criticisms that I might pose could have
simple explanations. I expect that. This is not a flaw in my analysis, but a
flaw in the film for not addressing these issues.
Of course, SeaWorld’s non-comments to the film-makers should
be not be construed as denial, non-denial or an inability to deny any assertions
made in the film. There are definite legal matters involved and SeaWorld is
protecting itself from 2 things: (1) Providing information to fuel a lawsuit
(remember, anybody can be sued for anything at any time and (2) Losing the
rights to private work product that is not discoverable in a court case.(
Lawyer’d!) Also, I have not yet read SeaWorld’s reply to the film in order to
keep a clean slate in my response.
So let’s start with who is giving us much of this
information: Former SeaWorld killer whale trainers. If they were being used as
merely anecdotal supplements, I’d probably not be nearly as concerned about
them and their qualifications. However, they are largely portrayed as being
experts throughout the movie, making a lot of persuasive and emotionally packed
statements throughout the film. This is funny because in the first minutes of
the film, in what seems to be an effort to discredit SeaWorld’s training
process of killer whale trainers, the trainers all note how little experience
they had when they started at SeaWorld. The viewer is intentionally left with
the feeling that SeaWorld was playing fast and loose with proper training
standards. Not once in the entire film do the filmmakers ever actually discuss
what the training standards are. Regardless, insinuating that the trainers were
allowed into the water with the whales too soon is largely irrelevant as
injuries to new trainers are never a point of the film. This is purely a
character evidence move. They’re poisoning the well and are making no attempt
to actually research what SeaWorld’s training process was like.
Also, with the trainers, we are missing much of their
history outside of their lack of experience before being hired. We don’t know
how long they trained, whether that training was proper, or how they left
SeaWorld. It is entirely relevant if a person was fired, laid-off or left voluntarily.
So in the first 6 minutes of the film, we’ve introduced a bunch of former
trainers who we know nothing about and will learn nothing about throughout the
film. In the end, we have no idea how to judge the credibility of the trainers.
The film uses the trainers as ignorant or as experts when convenient.
Dave Duffus
is OSHA expert witness, but has never worked with whales. It’s never addressed
that he is the prosecution’s witness and what this means. (It doesn't mean that he is unbiased, an absolute authority or that his agenda is scientific or remotely provable. Expert witnesses can range from DNA experts [highly reliable] to hair witnesses [less reliable, but worthless] to lie detector administrators [unreliable and unhelpful].)
And perhaps my favorite part of the first 15 minutes is the
introduction of the news clips. Not a single clip showed anyone supporting
SeaWorld or being objective. They were entirely negative in their treatment of
SeaWorld. There is no context. Ignoring the fact that TV faces use salacious
language to gain viewers and shouldn’t be trusted to give a trust-worthy POV,
the viewer is subtly lead to believe that there no news or TV programs siding
with SeaWorld. That may be the case, but that could be addressed in narration
or by an anecdotal opinion of someone being interviewed.
We’re next introduced to John Crowe, who is given the
professional title of a “Diver” who captures whales. While we are shown video
of Mr. Crowe with other divers, he is the only one interviewed. Again, the
insinuation isn’t that this man is an anecdotal witness, but an expert with
something important to say. From his story we find out a couple of negative
things about SeaWorld. First, Mr. Crowe seems to regret capturing whales, suggesting
that it is a morally repugnant. In particular he is upset about baby whales,
tugging at your heart strings. Second, we learn that SeaWorld was ejected from
the area and no longer allowed to capture whales. The problem with all of this?
Who was Mr. Crowe’s employer? I don’t know. It’s not mentioned. Perhaps
SeaWorld was, but it would have been appropriate and helpful if that was
announced. If he hasn’t worked for SeaWorld, that too should be noted. How do
we know that all whale captures are performed in the same manner? We don’t. Further,
we find out that SeaWorld was ejected from the area, but we don’t know why.
It’s never mentioned. We don’t know if it was only SeaWorld or if other
companies were ejected as well. There is nothing here but an out of context
fact that is prejudicial.
Within Mr. Crowe’s story, we are also introduced Howard
Garrett who is an “Orca Researcher.” I don’t know what that even means. His
resume isn’t given. We have no idea what his qualifications are. A quick Google
search finds that Mr. Garrett holds a degree in sociology. Of course this
doesn’t mean that he can’t be a legitimate whale researcher, but it certainly
isn’t a promising start. His first job after gaining his degree was with the
Center for Whale Research, whose Facebook states that their goal is to research
killer whales in the wild. However, a quick browsing of their FaceBook page
shows that they are more than a research organization. This organization is an
activist organization. There are multiple posts that are of the anti-SeaWorld
nature. This is an un-biased organization. They have an objective. Mr. Garrett
is involved with the Orca Network, which is also an activist group. These are
all facts that should have been disclosed. I’m not certain that anything Mr. Garrett
says from this point on can be considered objective and unbiased. The fake
whale biologist from Futurama is more trustworthy.
Since I found Mr. Garrett to be the most full-of-shit interviewee
in the entire film, let’s break-down some of the bullshit he’s trying to sell
you:
He claims that Orcas knew
that the whale hunters were there to capture or kidnap their babies. That’s
ridiculous. Orcas don’t have the capacity to understand such a complex concept
that another being would attempt to take their offspring and raise them
separately. This is an attempt to humanize an animal. Orcas probably understand
danger and were attempting to preserve their offspring, which makes sense.
There is no reason to doctor this.
He also claims that the orcas created an elaborate plan of
escape in order to confuse their pursuers. Again, orcas lack the ability of
such complex thinking. I don’t doubt that the males separated themselves in an
attempt to fight while the babies and females fled, but that makes sense
evolutionarily. No need to doctor this up unless you are further attempting to
humanize orcas.
Later in the film, Mr. Garrett repeatedly claims that whales
have lifespans equivalent to humans, noting that some whales can live up to 90
years old. Whoa. Whales in captivity don’t live near that long. Double whoa.
Whales have human like lifespans. To me, that means they must usually live to
the age of 70-80. What does the research say? According to all hard research
that I could find (including the research noted on the Orca Network Website),
males orcas live on average about 30 years. Female orcas live on average about
50 years. It is indefensible to leave this information out. The film could have
presented this information and in turn reasonably criticized the studies instead
of conveniently ignoring it. That is how you present information objectively.
This is the biggest lie in the entire film.
Around the 14 minute mark, we’re introduced to Tilikum and
Sealand. Right away, we’re fed some more garbage from the Center of Whale
Research, this time by Ken Balcolmb. We’re not given Mr. Balcomb’s credentials
either, but a quick search shows that he does have an educational background in
zoology. He introduces the term “whale psychosis” around this time. What is
whale psychosis? I don’t know. They never define it. I did a search of it and,
surprise, there is no definition or classification for what whale psychosis is.
Nice work.
We’re introduced to Sealand and it’s insinuated that is a
subpar setup that is nothing more than a net hanging in a marina. A simple
demonstration of this would be some pictures or videos showing this, but I’m
glad I didn’t hold my breath waiting for something like that because I would be
dead from having not breathed in weeks since I watched this film. So the viewer
is forced to take the word of the speakers. This isn’t a fatal flaw, but it’s
annoying and setting off my exaggeration alarm. Also, eye-witness testimony is
notoriously inaccurate. In particular, over time, a person’s memory is even
worse and more unreliable. There are a lot of great studies on this in the
legal world, which the excellent book Actual Innocence discusses.
We are introduced to Steve Huxter, a former Sealand
Director. Again, we know nothing of his background. Did he quit, was he fired?
I have no idea. Discussing the training methods, Mr. Huxter states that the
animals were punished for Tilikum not performing correctly. Some corroboration
would be nice, but I guess we can take this claim at face value and it seems
pretty rational. Mr. Huxter then makes a leap by claiming that the other
animals became frustrated with Tilikum for not performing and would attack him.
Is this a motivation whales are even capable of? I’m not certain here. My gut
says this sort of complex thinking is something that we do as people to
humanize animals so we can understand why they do the things they do.
Further, Mr. Huxter discusses whales attacking whales and
raking. It sounds pretty alarming and sad. This raking activity does happen, we
see evidence. However, what isn’t discussed is whether or not this happens in
the wild. Is this a natural whale reaction? Is this learned from captive
whales? Does it happen outside of a vacuum? This film fails to give us any
information on whales attacking other whales. My initial guess would be that it
does happen in the wild for a variety of reasons.
I do find the concept of food deprivation deplorable.
Hopefully these sorts of crude training methods are being replaced by something
more humane and effective.
WHALE PSYCHOSIS! I love that this is brought up again. Just
to cement a theme. Nice work.
Also, we get a pretty throwaway part from Sam Berg here. She
notes that moving Tilikum to Seaworld after his awful experience at Sealand
wasn’t a good idea. Captain Hindsight, ftw!
OK, so now we’ve hit the… 23 minute mark? Yikes.
Here is Mr. Garnett claiming whales have lifespans
comparable to humans. Again, this is disingenuous.
So how smart are whales? The film makes a solid decision and
brings in a neuroscientist in Lori Marino. Qualifications: neuroscientist.
Well, that’s a bit of a let-down, but consistent with the film maker’s loathing
of providing pertinent information. So, looking up Ms. Marino, you find quickly
that she has some skin in the game, running the Nonhuman Rights Project. This
is a new project with the goal of granting actual legal rights to nonhuman
animals (this is an interesting area of law with some reasonable questions,
though reading the website, I’m not sure I’m not personally buying their angle
or the extent of their goals). She’s certainly not unbiased, though this
doesn’t actually make her testimony flawed.
Ms. Marino makes a claim that orcas have a part of the brain
that humans don’t. The viewer is then to infer that this is something special.
All animals are unique and I would think that brain-systems vary among them are
unique as well. This would be nice for Ms. Marino to be asked about. The
biggest issue here is the assumption that the “safest” inference is that
animals have highly emotional lives. Why is it the safest? Is the safest
inference necessarily the best inference? Or most accurate inference? All
claims need to have evidence, especially bold ones. This is not a scientific
conclusion.
Next is the claim that it’s becoming clear that orcas have a
sense of self, “even more so than humans.” Is there any data on this? No. Of
course, this sort of thing is hard to test. Reading an interview with Ms.
Marino, she explains this and then discusses whale behavior studies. We’ve left
the realm of neuroscience and have entered behavioral science. This would be
excellent and interesting information to have in the film. (Regardless, I have
a hard time believing that any animal has a larger sense of self than humans in
part due to the utter lack of whale philosophers.) Again, Ms. Marino is here as
a scientist, but this is not science.
Dave Duffus is now at his worst in this film claiming that
orcas have, “great spiritual power”. I wrote down that quote and immediately
added a “/wanking” note. Duffus does follow up that gem by stating that they
never mess with the whales or get in the water to interact with them. This is
where the film conveniently switches from the earlier claims that violence
against humans in orcas is unnatural and likely learned in captivity to orcas
are dangerous to humans in the wild. You can’t have this both ways. The idea
that whales are inherently dangerous to humans is probably the right one. They
are massive and eat meat. This is logical.
Yay! Court! Discussing the excerpt of the transcript that
was stricken, there seems to be a semantics argument. Unfortunately, semantics
are pretty important in the legal world. The transcript stricken involved the
quote “he lunges at trainers,” which means something incredibly different in
the legal world from “sometimes lunges towards trainers.” Negligence cases
often hinge on tiny details like this. There is nothing insidious or
unreasonable about this decision.
Here we have a trainer stating that relationships aren’t
more than just giving fish. This seems to go against claims that orcas are
incredibly self-aware and relationship oriented. Not sure why this was added
unless the film is trying to set-up something later about whale on human
violence.
Now, around the 36 minute mark, we get some pretty
non-specific details about a supervisor mocking orcas and whatnot. Also, former
trainer Dean Gomersull says that “they” don’t tell them stuff. Whoever they is.
We also get a nice fact stated that dorsalfins drooping happens in less than 1%
of whales in the wild. No data or source, just a fact stated, which puts its
status as a fact in question.
Next we have a subtle attempt that humanizing the orcas. The
film states that different whales have different genes. Well, no shit. Then the
film states that orcas have “different languages” across the world. This is a
subtle humanization in confusing human language with whale language. Humans
have complex languages with the ability to hold uncountable words and
inflections to mean different things. Whale languages just are not near as
complex and would never qualify as an actual language. It’s a simple way of
communicating, it’s not an actual language any more than dogs sniffing butts is
a language. That form of communicating is incredibly interesting, but allowing
it to be considered an unqualified language is humanizing in a prejudicial
manner.
In the 46 minute part of the film, we begin to understand a
bit more about orca and trainer interaction. It’s pointed out that accidents
are judged to be either trainer error or that the whales went to the wrong
spot. Aggression in these incidents doesn’t seem to be an issue. That a whale
slams into a trainer isn’t necessarily a mark of aggression. It is proposed
that there were over 70 documented whale accidents. Good information if we had
more context. What is the time period? What counts as a whale accident? Can we
tell anything about the severity of an accident because it was reported?
The Ken Peters video where he is nearly drowned by a whale
is emotionally and visually compelling. Mr. Peters is lauded as an expert and
experienced trainer. His ordeal is considered damn near heroic and his survival
impressive. Why in the world wasn’t Mr. Peters interviewed? We have a bunch of
trainers speculating as to what Mr. Peters was thinking, but we don’t have Mr.
Peters himself. This is incredibly disappointing.
55 minutes into the film and now we’re getting into
conspiracy theories. In general, I don’t buy conspiracy theories, so perhaps my
doubt is my own bias showing through here. Oftentimes, there are too many
people involved to keep a conspiracy under wraps. The film-makers discuss injuries,
but never bother to show any actual medical or autopsy reports outside of the
attack on Dawn.
Now we are introduced to Suzanne Allee, a video supervisor
at Loro Parque. Ms. Allee gives us a ton of opinions, but little substance. She
seems to make a lot of speculative claims in which one would assume she lacked
personal knowledge to make such judgments. She claims that the venues weren’t
ready that the owner did this because he didn’t want to lose money. She claims
that the animals had teeth and stomach issues due to the captivity, but I find
it hard to buy into these diagnoses considering her job is as a video
supervisor and she never mentions any experience in treating animals or being
around the animals being treated. She also claims that the trainers didn’t
train much, which again, she’s a video supervisor and does not claim to have an
animal training background. Then she provides us two unsubstantiated opinions
on the park. First she claims that Loro Parque doesn’t have a good reputation.
That might be true, but the film makers didn’t bother to provide corroboration.
“Everyone knows it was a tragedy waiting to happen.” This line does nothing but
point the viewer to an anti-Seaworld path. We don’t know if that’s remotely
true or not. It has no real value taken on its face.
There is a lot going on in regards to the tragic attack on
Dawn Brancheau. The attack alone is incredibly sad and scary, it doesn’t need
to be exaggerated. Yet, the film-makers take some artistic license. First is
the assertion that the initial grab was not aggressive. There is not only any
proof here, but the idea that whale grabbing a trainer with his teeth not being
aggressive is a questionable one. Is the viewer to believe that Tilikum grabbed
Dawn Brancheau in a random manner and then halfway through decided he wanted to
kill her? I don’t know and neither do the commenters.
The film also uses the court ruling in a disingenuous
manner. Many times, lawyers from both sides will come out and say that the
verdict was a victory for their client. I would imagine that this is fairly confusing
to the lay-man, and it should be because it’s usually just bravado or
face-saving on the part of one lawyer. Because legal rulings are incredibly
more complicated than most people understand, it is easy for propagandists to
interpret them in a manner convenient to them. In this case, from what I heard,
the court ruling was not impressive or in any way meaningful. Guilt,
negligence, etc, really aren’t being judged here. There is simply nothing
conclusive.
In the end, there are too many questions of credibility,
authority and instances of misleading testimony for this film to be considered
a documentary. At best it is a low-level op-ed piece. At worst it is an
intellectually dishonest and manipulative piece of propaganda. We’re left with
no information on if orcas are aggressive in nature or if it’s a learned
behavior (as the film interchanges this per their convenience). Also, we don’t
know if trainers are knowledgeable or unknowledgeable. We do know that every
expert witness giving testimony in the movie had a prior bias or skin in the
game. And really, I could have gone on further about the legal issues, but if
you made it this far, you didn’t deserve to be put to sleep. I am open to
questions and criticisms on any arguments that I have made here.
