Recently I’ve been hearing a lot about the documentary Blackfish on social media. While the film was released in 2013 by Gabriela Cowperthwaite, it seemed to reach popularity for a larger audience when broadcast on CNN last year.
This film focuses on the life of a killer whale, Tilikum, living in captivity at SeaWorld. Since Tilikum was captured in 1983, he has been responsible for three deaths.
The film shows Tilikum's capture off the coast of Iceland and includes interviews with those involved in his capture. The ways that SeaWorld went about getting Tilikum are unethical, and explained in the film.
The film focuses on the various deaths that Tilikum, and even other killer whales, caused and how SeaWorld repeatedly tried to cover them up.
Filming for the documentary began after star trainer Dawn Brancheau was killed by Tilikum, and SeaWorld tried to blame the trainer for the event. SeaWorld claimed that the trainer was killed because she had her hair up in a ponytail, and for that reason the whale targeted her. After hearing this, Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite stated that she believed that SeaWorld was not telling the whole truth.
After research, Cowperthwaite found that many other trainers has worn ponytails, and that was not a trigger for killer whales to attack. Additionally, after conducting interviews with eyewitness accounts, Cowperthwaite uncovered that the trainer was not attacked by her ponytail, and instead Tilikum attacked her arm. The ponytail that Dawn Brancheau was wearing when she was attacked held no relation to the incident. Instead, this was a lie created by SeaWorld in order to keep their star performer in the clear.
What angered me the most about this when watching the documentary is one of the clips from a SeaWorld representative who said that if Dawn Brancheau was alive, she would have said it was her fault for wearing the ponytail. Trying to make the trainer look guilty when she was killed for a reason that was not her fault is a terrible thing to do. Making up a statement like that just to protect the killer whale is insulting to the trainer's honor.
Former SeaWorld trainers are interviewed in the film, and give their opinions on the Dawn Brancheau case, along with the other attacks and murders. Usually in documentaries you do not have former employees talking negatively about where they worked. Hearing about all of the terrible things that trainers did, and how much the former trainers regretted what they did really illustrates the negative actions SeaWorld continuously takes.
Another interesting aspect of the film is that it covers the various lies that SeaWorld employees are told to tell tourists. The employees tell tourists that male killer whales live 30 years while females live 50 years. However, the film claims that research has shown that killer whales have a life-span similar to humans.
This documentary has been wildly popular, and was even nominated for an Oscar. Even if you don’t like documentaries (which I don’t) I would definitely suggest watching Blackfish. It’s about 90 minutes long and is on Netflix. The film is eye-opening and a must watch. In addition, Dawn Brancheau attended our wonderful university, The University of South Carolina. She majored in Psychology with a minor in Biology and was a member of both the dance team and Alpha Delta Pi while in Columbia.
