The documentary Blackfish directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite, leaves the viewer with many different emotions. This documentary follows the life of Tilikum, a captured killer whale who is forced to preform for SeaLand. The director uses different interviews from people who have worked with Tilikum or have seen him attack people during the shows. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, has said that swimming with and training killer whales is not safe at all and should not be done. They believe it is a very high risk to the human working with the whale.
In Blackfish, one person shows a whole different side to their job and brings out all his emotions. This person would be John Crowe, a diver whose job was to capture orcas. He would do his job everyday capturing the whales and taking the babies from their mothers. Crowe says, “you understand then what you're doing, I lost it, I started crying, I didn’t stop working, I couldn’t handle, its like kidnapping a little kid away from it’s mother” (Blackfish). Crowe is explaining that while they were capturing these baby whales and hearing them cry for their mothers is when they you finally realize what you're doing to them. Cowperthwaite does a good job picking Crowe to be interviewed. Looking at Crowe the viewer would not expect him to get emotional; he looks like a very rough person with a long beard and tattoos. When the viewer starts to see him get emotional and cry they begin to feel emotional too. This director uses the strategy of emotional interviews to get emotion from the audience. This creates a picture in the viewer’s mind of the crying whales, which is purposely done by the director to get emotion out of the audience. Another thing the director does is...
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...e feel the emotion of pain for these animals and feel how sad it truly is. They also find out the real facts about what happens to both the killer whales and the lobsters. Though not the same thing is happening to both these animals, many members of the audience feel the same way towards them both. Both of these both use real facts to pull their readers/viewers in, knowing that everything they’re saying must be true. Cowperthwaite and Wallace make you feel like you can trust them throughout their whole stories. They make you understand how they feel and gain the audience’s faith from the beginning.
Works Cited
Cowperthwaite, Gabriela, Manuel V. Oteyza, Eli Despres, Jonathan Ingalls, Christopher Towey, and Jeff Beal. Blackfish. , 2013.
David Foster Wallace - David Foster Wallace - Consider the Lobster - Bay Back Books/ Little, Brown and Company - 2005
The director includes footage of Tilikum and Dawn having a good time and performing together to show that Tilikum didn’t have any animosity towards her. Thomas Tobin explains the attack and mentions that Dawn was scalped and that her arm was missing. The director incorporates actual footage from the attack with eye witness testimonies to give the audience a sense of what actually happened. Although Tilikum was responsible for the death of trainer Dawn Brancheau, another whale at the Canadian park, Sealand of the Pacific was responsible for the tragic death of trainer and competitive swimmer, Keltie Byrne. Keltie Byrne was performing with the whales as she normally did when she suddenly slipped into the pool, as she was trying to pull herself out of the pool, the whale zoomed towards her and grabbed her by her boot. She proceeded to plead for help every chance she was brought back to the surface, but no one could help in time. These two incidents serve as examples that whales shouldn’t be taken out of their natural habitat because it’s unsafe for their mental health and it’s unsafe for the physical health of the
When a man spoke highly about the orca he trained, he explained how they were a team, which was very heartwarming. I was very displeased to hear about Dawn Brancheau’s death. Not only did that displease me, but how no records of an orca killing a human in the wild, only in captivity. Cowperthwaite showed pathos by allowing stories to be told to those who had first hand experience with these moments.
Jackson’s concept of the ‘known’, the ‘unknown’ and the ‘longing for an absolute meaning’ was expressed in the story by the Creature’s character. The Creature is like a human being because he talks like a human and acts like a human even though his looks is different from a real human being. For this reason, the Creature seems to be real, so I was able to suspend my disbelief and think that the Creature is real while reading the story. The Creature looks like half man and half fish, so maybe that is the reason why some people call him “Fish Man”. However, according to him, “he’s not a fish, but an amphibian” (Bailey). It is unknown if he really is an amphibian, and “he’d never known another of his kind” (Bailey). The unknowns in the story caused me to immerse myself more. As I read, I was looking forward to find out more information about the Creature. I wanted to know where did he come from, and I was hoping to find a happy ending for him. Thus, I think I was able to feel what the author wants the readers to feel. Through the whole story, the Creature was searching for happiness, and I too, as the reader, was looking for something or someone that will help improve the Creature’s life after all the wrongs he had suffered. One of the Creature’s co-actors, Karloff, gave him an advice and said, “Underwater, my friend. Water is your natural milieu” (Bailey). I think this message is the absolute meaning that the Creature was looking for, and as a result, he finally knew where he can find happiness. “The Creature strikes off for home, knowing now how fleeting are the heart’s desires, knowing that Julie too would ebb into memory” (Bailey). From the beginning until the end of the story, I was able to understand the Creature’s feelings, and it caused me to willingly suspend my
ed. Kelly J. Mays. 11th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 591-594. Print.
Wallace, Daniel. Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions. North Carolina: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2012. N. pag. Print.
And even a six year old wasn’t blind to that fact. The issue of keeping Orcas in captivity and under the care of man has been a controversial practice ever since the first dolphins and whales were taken into aquariums for the amusement of humans. In more recent times, the documentary Blackfish (which has been recently broadcast on popular TV stations such as CNN) that focuses on Tilikum, an orca held by SeaWorld, has brought to light the controversy over captive killer whales. Orcas are majestic, beautiful, and intelligent creatures that should not be kept in captivity for our entertainment because of the harm they cause. SeaWorld, a leader in the captivity and use of killer whales for entertainment, has counterattacked the points made by the documentary Blackfish, which brought many points to light.
The novel Big Fish, written by Daniel Wallace, contains many themes that are an important aspect to the story. Forming the father-son relationship between Edward and his son, William, was the key theme to Big Fish. William believes that his father’s stories are fictional stories and do not establish the truth, which frustrates him. In an interview with New York Times, Tim Burton said, “"Big Fish is about what's real and what's fantastic, what's true and what's not true, what's partially true and how, in the end, it's all true.” At the end of the movie, William finally starts to understand his father and the stories that have been told. After his father died, William keeps his father’s legacy alive by replacing himself as the storyteller and by retelling his father’s stories.
David Foster Wallace, and award winning novelist, student of Harvard University, essayist, and professor, is the author of “Consider the Lobster,” which is an essay that was posted in Gourmet Magazine in 2004. This essay observes the yearly Maine Lobster Festival and explains how it can and possibly is a violation of animal rights, but more specifically , lobster rights. The article has a very broad audience, which can include animal right activists, gourmet food eaters, lobster hunters, chefs, scientists, tourists who want to know about the festival, magazine readers, and even people who eat food. This is because of the fact that all of these people tie in together with eating or cooking lobster, which is the main idea of the annual festival. The class can be lower or middle class, for the people who catch and cook lobster, as well as upper class for the scientists and gourmet eaters who may eat lobster daily without knowing how they are killed. As Wallace goes more in depth with his thoughts and findings, he grasps the readers attention by mostly using footnotes, pathos, and makes the readers think about the questions he asks order to keep them informed and thinking to help process his thoughts about the Maine Lobster festival, lobster killing, and animal rights as a whole.
Berman, E. M., Bowman, J. S., West, J. P., & Van Wart, M. R. (2013). Human
Allison, L. A. , Black, M. , Podgoroski, G. , Quillin, K. , Monroe, J. , Taylor E. (2014).
Titsworth, W. L., Abram, Fullerton, J. A., Hester, J., Guin, P., Waters. M., Mocco, J. (2013).
In Blackfish, Director, Gabriela Cowperthwaite, addresses the accidents that occurred at SeaWorld involving trainers and whales. Cowperthwaite’s purpose is to educate the audience on the cruel treatment and rough conditions of whales that occur in SeaWorld. The film maintains a shocking tone in order to persuade the audience and appeal to feelings of sadness and anger.
McConaughy, S. H., Volpe, R. J., Antshel, K. M., Gordon, M., & Eiraldi, R. B. (2011).
Have you seen beached whales? These massive creatures strand themselves on the beach, alone or in a group, the whims of the moon’s tidal forces. Sometimes, a single whale trapped by the moon’s pull calls in distress, drawing the sympathy of the whole pod, a case of symphony dooming the whole community stranded on the beach to a slow death. In “Why we care about whales”, Marina Keegan writes about witnessing fifty or so stranded pilot whales “lying along the stretch of beach in front of her house, surrounded by frenzied neighbors and animal activists” (35,36). Like the others, she jumped in to help—a futile task which finally led to “23 pairs of whale eyes glazed over” (32,33). Keegan suggests that despite the logic that human welfares are more important than animals’, emotions of compassion towards animals blind us from(better words) feeling the fragility of human suffering near or far away from us. She herself couldn’t think philosophically in the present of dying whales. The ambiguity of her thoughts reveals the paradox between logic and emotion. (unfinished)
Whales are perhaps by far the most mysterious creatures of the deep blue. It is not that we do not know much about the whales; rather, it is the reasons behind the ways that they act and communicate that we do not yet understand. Their ways of life have been researched in the past and present. Many speculations have been made as to why they do what they do, but the speculations themselves have speculations. Everyone has their own opinion but an opinion is not enough to unravel the mysteries behind a personality.