Beyond Blackfish

Blackfish is almost an anomaly, it’s one of the few films that gets the appropriate audience response on the content. Blackfish was pretty obviously “environmentally” focused. But even other environmentally focused movies don’t get the kind of response that Blackfish did. This raises the question of how do we get the response that we need from audiences? Blackfish specifically focuses on something that hits most ordinary people pretty hard. Most Americans have been to SeaWorld at least once, and of course the reason to go to SeaWorld is to see Shamu. So who’s really to blame here? Is it SeaWorld for capturing and exploiting these animals? Or, is it us, the consumers? We buy the tickets to go to the park, we buy the $5 drinks and $10 food. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt, right? This is our mindset. But in doing all of this we are only supporting the problem. After watching Blackfish and doing this project, I’m sad to say, I wanted to go to SeaWorld to see the orcas. After all the research that I read, I still wanted to go to the park and, consequently, support the problem. This is a major way that Blackfish was able to get that audience response. They simply focus on the problem, they never say, “this is your fault because you go to SeaWorld.” Blackfish appeals to our emotions; watching the film automatically makes us feel guilty for going to the park. This is where change comes in. The audience started speaking out, they stopped going to the park. The media attention of the problem forced SeaWorld into making changes. It forced politicians into making changes.