The propaganda piece Blackfish tried to turn it’s audience against the idea of whales held in captivity, yet the film was ineffective because it utilized emotional appeal, inappropriate diction, and contained many logical fallacies thus alienating those that viewed the piece. Blackfish, commissioned by CNN Films and directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite, is a response to the, amongst other things, taking whales from the wild, separating whales from their mothers, and keeping them in a miniscule enclosures, and perhaps most recently the death of SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau. What Blackfish aims to accomplish is emotionally connecting with it’s audience, more likely than not being those who do not know much about orca whales in captivity. Where
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The entire film is relies on false authority. The audience has no one to believe but the trainers used in the film, most of which have not worked for SeaWorld in over 20 years. The experts the movie claims to use could be actors as far as the audience knows, and none of them help strengthen the central argument. Do any of these people know enough about whales in captivity to educate the audience? The film opens up with shots of a trainer in the water surrounded by whales. In the background, the archived 911 call of a mean reporting Dawn Brancheau’s death. This puts the audience on edge,thinking they’re about to see her being killed, yet the woman in the film is not dawn but instead a different performer conducting a trick with the whale. This whole scene forces the audience to jump to conclusions, which the audience has to do anyway to understand the muddled argument of the movie. Along with false authority, the entire movie is a collage of different stories from the ex-trainers, none of which experienced any of the tragedies they talk about firsthand. Instead of showing conclusive evidence Blackfish tells stories about what have possibly happened. The stunning amount of logical fallacies do not help the film, and instead make it harder to
The entire film is relies on false authority. The audience has no one to believe but the trainers used in the film, most of which have not worked for SeaWorld in over 20 years. The experts the movie claims to use could be actors as far as the audience knows, and none of them help strengthen the central argument. Do any of these people know enough about whales in captivity to educate the audience? The film opens up with shots of a trainer in the water surrounded by whales. In the background, the archived 911 call of a mean reporting Dawn Brancheau’s death. This puts the audience on edge,thinking they’re about to see her being killed, yet the woman in the film is not dawn but instead a different performer conducting a trick with the whale. This whole scene forces the audience to jump to conclusions, which the audience has to do anyway to understand the muddled argument of the movie. Along with false authority, the entire movie is a collage of different stories from the ex-trainers, none of which experienced any of the tragedies they talk about firsthand. Instead of showing conclusive evidence Blackfish tells stories about what have possibly happened. The stunning amount of logical fallacies do not help the film, and instead make it harder to