Blackfish Exploitation

The “Celebrification” and Exploitation of the Killer Whale
For decades SeaWorld has operated and advertised under the guise of being a happy family destination where children can interact and supposedly learn more about sea life and sea creatures. The documentary Blackfish, however, has illuminated the public on the shady practices of this world renowned park and the manner in which they mistreat their animals and endanger their employees. The death of SeaWorld whale trainer, Dawn Brancheau, sent out shockwaves to the public; was this supposedly educational, family-friendly Park not as safe as people thought? SeaWorld scrambled and changed their story multiple times as to how the incident occurred and denied that they were at fault. The world-famous sea park built up such a celebrity status with their main attraction, “Shamu” that they could not possibly let the name be smeared by the death of an employee. What the research gathered hear proposes is that SeaWorld has built such an empire with the “Shamu” moniker and the killer whales’ “celebrity-ism”, that it’s gotten to the point where they are simply exploiting intelligent creatures to line their pockets with money.
To begin, SeaWorld was founded by four UCLA graduates who were also frat brothers that originally wanted to build an underwater restaurant with a marine life show in the background; this proved to be too expensive though, so they decided to just open an aquarium and marine park instead. This park later became the first SeaWorld, which is the one located in San Diego, California. The San Diego Park opened its doors in March 1964, with numerous dolphins, sea lions and two saltwater aquariums and attracted over 400,000 people in its first year. The success of SeaWo...

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...ment posed by the film is that keeping Tilikum locked up in pools throughout most of his life drove him more than a little crazy and led to the deaths of the three people he has killed so far. From the evidence presented by the film, it is reasonable to believe that the cause of Tilikum killing Daniel Dukes (the man found on top of Tilikum), Byrne, and Brancheau, is not out of malice towards others, but because he was so deprived of social stimulus that when he saw someone he could play with, he was so excited that he got carried away and unfortunately ended up killing them. The message that is conveyed by the Blackfish documentary is that SeaWorld has built such an empire with the “Shamu” moniker and the killer whales’ “celebrity-ism” that it has gotten to the point where the park is simply exploiting the intelligent creatures in order to make millions of dollars.