Blackfish Rhetoric Analysis

The documentary entitled Blackfish directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite uses a few rhetorical approaches to reveal the disturbing hardship that orca whales experience in captivity. The film follows the shocking story of a killer whale named Tilikum and the three human deaths that he is responsible for. Cowperthwaite uses interviews with concerned former trainers and whale experts as a device to explore the difference between SeaWorld’s public image and its intense reality. Researchers find that the wild orcas can be described as highly socialized and intelligent creatures; these gentle animals are then compared to the whales pictured in footage from SeaWorld’s marine parks. Whales kept at SeaWorld are mistreated, restrained to dark cages, and live in small concrete pools that cannot be compared to the hundreds of miles that they would routinely swim on a daily basis. To this day, many admire SeaWorld for its broad assortment of marine animals. As a documentary, Blackfish takes on the immense task of trying to alter the audiences’ perceptions of SeaWorld. While Blackfish employs all three forms of rhetoric to accomplish this mission, it predominantly attracts the emotion of its audience using a combination of stock footage and interviews.
One approach that the documentary has to lucratively charm the emotions, or pathos, of its viewers is by presenting interviews that are vastly intense to watch. Introduced in a
The documentary successfully exploits visual and emotional rhetoric in order to cause its audience to question the treatment of whales and the habit of caring for these orcas in captivity. By observing the dilemma of captivity amongst orca whales, it produces emotions that range from empathy to resentment. This film powerfully influences its viewers to want to take action and possibly join efforts to help killer whales in captivity