BLACKFISH ESSAY FD

“Blackfish” The documentary “Blackfish” is a very moving film. The documentary was directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite. “Blackfish” focuses on Tilikum, an orca held by SeaWorld, and the dangers of keeping the species in captivity. The killer whale, Tilikum, was involved in the deaths of three individuals. Gabriela Cowperthwaite started the film after the death of Tilikum’s trainer Dawn Brancheau, a 40-year-old senior trainer at SeaWorld. Cowperthwaite used many rhetorical devices in her documentary to make the audience feel bad for the orcas and what SeaWorld does to these wild animals. Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s documentary contained all three rhetorical strategies pathos, logos, and ethos. Cowperthwaite’s film included interviews of the people who had trained the killer whales and also the ones who captured them from the ocean. The interviews of the people were very sad because the people had realized what they had done was wrong. The director must have included this interviews in the movie to make the audience feel even more bad about the whales, and to make the audience think how terrible it was. In the interview of Dave Crowe pathos is achieved. Pathos is the emotional appeal or is what appeals to the audience’s needs, values, and emotional sensibilities (Weida, 2013). Dave starts to tell you about when they herded and captured the killer whales. He says he realized what he was doing when he was putting once one of the baby orcas in the stretcher to be taken away and the mother whales were lining, and calling to their baby. He starts to get very emotional when he says this. He says, “he started to break down while he was doing this.” You start to feel bad about the killer whales because they are getting their baby orca taken away from them forever. Dave then proceeds to say that there were three orcas that died while in this process. He and two other people that were with him were told to cut them up and fell them up with rocks and sunk