Rhetorical Analysis

Nate Billitier
Prof. Bain-Conkin
Black Fish
The topic I chose for my rhetorical analysis is a documentary that I have
recently watched entitled, Black Fish. The flm is directed towards the life
story of a Killer Whale named Tillicum from Sea World. The documentary
begins by telling a story about Sea Worlds process of capturing whales. Of
the coast of Washington, a team of Sea World employees was attempting
to capture a whale for the park. In this process, they net the whales to
capture them. However this time things didnt work out so well. In the net,
there was one live whale, and three dead ones. The employees were then
instructed to cut the dead whales open, fll them with rocks, and then tie an
anchor to their tales so they would sink to the bottom of the ocean. Later on
they began catching whales of of the coast of Iceland, which is where they
captured Tillicum. Upon capturing Tillicum, he was brought to a small
marine mammal park on the coast of Victoria, BC in Canada. The park was
called Sealand. At frst, Tillicum was not doing very well with performances,
or getting along with the other whales. The trainers at this park had a crude
way of treating the whales. They would punish them if they were performing
poorly in ways such as depriving them of food. In reaction to this, the bigger
whales would attack and injure other whales at the park. On top of this, at
night the whales would be put in modules, which are essentially containers
for the whales to be put in, and these modules were about twenty feet long
and thirty feet deep. One day a trainer fell into the water during a Sealand
show, and had an unexpected, fatal death. The whale began drowning her
when she entered the water, and people watched in dismay as she faced
her death. The whale who was responsible for this tragedy was Tillicum.
After this incident occurred, Sealand was shut down by the owner and the
whales were sold to Sea World, including Tillicum for breeding purposes.
The newspapers attempted to cover this incident claiming that it was an
accidental drowning, but anyone who watched the events unfold on that
day could tell you that this was no accident. One day a few months later at
Sea World, a trainer was dragged into the pool by Tillicum. The man
escaped with little injury, but one of the people at Sea World actually flmed
this happening on tape. When a Sea World ofcial found out about this, he
was immediately instructed to delete the tape, and get rid of it as fast as
possible. In court, Sea World covered their tracks and claimed that it never
happened, so the incident that occurred was forgotten. Later on, a baby
orca was added into the shows with her mother who had given birth to her
in Sea World. Sea World ofcials said that the baby whale was becoming a
distraction and not performing well, so they moved the baby to another
park. The mothers reaction to this was heartbreaking. The whale who was
always shy and quiet, foated in a corner at the bottom of the pool for hours,
not moving, crying, and mourning the loss of its baby. Following this, the
documentary then proceeds to interview the workers at Sea World, to show
how the information they were given about the whales was entirely false,
and the workers knew nothing of this. For example the trainers were telling
people that whales lived for 25 years in the wild, and at Sea World they
actually live longer lives up to 35 years due to the care that they receive. In
reality whales actually live the equivalent of human life spans, and they live
much longer in the wild. The flm then goes on, reporting more than 70
incidents between trainers and whales, and how Sea World continued to
cover their tracks, and poorly treat their whales with similar methods to that
of Sealand. All the events of the story ultimately lead up to the world
renown story of the most recent Sea World death of a young girl trainer who
was very well known and respected among all of the others. Again, the
whale responsible for this was Tillicum.
The author of this documentary did a tremendous job of getting the point
across and creating a clear purpose. The form of the story was presented
in a unique series of events that led up to the tragic ending of a famous Sea
World incident, and the content within it created a deep, meaningful
purpose to the flm. The documentaries form was presented thoughtfully by
the authors idea of actually following the life of a whale who was a victim
Sea World parks. Not only is this a good idea to begin with, but the fact that
it was the same whale who was responsible for several of Sea Worlds
incidents and deaths made it even more interesting. This automatically
grabs the audiences attention, because people want to essentially know the
real truth behind these incidents that occurred in Sea World. The purpose
that the author was trying to get across is that these whales are wild
animals, and thats how they deserve to be treated. These animals deserve
to be treated in a humane way, not like toys. Taking these animals out of
their natural habitat and away from their families is already bad enough,
and then they proceed to treat them in a crude, unacceptable way. Along
with this, the author is trying to show how there is a direct correlation
between the incidents involving the whales and the trainers, and how the
whales are treated in their captivity. The author is ultimately trying to get the
audience to change their point of view on this issue. When we think of Sea
World, we generally think of this magical, happy place where our childhood
dreams can come true. We think of a marvelous relationship between man
and animal, and how happy they are to be entertaining people together. As
truthful as that may seem, the author gives us a diferent point of view. The
view we get is on the inside of everything that is going on within the park. In
watching this, its quite clear that the ofcials of Sea World dont care about
the animals at all, they only care about the money. This is shown by
providing information of how they treat the animals such as being separated
from the other whales constantly, deprived of food, and put in modules
overnight for so called safety precautions. Along with this the author also
shows how Sea World attempted to cover up and falsely mislead people
with any incident that happened, or any potentially threatening information
that was leaked to the public. The content within the story created an
emotional attachment between the audience and the whales. In doing this,
the author took a very aggressive approach. Very graphic and gruesome
tactics were used to display information throughout the story to make us
feel bad for the whales, and anger ourselves with Sea World. For example
in the beginning, they tried to capture a whale and in doing this three
whales died. To adjoin with this the author also shared how they disposed
of them in an inadequate way. Finally, the author implied the feelings of Sea
World ofcials towards what happened. Whoever is watching the
documentary can conclude that Sea World didnt care about anything that
happened, or what they did to the whales. These methods that the author
used were very efective. It forced us into a position to frown upon and
disagree with anything that Sea World was or is doing. In conclusion, the
authors form and content overall deeply efected the audience, and
changed how we perceive Killer Whales and Sea World.