Director and filmmaker, Gabriela Cowperthwaite in her documentary, Blackfish, explores the remarkable nature of orca whales, demonstrates the cruel treatment found in their captivity and acknowledges the injuries and losses of many trainers due to numerous whale attacks. Cowperthwaite's purpose is to argue that killer whales are highly intelligent and emotional animals that do not cause harm when left in the wild. She focuses on SeaWorld, an establishment who captivates these orca's for human entertainment, and pose a threat to the lives of many trainers, the whales inhabitant in their pools, and are the cause of many whale attacks in these industries. She adopts a serious and reflective tone in order to appeal to the feelings and reason of other animal entertainment facilities and her public audience.

Cowperthwaite begins her documentary by exploiting the view of SeaWorld from oppositions that aren't commonly disclosed or …show more content…
She presents views that demonstrate the controversy of SeaWorld as an entertainment facility through the different outlooks taken on by different individuals. She utilizes these examples as a way to engage her audience, lure their emotions and appeal to her ethos by negatively displaying her adversary and induce her viewers to side with her notion. At the beginning of the film, the screen goes black where a 9-1-1 emergency call takes place, indicating that an accident has taken place at SeaWorld, where one of the trainers have been found dead in the water. The documentary, is applying scare tactics in order to intrigue and manipulate the audience in evoking emotions that counter SeaWorld for letting a tragic incident like this occur at an established facility like themselves. Promptly after, and throughout the rest of the film the director implements testimony's of former SeaWorld trainers and employees, who explain