Thread by @parasociality

Watched Blackfish for the first time.

Excellent film. Doesn't leave you overflowing with love for humanity. The orca calf capture and the depiction of the sleeping pens are particularly hard to watch.

I also noticed lots of parallels between the captive whales and modern life.

•The whales in captivity are violent with each other, in part because they live in Frankenstein pods mixing whales from (in a former trainer's words) different "languages, cultures, genes."

Parallel: Obvious. We can see that this is cruelty with whales, why not with people?

•The captive whales have health problems and live shorter lives. Meanwhile, the owners claim that the captive whales have it good because they're getting medical care (which the whales appear to dread).

Parallel: Everything esoteric health twitter says.
sup.org/books/title/?i…

•The captive whales frequently exhibit behavior that the film characterizes as "psychotic." This includes the violence, but also things like "screaming." The dominant mood is "frustration."

Parallel: Mental health does seem fragile these days, doesn't it?

Domestication is not a pretty process.

Self-domestication isn't any prettier.

Caveat: The film is very believable. It accords with my priors. My guess is that it's at least substantially accurate. But I know almost nothing about whales or whale captivity, and am not in a great position to know if I've been sold a bill of goods.