History Film / Blackfish

** The orcas themselves; while some seemed clever enough to know to drown or torment their trainers, they really are lashing out because they're ''wild animals'' being trained to do tricks and spend days in confined spaces to small for their proportional weight. In the case of Loro Parque, the whales spent years in damaged and unhygienic tanks and had to undergo traumatic medical procedures as a result.

* DoubleStandard: Alexis's death was more gruesome than Dawn's, but due to Loro Parque being out of sight and out of mind of the American mind, nothing happened to change things. Dawn, due to being a head trainer and her death in public with multiple eyewitnesses, got [=OSHA=] on the case.

* DeadGuyOnDisplay: The man who sneaked into the park after hours was found the next morning, naked and mutilated, slung across Tilikum's back. There are, justifiably, no images shown.
* DeceasedFallGuyGambit: [=SeaWorld=] tried to pin the blame for Tilikim's attack on Dawn. First by claiming that she slipped, and then by claiming that the orca grabbed her ponytail, which should've been in a bun.

Not to be confused with [[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire that other Blackfish.]]

* RealityEnsues:
** Every time a trainer survives, the orca bites remain serious due to having the advantage of several thousand pounds and ten times more muscle power:
*** Tamarie's arm was badly broken after Orkid grabbed her. The minute she's out of the water, she's lying down from pain.
*** Ken Peters was the calmest about getting dragged down by both feet several times. Even so, Katsaka bit his feet hard enough that he couldn't pull himself free. He tried to stand and run but falls over immediately. Once he's on dry land, he has to lie down as other trainers check his feet and you can see the deep teeth marks.
** In the case of Loro Parque, most of the trainers were new and had less experience with orcas than the Sea World regulars did. There was also less regulation due to Loro Parque being in the Canary Islands, off the West Cost of Africa. Alexis Martinez was the "best" trainer in as the Loro Parque Suzanne Allee supervisor put it, but they all knew a disaster was waiting to him, and ''he'' knew the orcas could kill him at any time.
** Sea World tried to lie about Dawn's death by saying she "drowned" when eyewitnesses had video footage of her death. In 2010. They had to retract that statement when eyewitnesses contradicted the "accidental" drowning account and [=OSHA=] fined them.

Not to be confused with [[Series/GameOfThrones that other Blackfish.]]

!! Try to tell SeaWorld to save the whales from having examples here:

!! This show provides examples of:

* ManipulativeEditing: [=SeaWorld=] has accused the film of this on several accounts. Some instances boil down to mere misunderstanding of how documantary films are made (such as "the interviews talk about this whale, but the footage shows that whale" when B-roll footage is used), others are more legitimate (such as footage that is implied to be Katina and Kasatka crying for their calves, where the audio is not even that of an orca).

* {{Matriarchy}}: The Orca's social structure in the wild. Tilikum, being a male, is repeatedly attacked by females in captivity.

** What makes this even worse is that even if Tilikum did grab Brancheau by the ponytail (eye-witness accounts differ, some claim it was the ponytail, some claim it was the arm) she was not violating any SeaWorld regulations. In fact the orcas have been deliberately desensitized to clothing and ponytails by SeaWorld since long before 2010, specifically so that such a thing would not occur. There are numerous pictures and videos of female trainers working with the orcas while wearing their hair in ponytails.

* MoralPragmatist: Seaworld managers yelled at one trainer who was play-talking with Tilikum shortly after the park purchased him, telling her to get out of the area. The other trainers thought it was odd at the time but decades later learned that Tilikum was involved in drowning Keltie Byrne.

* MoralPragmatism: Seaworld managers yelled at one trainer who was play-talking with Tilikum shortly after the park purchased him, telling her to get out of the area. The other trainers thought it was odd at the time but decades later learned that Tilikum was involved in drowning Keltie Byrne.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: In-universe, the trainers posit that Tilikum hit RageBreakingPoint when a show with Dawn went wrong and she was running out of fish. Mark Simmons says that Tilikum had no malicious intent towards Dawn but had a case of DidNotKnowHisOwnStrength.

* BittersweetEnding: Dawn's death and several others are nearly swept under the rug, and their loved ones missed them badly. Tilikum also remains trapped in Sea World, as do the other captive orcas. [[note Tilikum died in 2017, which can make this better or worse depending on your viewpoint]]. But [=OSHA=] finally goes after Sea World and makes them pay, literally, for endangering trainers. Meanwhile, the former trainers who knew Dawn end the film by going to see free orcas in the wild, to remember why they loved working with them.

* BewareTheNiceOnes: Several of the trainers describe Tilikum as one of the friendliest orcas they've dealt with, which made his kills even more horrifying.
* BlameGame: There is discussion about the official report that Dawn, a senior trainer, died due to "trainer error" and how the interviewees disagree with that sentiment.

* DeceasedFallGuyGambit: [=SeaWorld=] tried to pin the blame for Tilikim's attack on Dawn. First by claiming that she slipped, and then by claiming that the whale grabbed her ponytail, which should've been in a bun.

* GaiasVengeance: The movie explores what leads Tilikum and other whales like him to attack and/or kill so many people.

** The first worker to be killed by Tilikum, Keltie Byrne. She slipped and fell into the water and was dragged away after only seconds of falling.

** Subverted, as the film explains that orcas are naturally peaceful and there has been no proven incident that they've attacked a human in the ''wild''. Yet, there have been multiple times orcas have attacked humans while in ''captivity''.
* NeverMyFault: In several incidents with orcas, even those of death, Sea World refuses to admit that it was anything other than an accident. Even in cases where trainers were dragged over and over to the bottom of the tanks, Sea World somehow found a way to blame it on them.
* NoOSHACompliance: The safety of [=SeaWorld=]'s orca trainers being a RealLife example, with critical contributions from an OSHA inspector.

* DeviousDolphin: Tilikum, but it's not hard to see why he was that way.

* RealityEnsues: Really, the point of the whole documentary (animals kept in captivity to the point of insanity will eventually cause problems) but special mention goes to Loro Parque in Spain. The trainers, who had no experience with orcas whatsoever, were suddenly sent over orcas to use in shows. Needless to say, they were entirely unprepared.

* ManipulativeEditing: SeaWorld has accused the film of this on several accounts. Some instances boil down to mere misunderstanding of how documantary films are made (such as "the interviews talk about this whale, but the footage shows that whale" when B-roll footage is used), others are more legitimate (such as footage that is implied to be Katina and Kasatka crying for their calves, where the audio is not even that of an orca).

* BlatantLies: The former SeaWorld employees talk about how they were trained to tell guests that an orca's maximum lifespan is around 35 years and that orcas live longer at SeaWorld (female orcas can live ''up to a century''; it's only the orcas at SeaWorld who die at 35) and that the floppy dorsal fin is a genetic condition common in all male killer whales (it's never seen in the wild, or at least is extremely rare - one interviewee says less than 1 percent - despite the fact that all captive males have it).

* ManipulativeEditing: There's a fair amount of this done in the movie, including showing voiceovers with footage that implies that it's footage from the time of the attack, even though it was a completely different show.

* GodzillaThreshold: When an orca is trying to drown its trainer, the other trainers decide to release a larger and more aggressive orca in order to distract the first one. It works.

* TooDumbToLive: The man who snuck into Tilkum's pen in the night and was subsequently killed won a [[DarwinAwards Darwin Award]] a couple years back.

Blackfish is a 2013 documentary directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite that investigates the death of a trainer at Ride/SeaWorld due to the actions of one of the captive orca whales, Tilikum. The documentary poses the debate as to whether it is possible or not to keep such creatures like orcas in captivity due to them being very difficult to control.

* YouBastard: Tends to imply this to any viewers who went to see the whales at [=SeaWorld=]. One can see why.

That said, [[https://seaworldcares.com/the-facts/truth-about-blackfish/ there are two sides to every argument.]]

** Sea World, for their part, have an entire page on their website countering the arguments of this film.

* AmericanCourts: Scenes involving the OSHA vs. [=SeaWorld=] case are animated.