This documentary rocked the earth, and the seas, when it was released in 2013. A look at the cruelty of animal captivity through the lens of SeaWorld's orca whale capture and breeding program, specifically of one whale Tilikum who was driven into insanity by his imprisonment. The film was so expository, so revealing of such inhumane happenings - and at a mainstream level - at SeaWorld and marine "amusement" parks worldwide, it made big waves.

After premiering at Sundance 2013, the film was distributed and broadcast in the US by Magnolia Pictures and CNN Films, respectively. In just one month, 21 million people had seen the film. In 2014, Netflix made it available for streaming. What followed was a whirlwind of physical protests, boycotts, online campaigns, legal action, and celebrities taking a stand, all against SeaWorld. By 2015, SeaWorld saw an 84% drop in income, and in 2016, announced they would finally end their breeding program, and thus the final 22 orcas they had in captivity would be the last. In 2020, SeaWorld reached a $65 million settlement after being sued for lying to and misleading shareholders.

But how really did this all happen? Laure Boissat, who built the Animal Protection Index at World Animal Protection, led a study to examine this phenomenon, later termed the "Blackfish Effect." In the study, Boissat writes, "The 'Blackfish Effect' refers to an 'exponential growth of knowledge and information.' It is underpinned by learning and 'turning on the light of truth.'" A shortened version of the study's conclusion reads as follows.

"A comparative analysis of 26 key informant interviews revealed that the impacts of Blackfish are multifaceted, complex, and ongoing, and helped us understand why the documentary was so influential. Cumulative evidence shows that Blackfish played a critical role in SeaWorld's financial difficulties, its new orca show, and the cessation of its breeding programme, acting as a catalyst for the already existing anti-captivity activism. Rather than directly causing all these changes, Blackfish benefitted from a perfect storm, which had been building up to create an appropriate cultural climate for its release in 2013. A confluence of factors, fueled by animal welfare and rights activism and aided by its distributional strategies, enabled the documentary to resonate with a wide public. Blackfish acts as a potent reminder of the capacity of nature documentaries to spark activism. The resulting 'Blackfish Effect' reinforces the notion that documentaries should be considered as one point in a continuum, with a life before and after broadcast. From its initial anti-captivity focus, the documentary created a spill-over 'Blackfish Effect' which now rallies crowds campaigning on both welfare and conservation issues…Blackfish demonstrates the power of documentaries to change public attitudes towards wild animal entertainment and animal suffering, and there is continued interest in such documentaries."

For further reading: Nature documentaries as catalysts for change: Mapping out the 'Blackfish Effect' (2021) - by Laure Boissat, Laura Thomas-Walters, Diogo Veríssimo