Gratuitous gore, sketchy interviewing distracts from needed message of Seaspiracy

From Area 51 to mind-control labs to the Illuminati, it is a widely known fact that the internet never met a conspiracy it didn’t love. So naturally, when Ali Tabrizi’s documentary Seaspiracy was released on March 24, 2021, it leaped to the top of Netflix. A deep dive into the commercialized fishing industry, Seaspiracy unveils a plethora of problems that land fish on dinner plates across the world. From pollution to illegal overseas hunting, fishing, and even slavery, this documentary is not for the faint of heart. 

Listed under search terms “controversial, provocative, and investigative” on Netflix, Seaspiracy gained immediate attention, both good and bad. Top critic Natalia Winkelman of New York Times wrote that “a Netflix documentary takes viewers on a voyage around the world rooting out the many causes of ocean life decimation, but its rhetorical methods distract from its revelations,” a fair evaluation of the film. Tabrizi’s goal for the documentary is to make viewers arrive at the same conclusion as him: the best way to help the innocent marine lives being lost is to stop consuming fish. For a Netflix documentary, the added techniques of dramatic music and emotional scenes of himself that Tabrizi integrated between interviews definitely distracts from his motives. 

Aside from his filming techniques, Tabrizi’s extensive coverage and peeling back of layers of decimation within the industry creates an eye-opening experience for viewers. Sadly, its rating of TV-14 is almost disagreeable, with many scenes involving the gruesome and heart-wrenching death and mistreatment of marine life. From sea turtles to dolphins to whales and so on, there is no shortage of bloodstained footage. Tabrizi successfully pulls emotion out of viewers with these macabre scenes, offering little warning beforehand. 

Another mentionable negative when viewing Seaspiracy is that alongside its dramatization at points, there are randomly integrated animated scenes. At one point, while an ex-slave is describing his experiences on these fishing boat prisons, the film suddenly turns to a cartoon-like animation one might find on PBS, completely distracting from the reality of the man’s trauma. While the scenes do help visualize what interviewees are saying at points in the film, they can be considered both unnecessary and somewhat disrespectful. 

Threaded throughout the film are not only scenes of this marine life decimation and confusing moments of animation, but also scenes of the people making the industry run. Through multiple interviews, Tabrizi attempts to find information, even in moments where it puts his life at risk. While this shows the determination he has as a director, Tabrizi has been called out by some of his interviewees, claiming their words were taken out of context. 

For instance, “an executive with the international organisation responsible for the Dolphin Safe tuna label, Mark Palmer, has said his comments were taken out of context,” and exposes firsthand skepticism behind the credibility of Tabrizi’s documentation (The Guardian). Other interviewees claim that “Seaspiracy did a disservice to organizations doing ‘critical work to protect oceans and marine life,’” (Phillips) and that “it included ‘misleading claims’” (Marine Stewardship Council). 

With all of the controversy from interviewees, skeptics, and critics, it makes wanting to commit and stand behind the motives of Seaspiracy almost impossible. If the words of interviewers were twisted, what else was? In the film, it is stated that by 2048, the ocean will have been depleted completely of marine life, but the marine ecologist who predicted this deadline was already proven wrong by 2009 (NCEAS). 

As these untruths stack up against Seaspiracy, it is hard to trust much of the information that Tabrizi integrates into his film. 

Despite holding this weight of controversy, Seaspiracy still does an efficient job opening the eyes of viewers. The emotions triggered by seeing the impact onscreen of the fishing industry in comparison to other forms of marine life decimation gets people thinking about the danger Earth’s oceans are in, which is undoubtedly an accomplishment. Whether or not Seaspiracy manages to get viewers to stop consuming seafood in light of stopping this industrial devastation or not, the awareness it triggers after rising to the top of Netflix’s charts is valuable enough on its own. 

Although Tabrizi’s Seaspiracy legitimacy has been disputed by many, the raw exposure of his journey from issue to issue within commercialized fishing goes to show that there is an unregulated and money-driven cycle that is endangering the lives of not only marine life, but people too, and something needs to be done about it. 

By Paige Helfrich

April 30, 2021

Oshkosh West Index Volume 117 Issue 7