Review: Seaspiracy

It seems as though documentaries have become all the rage during the pandemic. Every single streaming platform has released at least one sensational documentary over the course of the pandemic that has caught the attention of the public around the world. Netflix released Tiger King and Hulu released the Brittney Spears Documentary with New York Times. Now Netflix has done it again and has released another documentary that has caught a lot of people’s attention. Reaching the number two spot on Netflix’s trending section was Seaspiracy.

Seaspiracy is a Netflix documentary released in March of this year. The documentary “examines the global fishing industry, challenging notions of sustainable fishing and showing how human actions cause widespread environmental destruction” noted the trailer.

The exciting fast-paced documentary is shot by director Ali Tabrizi who we follow through his journey to uncover the cause of ocean pollution. Tabrizi is also known for his 2018 documentary Vegan 2018.

His journey started as an investigation into plastic waste going into the oceans and how that is affecting our environment and food sources. But what his investigation quickly led to was uncovering the immense destruction of the fishing industry and how the fishing industry is corrupt all the way down to players you would least expect.

The documentary opens viewers’ eyes to how you can not always believe everything you see and how even the industries that may appear to be helping may just have a financial motive or investment.

Like many films from the same genre such as Cowspiracy (the same producers as Seaspiracy) or What the Health (also on Netflix), the director’s/filmmakers passionate arguments sway viewers in their direction without really expressing the other side of the argument. Throughout the film, they rarely talked to the other side (stating they could not reach such groups) and when they did, the interviews were often put together to only benefit the one argument.

According to a recent article by the Guardian, “representatives of both organizations [Dolphin Safe and Marine Stewardship Council] have accused the filmmakers of misleading statements. An executive with the international organization responsible for the Dolphin Safe tuna label, Mark Palmer, has said his comments were taken out of context.”

Now it is very likely that the representatives for these organizations released such statements in order to save face. But it is important to note that the impassioned style that the documentary was shot, filmed, and edited in is in order to frame the conversation in a particular way. And that way is against these organizations.

If one side is more truthful than the other is up to viewers to interpret.

The documentary does show some compelling moments and facts, however with only one side of the story being shown viewers have to go into viewing the documentary with an awareness of the conspiratorial thinking used to put this movie together.

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Sources:

NewOnNetflix (Director). (2021, March 03). Seaspiracy | official Trailer | netflix [Video file]. Retrieved April 21, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q5CXN7soQg