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Whale Wars Review

November 8, 2008

Last night’s Whale Wars was good. I liked the show and plan to watch it regularly. It’s been edited to make it a pretty high drama show and well, I like that :)

It should also be noted that Ed, my husband, wasn’t interested in watching the show last night. He wanted to play a video game, but he caught a few scenes and he got hooked. Afterwards he remarked, “It’s a series!? Damn it, now I have to watch even more TV.”

Here’s an official Whale Wars description:

“During the 2007-2008 campaign, Animal Planet captured the intensity of Sea Shepherd’s mission and the trials and tribulations of the crew in a new seven-part, hour-long weekly series WHALE WARS, premiering Friday, November 7th at 9 PM. The series draws attention to this global conservation issue that has caused friction between several nations over the practice of whaling in oceanic territories. Highlighting both the controversial whaling trade and the tactics that Sea Shepherd and its staff and volunteers use to attempt to cripple it, the series documents the group’s three-month sojourn across the icy Antarctic waters at the far end of the globe. Each week on WHALE WARS, Animal Planet will take viewers on a powerful and adrenaline-fueled adventure to spotlight how the group takes action against these whaling operations.”

And here are my first impressions of Whale Wars after watching the first episode last night*:

• While on the ship, they eat 100% vegan. Great! If only other organizations could take this simple first step. Why are vegans, the people with clearly demonstrated commitment to animals, second class citizens at some pro-animal events and organizations?
• I appreciate and approve of the Sea Shepherd’s goals to save animals’ lives. I even approve of most of their methods,
• I like their pirate flag. It’s fun, it’s hip, it’s appropriate,
• I think this show will give people a better impression of direct action and animal rescue. They’ll see it more as rewarding, adventurous, noble work than as “terrorism,”
• They kept saying “the Japanese” instead of “whalers” or “whale killers” or some other more descriptive, less xenophobic term. Ed noticed this too. We both disliked it. It doesn’t matter if you *mean* ‘Japanese government’ or ‘Japanese whalers,’ when you say “Japanese” to refer to a small segment of Japanese people, particularly when you say it as a white person from a country that fought Japan in WWII, you sound like a bigot. It promotes comments like this one found at YouTube in response to the video above:
  

  “The Country of Japan Disgusts me whether it be from the whales they kill, to the Tigers they say they don’t kill and eat,And to the Bears they kill and Eat. The Nasty Bastards they would rather kill and make a profit and kill to eat a Delicacy rather than to preserve The animal life that’s dwindling.”

  As if the USA is any different.

• The crew is mostly composed of volunteers/ adventure seekers. This means there’s bound to be chaos. This is good for TV, bad for real life,
• Animal Planet has a special warning before the show saying the show doesn’t represent Animal Planet’s views… blah, blah, blah. I don’t see that warning before other animal rescue shows. It  annoyed me that Animal Planet felt the need to dismiss the ideals and discount the intelligence of many of their viewers
• I don’t like the “shepherd” connotation. I don’t love the mission statement:
  

  Sea Shepherd’s Mission Statement
  Established in 1977, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) is an international non-profit, marine wildlife conservation organization. Our mission is to end the destruction of habitat and slaughter of wildlife in the world’s oceans in order to conserve and protect ecosystems and species.

  Sea Shepherd uses innovative direct-action tactics to investigate, document, and take action when necessary to expose and confront illegal activities on the high seas. By safeguarding the biodiversity of our delicately-balanced ocean ecosystems, Sea Shepherd works to ensure their survival for future generations.

  Why don’t I love it? Because it’s focused on biodiversity and species, not individual’s lives. It’s not about rescuing individual animals, it’s about some nebulous ‘environment.’ It has a human supremacist perspective.

*I haven’t read any other review yet. I wrote this without being influenced by other bloggers. That means, my opinion may change :)

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