April 8, 2021 — Yesterday, the sun was shining bright, and birds were chirping outside my window, and the buds were really starting to come out on the trees. It was a stupidly perfect day really, and I had to go ruin it all by watching Seaspiracy.
The Netflix documentary has been among the streaming service’s most popular films since coming out in late March, and yet nearly every marine scientist I’ve seen talking about it has wanted to see the movie sunk into the Challenger Deep, never to be seen again due to rampant misinformation. I’ll leave much of the debunking of the bad science in the film to the subject matter experts. (That includes some of those quoted in the film, who have also said they were misrepresented.) What’s just as disturbing about Seaspiracy, though, is the facile way it frames up how to solve the problems facing the ocean and society in the privileged vegan bro savioriest way possible.
The premise of Seaspiracy is that Ali Tabrizi, its director and narrator, wanted to make a movie about the wonders of the ocean, but quickly got freaked out that humans’ actions were strangling the seas. It chronicles his transition from doing local beach cleanups to getting concerned about whaling and going to the infamous cove in Taiji, Japan, where dolphin slaughters take place on the regular. That sets off a round-the-world trip and interviews with nearly three dozen experts or people involved in the fishing industry.