If you’ve checked out the “Deeper Dive” section of this website, you already know about the routine claims of marine entertainment parks about the educational value of their shows.
A classic example is to be found in this recent article in the entertainment section of the Orlando Sentinel, where “journalist” Kathleen Christiansen reports on a new experience at SeaWorld Orlando, in which kids learn how to teach tricks to an orca.
Without asking a single question about the educational value of the $85-per-person “Killer Whale Up-Close Tour,” Christiansen simply leaves it to John DeLuca, leader of SeaWorld Orlando’s education department, to characterize for her what she’s seeing: “It’s everything you would hope for — intimate, exclusive, and immersive.”
“Bringing guests this close,” he continues, “letting them see and experience the power and wonder of these incredible whales first-hand, it’s an amazing opportunity and one I’m super proud to be able to offer.”
Back at the office after the tour, Christiansen writes about how one of the trainers demonstrated behaviors taught to the orcas through hand gestures and positive reinforcement, ranging from spin around to sing and boo — my personal favorite in which the orca is ‘scared’ and then screams.”
And she continues: “After learning each sequence of movements to get the desired behavior, my group participated, rewarding Kayla with fish or ice each time she responded correctly. We even taught Kayla a new trick: boo with spinning.”
So, what exactly are these kids being taught on this “Killer Whale Up-Close Tour”?
“A delusory vision of how other animals really live in our world.”Randy Malamud, Professor of English at Georgia State University and author of several books about animals in captivity, writes that these facilities “offer an opportunity for people to observe these animals conveniently: on our own terms and in our own neighborhoods. It may be argued that this constitutes miseducation – a delusory vision of how other animals really live in our world.”
This is the bottom-line “education” that anyone inevitably receives when they get to teach inane tricks to a majestic creature who, as we sadly witnessed just a few years ago at this same entertainment park – SeaWorld Orlando – can tear a human to pieces in but a few seconds.
Malamud continues: “When we look at other animals through a frame that asserts our fantasy of dominion over them, when we alienate ourselves from them, we are proclaiming: ‘I am not an animal! You are the animal!’”
Rather than learning how we are part of the fabric of nature and the proverbial web of life, what we are taught at shows like the new “Killer Whale Up-Close Tour” is that we humans have taken “dominion” over the Earth and all its creatures. And that the only thing that might be scary about a “killer whale up close” is that she might spin around on command and go “Boo!”