WilsonFilmAnnotation1

Sharkwater, Rob Stewart, 2007.
 * Adrienne Wilson** **Film Annotation** **Sharkwater﻿**
 * 1. Title, director and release year?**

The documentary Sharkwater seeks to correct misconceptions and attitudes about sharks while at the same time exposes the cruel acts involved with shark hunting and the black market shark fin trade. The film’s central argument was that sharks need to be protected and international law needs to be policed. The shark’s very existence is crucial since they are positioned at the peak of the trophic cascade in ocean ecology. A disruption or elimination of shark populations will cause an imbalance of ocean life and the over-consumption of plankton by fish and other creatures preyed upon by sharks. In this way it is revealed that sharks are the pillars of the seas and are the key components of the ocean’s survival.
 * 2. What is the central argument or narrative of the film?**

Sharkwater relies heavily on emotional appeal to deliver its message. It tells a compelling story through the true experiences and adventures of the filmmaker to illustrate to the audience that its information is real and relevant. Scientific information is provided either through interviews or by statistics at interval moments (“more people die from vending machines than from sharks per year”).
 * 3. How is the argument or narrative made and sustained? How much scientific information is provided, for example? Does the film have emotional appeal?**

Sharkwater draws out several sustainability problems: political, legal, informational, cultural, and ecological. Politically, it mentioned how there was no governing body to regulate international law, international fishing practices, or (at the time) no laws protecting sharks. On the legal side of things, Rob Stewart showed how finning shark fins had exploded into a mutli-billion dollar black market industry. Poor countries and territories like Costa Rica were also shown to be corrupt, being paid off by shark moguls to let them catch sharks in protected areas. When the Sea Shepherd tried to stop a boat of fishermen catching sharks illegally, instead of arresting the fishermen, the Coast Guard came after Rob Stewart and the crew of the Sea Shepherd.
 * 4. What sustainability problems does the film draw out?**
 * Political? Legal? Economic? Technological? Media and Informational?** **Organizational? Educational? Behavioral? Cultural? Ecological?**

Much of the film was also centered on the informational misconceptions the general public has towards sharks in general – namely from the misinformation that comes from Hollywood and films like Jaws. The dangers of shark bites have been extremely caricatured and Rob makes several points to show that sharks are completely different animals from how the average person perceives them to be. A cultural sustainability problem that is mentioned in the film is the Asian custom of eating shark fin soup, which created the black market trade for shark fins in the first place. Not only is shark fin soup a status symbol, many people mistakenly think that sharks don’t get sick and think that eating shark will make themselves invincible to the same diseases (this is wrong, of course). Finally, Sharkwater makes an ecological observation that sharks, as a top predator, are extremely influential in ocean ecosystems. For example, they control fish populations that then control plankton levels – which affect the planet’s carbon dioxide levels (the ocean is the biggest carbon dioxide sink).

The footage of sharks having their fins sliced off and then pushed back into the ocean still alive made me really want to do something about this problem. There was also footage of Costa Rican kids playing in shark’s blood and not seemingly realizing the magnitude of the fish’s death – obviously placed there for shock value. The real-life example of the authorities trying to arrest the Sea Shepherd crew instead of the illegal fisherman also convinced me to the Sharkwater side of the argument as the film showed us the corruption first hand. Also, the interviews with the general public and how they all thought sharks were nasty creatures made me very upset, as I do like sharks and hate that they were being misunderstood.
 * 5. What parts of the film did you find most persuasive and compelling? Why?**

There were several parts in the film where I felt that the director, Rob Stewart, was focusing more on his heroism than on the message he was trying to convey. This was most notable in the scenes where he contracted the bacteria known as flesh eating disease and was hospitalized, helpless to help the sharks. In another scene he claimed that the shark mafia was specifically after him, for the footage he took – both scenes could have easily been misinterpreted to be pretentious, even though they were true.
 * 6. What parts of the film were you not compelled or convinced by? Why?**

The audience this film should probably be shown to would be residents of places like New York, California, Costa Rica and Singapore – places where shark fin soup is known to be served, or has some tie to the shark fin industry. This way they can be inspired to take the appropriate actions via boycotting shark products or urging the government to change laws in favor of this cause. I find it unlikely that someone in the Midwest USA, Kansas, for example, would find much relevancy in the film unless they were just generally interested in ocean life, or were to be corrected on how people perceive sharks.
 * 7. What audiences does the film best address? Why?**

It is possible that more scientific evidence and studies could have been featured to illustrate the ecological role of sharks more clearly, but I realize that many viewers may not care for it. A featured scene of other organizations besides Sea Shepherd actively doing things to fix the problem may also have been welcomed, as well as further instruction on what the viewers could do.
 * 8. What could have been added to this film to enhance its environmental educational value?**

The film suggests people boycott consuming shark fin soup and other shark products (including necklaces and home décor like shark jaws), to write Congress (or your country’s governing body) to pass laws against shark hunting and finning, and to volunteer at shore protection agencies.
 * 9. What kinds of action and points of intervention are suggested by the film? If the film itself does not suggest corrective action, describe actions that you can imagine being effective.**

This film has compelled me to seek out information on the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to look up and possibly be involved in more of their projects. Besides sharks, they have led campaigns to stop the slaughter of seals. They are mostly known for their whale campaigns, against Japanese fisherman in Pacific and Antarctic waters (they have their own television show called “Whale Wars” that features their adventures. I’ve also done more research on the topic and discovered that California very recently signed a bill that would ban the sale, trade and possession of shark fins in the boundaries of California to protect the world’s dwindling shark population. This means that California, the largest market for shark-fin soup outside of Asia, has finally joined US territories like Hawaii, Guam, Washington, and Oregon in closing off Pacific ports in the U.S. to the shark fin trade.
 * 10. What additional information has this film compelled you to seek out? (Provide at least two supporting references.)**

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