SeaWorld Burglars Turn Out to Be ... Frat Pledges
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Crime & Courts from Newser
SeaWorld’s lacking in celebrity love these days: Willie Nelson, Heart and Barenaked Ladies all cancelled performances at the Orlando water park in the wake of the controversial documentary Blackfish, which exposed its alleged inhumane treatment of whales. Now Joan Jett, who already gained attention for her animal rights crusade when she was booted from a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day float, is demanding that SeaWorld stop using recordings of her music in its “Shamu Rocks” show. (After a similar request from Tommy Lee last year, the show is also prohibited from using Mötley Crüe songs.)
In an open letter to Jim Atchison, SeaWorld’s president and CEO, Jett wrote:
No spokesperson for SeaWorld, the venerable American chain of oceanariums and marine mammal parks that owns almost half of the world’s captive orcas, or killer whales, ever appears on camera in Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s devastating documentary “Blackfish.” SeaWorld is quite right to view “Blackfish” as an existential threat, since the film attacks not just the parks’ wholesome public image but also the basic morality of their business model. In a time-honored but dubious maneuver, SeaWorld declined to cooperate with Cowperthwaite (who spoke to Salon’s Daniel D’Addario this week) in any way during the making of the film but then launched a vigorous P.R. counteroffensive before the movie had even reached theaters. Most of the disputed issues in the film are relatively minor, and on the semiotic level, the meaning of all this is clear: This is what big companies do when they have something to hide and a lot to lose.
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