Nothing irritates me more than lame dolphin paintings and little statues and dolphin stained glass in shitty beach houses or in far flung suburban houses, always cluttering up the place with their smug dolphiny smiles.

Apparently you can trace the popularity of dolphins back to a seemingly innocent TV series that you might have heard of, Flipper. It was like Skippy except with dolphins.

So it makes me feel better that the guy who trained that famous Bottle-nose dolphin back in the day is now consumed with terrible, acerbic guilt that is eating up his life. Uh huh. You heard right. Except he doesn’t feel bad about terrible kitsch. He feels bad about the enslavement of thousands of other dolphins all over the world in theme parks and SeaWorlds. Those places didn’t even exist before Flipper.

So this guy, Ric O’Barry, sets out to stop wild dolphins being caught and enslaved, or worse, beaten to bloody pulps and fed to unsuspecting Japanese school children who think they’re eating normal, regular whale meat. Look Out! The dolphins are full of Mercury. Oh no! The Japanese are trying to trick the International Whale Commission!

There are so many things wrong with this picture. Let’s get some awesome state of the art camera equipment and military heat seeking technology and an all American eco-loving money-lashing swat team. Let’s expose these Japanese once and for all!

Posted by claire in Film

Tags: dolphins, Film, Japanese, Mercury poisoning