Flipping the Script: Developing an Intertextual Dialogue for Dolphin Advocacy in The Cove

ABSTRACT

Dolphins and other cetaceans (marine mammals) have seen a surge of environmental advocacy in the decade since The Cove (2009) emerged. Drawing upon Western popular culture texts such as the popular film and television series, Flipper (1963), The Cove seeks to flip or reframe our cultural understanding of dolphins from friends to victims in need of help. In this essay, I argue that The Cove is an exemplar eco-doc that employs an intertextual dialogue to facilitate a multi-media outreach campaign that changed public perception of dolphins and lead to dolphin advocacy efforts. By analyzing how The Cove incorporates and challenges the interspecies friendship trope and then investigating the ways the film and outreach integrate aspects of the action-thriller plot, I demonstrate how intertextuality facilitates a revised, urgent advocacy message designed to raise awareness and generate action to stop dolphin over-exploitation.

KEYWORDS:

• Environmental advocacy campaigns
• environmental documentary
• dolphin advocacy
• intertextuality
• multi-media outreach

Acknowledgements

Katherine D. Lind would like to thank Dr. Anne Demo, Dr. Robert Terrill, and Dr. John Lucaites for their generosity and support. Additionally, the patience and generous feedback from the journal reviewers was immensely appreciated.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 According to Participant Media's CEO Jim Berk, “the whole concept for the company is to focus on the double bottom line – commercial success and social impact” (Lavine, 2014). Berk claimed that by February 2014, 3.5 million people had joined Participant's communities and its website had 7.5 million users (Lavine, 2014). Participant Media's website, TakePart, orchestrated The Cove's PSA, website, and the text messaging campaign.

2 Marine conservation became a prominent focus in the 1970s when the International Whaling Commission (IWC) made efforts to ban whaling and in 1972 the U.S. passed the Marine Mammals Protection Act. The anti-whaling campaign picked up steam after popular culture embraced the movement. In 1967 Roger Payne, a biologist, can be credited for helping to catalyze the movement after recording humpback whales “singing.” The “Whale song” as well as the slogan, “Save the Whales” became iconic into the 1970s with the establishment of new organizations (such as the American Cetacean Society) and the partnering with groups such as the World Wildlife Fund, Sierra Club, etc. that adopted the slogan. Direct action, as seen by the then-radical group, Greenpeace, also contributed to widespread attention to marine conservation in the 1970s.