Everything on The Cove

Of all the work I've done for The Inductive, it seems the most popular has been my review of The Cove. As The Inductive pretends to be a conversational, critical, non-partisan online magazine, we would like to allow commentors to say whatever they desire in hopes that it will advance our public conversation.  Basically, this means we will never erase any comments (unless they're spam).  We do ask, however, that commenters remain civil, and try not to bring up debates that have been "resolved"; that is, we kindly request that commenters read everything we have on a particular topic before commenting. 

In the case of my review of the Academy Award winning documentary The Cove, however, I have to take responsibility for poor site layout as the direct cause of a general incoherence on the part of commenters leading to Joe and I repeatedly explaining the same point.  Since The Cove as a topic encompass Japan (Dispatches from the Wild Wild East), culture (the generally neglected Art of Leisure), and public policy (Specific Facts), posts on The Cove have appeared in three out of four sections of our online magazine, roughly based on whatever focus each specific post seemed to have at the time.  So here, to clarify everything, I'd like to present a discussion map of sorts:

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Even More on The Cove

The Cove continues to take the western world by storm.This post was inspired by the conversation on www.alllooksame.com about the merits of eating dolphins and the arguments used against this by the documentary film “The Cove”, a film which I excoriated in my review for this website.

The proprietor of www.alllooksame.com, Dyske Suematsu, suggests that the film’s argument that the Japanese must not be allowed to eat dolphin meat comes from a primarily ethnocentric worldview, and is ignorant of Japanese cultural norms.  In particular to this is the view on species of the Shinto religion/philosophy, that there is no hierarchy of species and that all life must be equally respected. 

However, I feel that there are arguments from religion (both of Japan and elsewhere), self-interest, humanism, mathematics, and postmodernism that suggest we should not eat dolphins.  This debate is of course guided in the simple fact that in the state of nature, life consumes life to survive. 

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More on The Cove and Japanese Education

I wrote this in response to comments on my review of The Cove.  I'm posting it here as well because it highlights one of the two major tightropes English teachers in Japan have to walk: that of effectively teaching English while satisfying superiors.

George,

Thank you for your insightful comments. I agree with you that elementary schools and junior high schools in Japan are two different animals. I have a lot to say about the positive aspects of the Japanese education system and public health especially in my blog on this website, which I hope you'll read and comment on.

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Tim Rogers vs. Freddie deBoer

Recently Gawker Media videogame columnist Tim Rogers wrote an unenlightening screed for Kotaku about the elements of Japanese culture he finds distasteful, prompting accusations of Orientalist racism from Freddie deBoer.  The internet has been aflutter with amateur anthropologists (including myself) throwing in their two cents in the form of comments.

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Best Documentary Omphaloskepsis: The Cove

Dan Marino should die of gonorrhea and rot in Hell.BBC News reports that residents of Taiji are not happy that The Cove won Best Documentary at the Academy Awards, and obviously neither am I.  The film beat out less frivolous documentaries about Burma, food safety, Daniel Ellsberg, and Central American children who seek better lives in the United States respectively.  Not to sound callous, but who gives two shits about dolphins?  Not that the Best Documentary Academy Award is or should be about engineering social change or inspiring political action, but the fact that the Cove won shows just how full-of-shit and self-indulgent the environmental movement has become.  Avatar going down in flames in no way makes up for this.    

The Cove and the Self-Righteousness of Activists

The Cove, a 2009 documentary directed by former National Geographic photographer Louis Psihoyos, boasts an enviable collection of awards and critical acclaim.  The film won audience awards at Sundance, Hot Docs, Silver Docs, Sydney, and Maui, Golden Space Needle in Seattle, Best Feature Documentary in Galway, Best Theatrical and Best in Festival at Blue Ocean, Truly Moving Picture at Heartland, Best Feature Film and Best Storytelling in Nantucket, Winner at Newport Beach, Jury Award in Traverse City, and was selected Best Documentary by the National Board of Review, L.A. Film Critics, and New York Film Critics Online.  The Cove has a 95% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an average score of 82 on Metacritic.  It has been shortlisted for a Best Documentary nomination for the 2010 Academy Awards.  In the words of Metacritic, that is "universal acclaim."

The film's subject is dolphin hunting in Japan: a group of American activists sneak into a private cove used by local fishermen to trap migrating dolphins and film the subsequent slaughter. Yes—that’s right—the Japanese hunt and murder/death/kill cute little baby genius dolphins like Darwin from Seaquest.  While South Park devoted an entire episode to ripping the documentary, Michelle Orange of Movie Line puts it best:

How much of this (The Cove) should we believe? As a piece of propaganda, The Cove is brilliant; as a story of ingenuity and triumph over what seems like senseless brutality, it is exceptionally well-told; but as a conscientious overview of a complex and deeply fraught, layered issue, it invokes the same phrase as even the most well-intentioned, impassioned activist docs: Buyer beware. 

Japanese consumption of whale and dolphin meat and Japan's general spurning of International Whaling Commission resolutions are extremely complex issues that should be examined soberly.  Unfortunately, the activists in The Cove—like many of the louder, more self-righteous environmentalists—skip the part where they take time to consider the multifaceted, layered issue and rush blindly in convinced the world is comprised of evil, greedy men for them to battle.  Even more unfortunately, this attitude turns off many naturally skeptical people (the support of which the environmental movement sorely needs) from real and important causes.

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