Most reviews of The Cove, even negative ones, seem to praise the art of the film while ignoring the laziness and self-righteousness of the argument.
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.
From the Japanese perspective, whales and dolphins are not particularly special. There is a significant body of scientific evidence to support the Japanese position: while cetaceans do have large, complex brains, much of their neurons are devoted to the maintenance of large bodies and energy-intensive sonar lobes. Much of dolphins's charm is attributable to their "smile"—an accident of evolution—and the fact that they live in the ocean: limited encounters with human beings (who historically have killed most animals they came across) has made dolphins noticeably social and docile.
In certain parts of Japan, dolphins are food, just as cows are food in America but not in India. Imagine if a group of devout Hindus snuck into a Chicago Jurgis Rudkus-style slaughterhouse and pieced together a documentary about how Americans were a bunch of savages for murdering holy cows, complete with graphic shots of cows's heads being cut off, spliced Michael Moore style with out-of-context footage of slaughterhouse workers laughing, complete with a Samuel Barber soundtrack. When the ensuing mob crowds the slaughterhouse and attempts to shut down business, the humble meatpackers would surely be perplexed.
Much of Western Civilization's image of dolphins as superbeings originates in the work of John C. Lilly , a 1960s counterculture physician convinced that LSD was a magical drug capable of enhancing consciousness. Lilly, who described himself as a psychonaut, used to drop acid and swim with dolphins then write "research papers" on the ensuing awesome spiritual journeys and the wisdom bequeathed by the noble cetaceans. It should come as no shock that most of the rest of the world does not have the same mystical perspective of dolphins as westerners.
The problem is not that killing dolphins and whales is inherently immoral. The makers of The Cove seem to take this as fact and jump right into a Joseph Campbell-esquire good vs. evil narrative. In the process, the filmmakers unfortunately repulse many thoughtful, potentially sympathetic viewers. The real problem with Japanese consumption of whale and dolphin meat is that the Japanese are taking more than their fair share of a resource that belongs to everybody despite unanimous censure as well as humanitarian, ecological, and public health concerns. Their reasons for doing so are poorly articulated and spurious. The consumption of cetaceans deserves treatment as a serious issue, not as the sensationalistic propaganda for which the environmental movement is sadly notorious.
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