A sentimental summer children’s movie that opens nationally Friday already is in the middle of a tug of war between animal rights groups and places like Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium, which keep collections of whales and dolphins.
“Free Willy,” is a PG-rated film billed by its makers as a “heartwarming family drama.” It is a gentle, non-violent fantasy about a boy and a 7,000-pound killer whale on display at a rundown amusement park.
The film has the same delicate tone of youthful self-discovery as earlier, classic kid/animal stories such as “Lassie Come Home” and “The Black Stallion.”
But Richard O’Barry, one of the trainers who trained dolphins for the television series “Flipper,” said he believes the film will be a turning point in the history of animal rights.
“I think this (“Free Willy”) is the single most important event we’ve seen yet in the struggle to stop man from using large marine mammals for their own entertainment,” said O’Barry, now a militant animal-rights activist who said he was arrested seven times last year trying to stop wild dolphin collections.
O’Barry has campaigned against capturing and keeping large marine mammals since the 1960s. In 1970, he started his own animals rights group, the Dolphin Project.
“I think it would be fair to say that the marine park in the movie and the Shedd Aquarium represent the worst and the best of the facilities in the world that keep captive whales and dolphins,” he said.
“But both, in reality, are bare, chlorinated boxes that are cruel to the animals inside. I’m not opposed to the Shedd Aquarium. It’s a wonderful institution. It’s just that one thing (its marine mammal Oceanarium collection) I’m opposed to. People are going to go there and protest the whales being kept there, and it’s going to happen because of Willy.”
The Shedd’s Ken Ramirez, head trainer for marine mammals at the Oceanarium, said he saw “Free Willy” in a special screening a few weeks ago and liked it, but had a far different interpretation of it than O’Barry.
“It wasn’t a movie about whether zoos and aquariums should exist,” Ramirez said, “but about animal welfare and taking care of them properly.
“Protesters are going to use it as a vehicle to promote their cause, but we will be able to use it to promote our cause too.”
The movie, was filmed with a real killer whale at a run-down marine park in Mexico City, now closed for renovation. It shows the fictional whale, Willy, being treated badly at a poorly maintained, understaffed facility. The story revolves around a boy’s struggle to foil the park’s villainous owner, who wants to kill the whale in an insurance scam.
“It’s not real; it’s a Hollywood depiction,” Ramirez said. “A facility like that could not exist in this country because laws are so strict here.
“If a park like that existed, we at the Shedd and other facilities such as ours would be condemning it, and it would be shut down quickly. That’s why it wasn’t filmed in this country. Our laws wouldn’t condone its existence.”
Though it may not beat “Jurassic Park” in the annual summer blockbuster sweepstakes, “Free Willy” is being talked about in the industry as being the probable “sleeper” hit of the summer, a surprise big moneymaker.
Devoid of blood and guts, “Willy” sounds like the antithesis of a hit movie.
But the film touches a number of society’s current hot buttons, including homelessness, family values, New Age Native American spiritualism and cruelty to animals.
It is the story of a lonely, homeless, delinquent boy, sullen and antisocial, who gets caught one night spraying graffiti on the whale pool of a run-down marine adventure park.
A tough but understanding cop first takes him to tough but understanding foster parents. Then he drops the kid off at the amusement park to undo his spray-painted damage, under the supervision of a Native American who is the park’s resident handyman.
While scrubbing the graffiti off the underwater viewing windows, the boy begins to form a warm, understanding relationship with the pool’s sole occupant, Willy, a 7,000-pound killer whale.
The boy discovers the park’s greedy owner has plans to kill the whale in a staged accident to collect $1 million in insurance. It should not be difficult to fathom the final plot turn, the one giving the movie its “Free Willy” title.
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Commercially calculated as the plot line might sound, the film is well-crafted and works surprisingly well.
“It has scored some of the highest audience reactions we have ever had at the studio,” said Rob Friedman of Warner Brothers studios, which made the film. Friedman, president of worldwide advertising and publicity for the studio, said reaction to the movie was measured at various sneak preview showings around the country.
Friedman insists the movie’s message is not against keeping whales in captivity. It’s just against badly run marine mammal facilities and against capturing older, bigger whales that will be traumatized by captivity, he said.
“The movie is very clear about this being an aquarium that is totally inappropriate in size and maintenance to be keeping a killer whale,” Friedman said. “We are very friendly with Sea World (the San Diego aquarium that keeps killer whales). People at Sea World have been favorable to the film.”
But the animal rights issue certainly appeared to weigh heavily with the filmmakers. As part of the final credits, audiences are told that the whale portraying Willy was treated humanely under strict, outside supervision.
And the credits also suggested that those in the audience who want to help whales could call 1-800-4-WHALES.
That number belongs to Earth Island Institute, a San Francisco-based environmental group. Callers get a message about whalers who are “murdering whales for profit and greed.”
The message condemns commercial whalers in Norway and Japan, who recently announced they would ignore an international whaling ban and begin hunting whales again this summer.
Callers who leave their names get a packet of information, including form letters to send to politicians protesting the resumption of whale hunting. Callers are also urged to write to Congress, asking for new national laws prohibiting “captures of any whale or dolphin for the purpose of display.”
“We’re going to use that (message) to educate people about the issues,” said Mark Berman, spokesman for Earth Island.
“There shouldn’t be anymore live captures of whales for display,” Berman said. “And it’s time to let some of these marine mammals (already in captivity) go back to nature.”
But Ken Ramirez at the Shedd said he thinks “Free Willy” will be good for the Shedd and other marine parks displaying whales and dolphins.
“It’s going to get people emotionally involved,” he said, “and we think that will send people who want to learn more to us. This film can only increase people’s interest in marine mammals, including, we think, our whales and dolphins. Any film that addresses the plight of wildlife is good.”
So “Free Willy” certainly won’t end the argument, but simply magnify it. It’s hard to think of Lassie being the lightning rod of a controversy, but then that lovable animal celebrity was the product of a simpler time, before animals had rights.