Netflix's Tiger King

... we haven't had a thread for this show? Fuck it, let's do it now: Tiger King

Talk about the amazing web of fuckedupness that was exotic animal owners in the USA, with our not-so-humble protagonist Joe Exotic, where we soon learn that learning big cats may be one of the least interesting thinga about these... colourful characters.

Did I mention this was a documentary? Yeah, a scriptwriter would be run out of Hollywood for trying to make a story this wild but here we are.

I need to see a study that explains why the personality type that enjoys polyamory also is attracted to operating large cat zoos. Those two things don't seem related, but... *gestures to the show*

Ego? It's not that hard. "Hey, I got tigers, that makes me awesome. You know what else makes me awesome, having a ton of women/men at my feet who are all horny for me"

Tigers are the logical extension of what gives Pitbulls a bad rap. Pitbulls as a breed are fine, loving, loyal dogs, but their appearance attracts a certain type who likes them coz owning a pitbull makes you seem like a hardass and "cool". And these assholes then proceed to train them as attack dog to enhance that image, or mistreat them, which leads to Pitbull getting a bad rep.

Big cats are the same thing dialed to eleven. And it doesn't take giant leaps of logic to see the guy who owns tigers coz it makes it look cool is probably also into doing all sorts of other things that boost his ego.

Speaking of that

Edited by Ghilz on Apr 6th 2020 at 3:41:53 PM

Including running for president in 2016.

Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.

Bingo.

Or start a cult.

The same way The Disaster Artist became a movie after the book told everyone about Tommy Wiseau, I expect a Tiger King movie in three years or so.

So, I actually interned at Big Cat Rescue in Florida a few years ago. Tiger King gave a very disingenuous portrayal of BCR. They tried to paint the sanctuary as being just as bad as Joe Exotic’s place, when in reality, it’s the complete opposite.

The show also did a terrible job of differentiating between legitimate accredited zoos versus private roadside zoos like Joe's or Doc's.

Carole Baskin, for her part, stated that she was misled about the nature of the series when she was approached.

Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.

which leads to Pitbull getting a bad rep.

I mean, that's more on him. I don't care for the image he cultivates or his music.

Although I do think he's a great producer. Just a lousy musician.

Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.

I personally think they did a bad job at portraying Big Cat Rescue too. I've been following its You Tube channel for a while and the place is nothing like the abusive, unregulated environments of Joe Exotic or Doc Antle's roadside zoos. Almost a case of bothsiderism.

Life is unfair...

Frankly, there's a lot of shady stuff with Carol Baskin and her interpretation of what is humane has a lot of holes in it.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

Not gonna lie, this series made me sad more than anything else.

Yeah, it's scandalous, well-shot, and extremely fascinating, but a lot of it just feels morally reprehensible because the main characters in it are disgustingly terrible and evil people. Doc Antle and Jeff Lowe are monsters. Joe Exotic is an abusive, racist narcissist who mistreated and an awful human being. And animals. The idea that people are advocating for his release from prison is absolutely ridiculous.

Carole Baskin gets a disproportionate amount of hate on the internet in comparison to the others (who absolutely deserve it more) but she's a con artist and hypocrite.

I just feel extremely bad for the animals...and Travis.

Edited by deuteragonist on Apr 9th 2020 at 6:13:00 AM

How to describe my opinion of this show so far?

I think Carole should get the benefit of the doubt in regards to her husband, although from the way they presented it the matter does seem kind of suspicious. The show is also short of any substantial claims against BCR aside from a few snide comments from Joe- not exactly an objective critic. She definitely doesn't deserve be hated more than Joe.

Doc, oy... I once read an article arguing, to paraphrase, that cults should be seen primarily as a sociological phenomenon, and that cults aren't necessarily always religious organizations. Doc seems like proof of that. I'm kind of disappointed he ended up being the Hufflepuff House here. He deserved to have his reputation tanked worse.

Joe is a dumpster fire of a human being. He's egotistic, spiteful, abuses everybody in his life in one way or another, breaks numerous laws in the dumbest manner possible... And the documentarians left out the parts that made hm look even worse! is there a petition i can sign to keep him in jail? i think we're better off with him there.

If they do make a movie about him, he should be played by Tommy Wiseau

Also, did they say that Carole and Dc charged hundreds of dollars for their zoos? Because those prices sound completely insane.

Edited by MisterTambourineMan on Apr 10th 2020 at 6:25:58 AM

Nach jeder Ebbe kommt die Flut.

All tour fees at Big Cat Rescue go toward feeding the cats.

The nearest zoo to me, which has good facilities overall, a paid staff, and 64 acres, charges $12 for admission for adults, $9 for children and seniors.

Nach jeder Ebbe kommt die Flut.

BCR charges around $39 for tours. Again, all of that goes toward feeding the cats, veterinary care, etc. Regarding the other points, the sanctuary is 67 acres and has relatively good facilities (the documentary only showed cropped footage of sections of the enclosures). And they do have paid staff. Volunteers and interns are unpaid, but interns get free housing, free Wi-Fi, and a weekly stipend for food, etc.

Edited by TVRulezAgain on Apr 11th 2020 at 10:16:21 AM

Okay, that's a somewhat reasonable price. I'm not a huge fan of unpaid internships on principle, but if she's providing something for them she's at least better than most people when it comes to unpaid internships.

Nach jeder Ebbe kommt die Flut.

So here's my stance on it. While we don't know for sure if Carole killed her husband, we know for a fact that Joe tried to have her killed. That and, you know, all the other shit he did.

Jason has come back to kill for Mommy.

After watching the show my consensus seems to be that, by the show's reckoning, private zoos are essentially wildlife criminal outfits so every single major figure involved is shady, just to varying levels. Carole Baskin, I'd agree, comes off as the best of the bunch because her business does come across as much more legitimate and better handled. She's just personally obnoxious due her Granola Girl thing, and that's what makes her an easy character to hate. But like by what the show goes the zoo owners are what a rogue's gallery of Animal Man would look like:

• Joe Exotic, a sociopathic gun-toting paranoiac.
• "Doc" Antle, a sex predator cultist.
• Jeff Lowe, a sex predator con man.
• A literal drug kingpin with a fondness for animals.

And even the characters outside of this circle are questionable. Rick Kirkham, the primary "neutral" voice of the show, is a reporter who made his bones working for Fox News-lite with tabloid, partisan news alongside the likes of Bill O'Reily and Rudy Giuliani (he was also a former drug addict but that's neither here nor there).

In the end I did feel some measure of sympathy for Joe Exotic but less because of him as an actual person and more because Jeff Lowe and "Doc" Antle come across as him but worse and both walk away scot-free.

I do think there's a level of irresponsibility to the show by basically giving Joe Exotic, this charming sociopath, a platform and chance to atone himself, but that's true crime for ya.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."

I mean it says something when of the exotic animal owners we see Tony Montana comes across as the least deranged.

The only people who come across as remotely sympathetic to me are Joe's employees and husbands, since they are also Joe's victims. It's all subject to the filmmaker's manipulation though.

Reading an interview with the show's producers, they don't exactly come off too well themselves. One of them started making barbed remarks to the interviewer, and the other admitted they left some things out to make Joe look better. Also, the vindictive, spiteful, egotistic employee-, animal-, and husband-abusing asshole we see in the show is Joe after they left stuff out to make him look better.

Nach jeder Ebbe kommt die Flut.

It's worthy of note one of the producers is the aforementioned yellow journalist Rick Kirkham.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."

Is there any reason to think that Rick was the one to burn down the recording studio? The only possible reason I can think of is insurance fraud, and the best argument I can think of against Joe doing it is that I'm not sure he could have come up with an effective plan.

Nach jeder Ebbe kommt die Flut.

Personally, while I don't exactly trust Rick Kirkham here as I've made clear, I doubt he would burn his own film. As a filmmaker myself projects like these are often made with 0 or insufficient insurance and losing a film/television show is almost always a net loss some way or another. Film projects, even big ones, are always some kind of gamble and almost always have more to lose than to gain (it's why it doesn't take that many bombs to sink a movie company). Equipment often has no insurance, people often aren't paid "by the book" (e.g taking a cut of the profits rather than a salary), e.t.c.

Granted, Rick is still a fairly affluent guy (I read somewhere his net worth would make him a multimillionaire) but knowing what I do about the filmmaking business I doubt it. The only part that makes me wonder is that despite the complete loss of the hypothetical tv show the netflix documentary still show as a surreal number of behind the scenes footage of the zoo. Now, Joe seems to record himself constantly, so someone would have to check where everything goes from what, but I could only see Rick burning down his own studio if he was dead sure he had the back-ups and wove them into the Netflix doc as his masterstroke after realizing this was the only way, but that would require a surreal, risky and absurdly convoluted plan (e.g betting on Netflix biting the bullet is a massive gamble) that would require Rick Kirkham being borderline precognitive and somehow pulling this off without attracting the rage of his entire film crew or leaving evidence. Sounds like a crackpot theory that I wouldn't give attention, in conclusion.

I'm overall pretty confident that Joe Exotic was behind the fire. Joe may be laughably incompetent but he's a man with a obsession with explosives and an arsenal to match, plus burning down a place is not a particularly complex task. There's also his hilariously guilty-sounding conversation with his lawyer.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."