ironhorse_iv Review of Tiger King

Tiger King (2020–2021)

Hey you cool cats and kittens! Tiger King was truly wild!

[8/10 · 14 January 2021]

There is truly something special about the gun toting gay country singer zoo owner Joe Exotic and his feud with animal rights activist Carole Baskin that interested a lot of folks. According to Nielsen ratings, 34.3 million people watch this seven-part Netflix series directed by Eric Goode & Rebecca Chaklin over its first ten days of release. Tiger King was a roaring success during the COVID-19 Pandemic. It's perhaps that the series tells the web of betrayals and manipulations within his contacts in the wild animal collecting community both in business and in a personal level through an intricate sensationalism style. Due to that, the series felt more like surrealism reality television than true crime journalism documentary. Nevertheless, some of the things that the series brought to the table is questionable. Some people didn't like how there was an episode that focus way too much on some other eccentric zoo owner named Bhagavan "Doc" Antle. While exposing his work force polygamist like sex cult was interesting. He barely has a connection with Joe Exotic beside the surface level. Nevertheless, most people are more upset on how the series portray Carole Baskins. The whole missing person report from her past was indeed somewhat misleading narrative. After all, Carole didn't really inherit her wealth from her ex-husband's Don Lewis due to that. Baskins only gain that money after an employee try to embezzled thousands of dollars from the real estate company that the duo founded. To add onto that, having 'death or disappearance' on a will is not really that uncommon, suspicious or ominous as the makers of the documentary make it out to be. While it's true that there is wealth of theories and scenarios what could had happen to Don. With little evidence, none of them hasn't been provided true. Regardless, that diss track music video that Joe lip sync made about her feeding Lewis to the tigers despite Carole having a small meat grinder at the time had a pretty damn catchy hook. As for Baskin's non-profit business practices. It's a little more questionable especially with her selling tickets for tours and asking for volunteers over paid workers. However, the cages where the animals are stored are not as small as they appeared on screen. Some of them are quite big. Nevertheless, both episodes do seem to stray a little too far from the main subject. While those individuals were very interesting. Most of the focus should had been on the Tiger King. The filmmakers failed to investigated a lot about him such as his troublesome past as a lawman. I would have love to hear in depth what really happen to his brother. It's really puzzling that both brothers end up severely hurt in separate car accidents with one of them dying. Could it be suicide? Sadly, the series never goes into detail about the event that change Joe Exotic's life and career. Along with that, the film doesn't talk about the disturbing accounts of Joe's past relationship prior to John Finlay. There was no mention of Josh Hartpence, previous partner turn child molester/murderer that Joe threated to killed. Perhaps the biggest complain that the filmmakers left out was footage of Joe murdering animals and making outright racist claims, in order to make it easier for viewers to empathize with the titular character. Hopefully one day more of the undamaged footage from reporter Rick Kirkham's failed reality show would come into view. Until then we only got the shots that Goode's documentary crew captured and the poorly done quality ones that Joe recorded himself for his web show using cheap consumer grade camcorders with onboard microphones. Nevertheless, there are far more good footage than bad. As for editing. The series flow well despite one out of place slow motion scene of minor character James Garretson riding a jet ski to Survivor's 'Eye of the Tiger'. There was a lot of moments that foreshadow future events like the birthday shootout where Carole noticed a rip-off version of her animal sanctuary logo being used by Joe. Still the documentary could had been better if there was more on a character arch structure flow between them. Show that Joe & Baskins are similar in the way as both had suffer abuse in the past, then follow it up with them falling in love with the animals despite one of them having a fear of big cats, while the other is allergic. Then show that Joe started his zoo for good intentions such as stopping breeding laws and getting the animals back into their natural habitat; while using old film of his antagonist Baskins as an advocate for private owning of animals and breeding. Then slowly portray how both of them change for better and for worst with other footage as their money grew or diminished over the years until one is a manipulative madman while the other become a rigid activist. Then end the documentary with the idea that both sides have a point. Breeding is the most effective and intuitive way to help endangered animals yet it also serves as a double edge sword as many that do it abuse that power. That's a good way to get the conservationist message across while also tacking the class issues behind them. Either way barely anybody came out of this series looking good. Following the release, many of those featured try to clean their name in a smartphone interview follow up episode. However, it was too late as many of the private estates featured here has closed up for good including the G.W Zoo. At least, their ridiculousness personalities became notorious famous due to meme culture. So, they have that going for them. In the end while some viewers found the series hard to watch due to its diverse immoral hypocritical cast full of drug abuse, misogynist and gun violence moments. The strange world of exotic pet owners is still worth getting the cat of the bag. A must watch.