Tiger King: A dumpster fire you can’t look away from

Whenever you can’t find anything on Netflix, documentaries remain a safe bet — I mean the story had to be somewhat interesting for them to dedicate a whole documentary to it. In the case of “Tiger King,” there’s no shortage of bizarreness. The show is bursting with unorthodox people, from bounty hunters to meth heads with each episode turning the plot more complex and mind-boggling.

The seven part docu-series on Netflix, “Tiger King” follows the life of Joe Exotic, the self proclaimed “gun-toting, gay, broke and world’s greatest wild tiger exhibitioner on the mother f-ing planet” — and he’s not lying.

Exotic runs the G.W. Zoo, breeding and displaying exotic animals for the world to see. While the practice is downright inhumane and causes a lot of controversy, he contracts a large following. His audience comprises mainly of Southern folk with not much else to do — but still, his “jungle” located smack dab in the middle of central Oklahoma draws huge crowds, further emphasizing his title of “Tiger King.”

Off the bat, Exotic’s deep-rooted country personality along with his curly mullet, 10 face-rings and tiger tattoos sparked my curiosity for the next two days. I tried spreading out my viewing over the week, but every cliffhanger left me pressing the “next episode” button. It’s not likely you will ever encounter someone as eclectic as Mr. Exotic, or for that matter, any of the people surrounding him.

Every person introduced had me subconsciously wondering how these people were actually real. I could barely hold in my comments when one of Exotic’s ex-husbands — yes, there were multiple — was speaking. Instead of listening on his testimonials of Exotic, my eyes were focused on his missing teeth and sparkling nipple piercings — which I had to suffer through every 20 minutes. Along with his ex-husbands, a good majority of his employees are freshly released convicts — mainly drug related — or random Craigslist browsers, ensuring that each character added a unique addition to Exotic’s self proclaimed “Kingdom of misfits.” Kind of endearing, right?

  Besides his lovers and workers, there are opposing forces to the Tiger Kingdom. Exotic’s main naysayer is Carole Baskin, a well known Big Cat activist. She believes she’s the tiger messiah as she tries with the strength of a lion — the joke is warranted — to ruin Exotic and all exotic animal exhibits alike in the name of “saving the animals.” Baskin’s actions become blatantly ironic, since she does the exact same thing as Exotic — raises animals to exhibit them for the public while also gaining wealth and fame. 

However, she calls herself an animal activist and classifies her exhibits as “sanctuary” — something she thinks give her the justification.

The series was an experience of truly eye-gluing feuds over the ethics of these exhibits. As Baskin is lobbying on the congressional level to end the ownership and breeding of big cats, Exotic is using all the power he can — even holding his own campaign as governor — to try and stop her. While the old saying is shown to lead to negative outcomes, the audience follows the two fighting fire with fire.

I like to think I have a pretty functional vocabulary when it comes to movie and TV plots, but in this case I have a tough time trying to label which person was the “protagonist” and “antagonist.” Both are hard to root for — Exotic breeds and exploits young tigers while Baskin does the same while being caught up in rumors of murdering her husband. Instead of pondering which person was the “good” or “bad” guy, I opted for seeing them both as morally wrong, simply acting as a passenger on the Joe-Carole express.

This feud bore some of the most laughable content I have witnessed. The jabs at Baskin are relentless — they range from a music video with a lookalike Baskin serving tigers pieces of her dead husband to a statement from Exotic about placing her head in a glass jar on his YouTube channel. Every single one was equal parts comical and increasingly concerning. I don’t know if I would be that relentless when trying to defend something I love, but it shows me just how important his zoo is to him, even if it means hiring a $3,000 bounty hunter to off her — I’m not kidding, he’s in jail now.

While a lot of the actions decalibrated my moral compass, when the final episode rolled its credits after yet another 45 minute peek into the Big Cat giants, I found myself both satisfied that I didn’t have to witness this concentrated insanity again, but also enamored in these people’s unusual lives. I recommend every person and their dogs watch the awesome train-wreck that is “Tiger King.”