Tiger King ... holy eff

Haven't seen a thread on this yet. But holy shit, what a multilayered Russian honey cake of Okie weirdness. And as a reporter I can tell you this is just one tiny department of Okie weirdness.

 

Man, was just thinking of starting a thread on this. I’m three episodes in. It’s about all my friends and family have been testing about the last couple days. So many memes.

What the hell is this all about? Is it supposed to be a murder mystery? Is it about big cats? Is it about weirdos who love big cats? Is it about psychos? All of the above?

It starts with a jailhouse phone call from Joe Exotic. Did they just get lucky and film all this stuff BEFORE he went off and committed a crime? If he hadn’t done that, is this a completely different documentary?

It always amazes me how much they get people to talk on documentaries like this. I guess everyone wants to be famous.

 

Here's someone pouring water on our enjoyment:

Opinion | How the "Tiger King" craze overlooked the show's most chilling takeaway

Yes the abuse of tigers is horrible. No, I don't want to pay to play with a cub (admittedly, when I was less aware, I paid big $$ to have lunch with my family right next to the Orca pool at Sea World in SD). But don't tell me Big Cat Rescue is some great noble affair. I see Ms. Baskin profiting from the tigers as much as Joe Exotic or Doc Antle. She may not have actively birthed them but damn she's making a ton of $$ and I don't see it going to the tigers.

 

There was discussion about this in the TV Thread. But I'm all for a separate thread; I really enjoyed the series.

 

I show an edited version of this in class.

 

Watched the first three episodes Tuesday night. Joe Exotic is from my hometown but he's five years older than me, so I don't remember what he was like before he went all nuts like this.

 

I resisted watching it. But once I started, I watched all seven episodes over two nights.
Is there a single redeeming character in this? Is there anybody you rooted for?

 

I’m rooting for the virus.

 

I watched the first three episodes and I hope at one point they play:

 

If that show were released today, you wouldn't believe any of it was true. What a bonkers documentary.

IIRC, the reporter at the beginning said he wanted to do a story about that snow leopard being kept in a van and pulling that thread unraveled the whole insane story. So in the process of following that story, the murder-for-hire plot came about.

 

I found the lower-level workers pretty sympathetic - the person who got their arm bitten off, the zookeeper at Joe Exotic's, even the reality show producer seemed to realize he was in way over his head. All of the mains though - Joe, Carole, Jeff, the strip club owner - were varying degrees of awful.