With all of us being locked away under quarantine, we’re scrambling to find something meaningful that can occupy our time. And it turns out that we didn’t have to look very hard because Netflix swooped in and dropped what I consider the MVP of the quarantine so far.
Tiger King is a documentary series that follows an oddball group of people through numerous plots that can each fill up their own movie, and at the center of it all is beautiful majestic big cats. These are my five reasons why you need to watch Tiger King right now.
The king, the myth, the legend, if I had a genie that could grant me the wish of creating a human, I now know I would tell him to create a gun-toting, country singing(more on this later), zoo owning gay polygamist who dabbles in meth and has a bleached mullet. We need more Joe Exotic’s in this world; he’s so colorful that even my eclectic intro couldn’t fit all of his bizarre character traits.
Throughout the documentary, Joe is at odds with Carole Baskin, a self-proclaimed big cat rights activist, and this conflict is the source of most of the drama in this story. Joe is also one of those people who thinks that everyone thinks Joe is as great as Joe thinks he his, and this hubris led him to stream out a live talk show every night to an audience that averaged 40 people.
What Joe did on this talk show is the best part, he would rant for hours making endless threats on Carole Baskin’s life, and they would all be accompanied by some dramatized performance. If Joe is threatening to put snakes in Carole’s mailbox, he’s showing off a bunch of snakes on the show. If Joe is threatening to shoot Carole in the head, then he unloads a whole clip into a dummy that’s dressed like Carole.
I could go on and on listing things that I think make Joe Exotic one of the most interesting people I’ve ever seen, and after watching the documentary, there is certainly more you can dig up on him that was left out. Still, it’s also important to note that he is a pretty bad dude, and I don’t want to praise him too much. I can say without giving too much away, that his treatment of his tigers alone was enough to make me cringe and second guess the love I felt for him.
After having said Joe Exotic is a bad dude, there is still one thing about him that has to be mentioned. That is his country music career. Throughout the documentary, we see snippets of Joe’s wacky but glorious music videos for songs that he made to commemorate different events in his life. The two clear hits are “I Saw a Tiger” which is a love letter of sorts from Joe to his cats, and “Here Kitty Kitty” which is yet another threat to Carole Baskin’s life, done through a song form.
I suppose this detail is a bit of a spoiler, so be aware, but to keep up with the trend of Joe Exotic not being the hero I thought he was, we found out after the documentaries release that it isn’t Joe singing these songs. He had hired some local artists to write and record the songs for him, only for him to steal the songs and claim they are his own. And while these songs still are great, they just don’t feel the same knowing it isn’t Joe belting out the tunes.
In Tiger King, there are three main camps, Joe Exotic in Oklahoma, Carole Baskin in Florida, and Doc Antle in South Carolina. Doc Antle, also known as Mahamayavi Bhagavan Antle, is another breakout personality from Tiger King, and he has the sickest ponytail and facial hair I’ve ever seen. He’s also the animal trainer behind many of the animals in our favorite childhood movies, such as Ace Ventura and Dr. Doolittle.
But the best way to explain Doc Antle is by comparing him to subjects in another documentary. Wild Wild Country, also on Netflix, shows the rise and fall of an Oregon cult with eastern roots and free-spirited beliefs, led by one Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh, later known as Osho.
Doc Antle’s setup in Myrtle beach almost feels as if he read some of Osho’s books, watched Wild Wild Country, and then recreated the same environment in South Carolina, but with way more tigers.
As I said, there are numerous intertwining plots in this series that can each fill up their own movie, and we’re honestly quite spoiled to have gotten them all in one package. But what would make us even more spoiled is if we could get an extremely well-done movie remake of this documentary, where we can see the juicier details that are explained to us, actually unfold in front of our eyes. And sometimes, the best part about watching a biopic is seeing some of your favorite actors get lost while playing real-life people.
This fantasy I just described has already taken over the internet, and it was something I was thinking about while watching Tiger King for the first time. The most popular castings on the internet are for David Spade or Dax Shepard to play Joe Exotic, and Jim Gaffigan to play Doc Antle. All of these castings would be perfect, and I would even like to throw in my own idea, which is Ana Gasteyer playing Carole Baskin.
Whether watching Tiger King on your own or with a group of friends, try making your own cast list just to get an idea of what your live-action Tiger King movie would look like.
The stories in this documentary have a lot to do with manipulation, and people just getting sucked into situations that they didn’t see coming. The blame for these occurrences is often tossed onto the tigers, lions, and leopards. Almost every person in the documentary says that just being in the presence of these beasts is enough to put you in a trance, and it’s even worse when you hold them.
Most of the subjects in this documentary have had their lives turned upside down by the events that unfolded. And they probably all could have been avoided if it wasn’t for this addiction to being around the cats. The cats are never to blame, though; they’re honestly the victims in almost every event that occurs. And most of the documentary subjects realize that even the ones who are no longer in the big cat game, you still see their homes all over decorated with cat-themed items.
There is something special with these animals, and it’s evident throughout the whole series. And there are moments where it’s heartbreaking to see the lives some of these cats have to live. But some moments are just as joyful where we see them being treated like kings. And I don’t know what the answer is to the dropping numbers of these animals or horrible environments they are kept in, but I just want to see them thrive.
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