Yahoo News Netflix's Tiger King utterly fails as a documentary
Tiger King spoilers follow.
To say Netflix's Tiger King is "a bit wild" would be like saying Joe Exotic's country music career is "a bit shite". Thanks to its endlessly meme-able content and a salacious whodunnit subplot, this dramatic docuseries is now the pick of the litter, providing viewers with a much-needed respite from everything else going on in the world today.
Unfortunately, the wildest thing of all about this show is how Joe's mullet has drawn more focus than the wild animals who suffer at the heart of its story.
Soon after Tiger King first fascinated the globe, subject Carole Baskin published a post on bigcatrescue.org titled: 'Refuting Netflix Tiger King'. Here, she claims that Tiger King's filmmakers didn't set out to expose the big cat industry like they originally proposed. Instead, their goal was to be "as salacious and sensational as possible to draw viewers".
According to Baskin, the people behind Tiger King "did not care about truth," and while the activist's own motivations are rather dubious at times too, there's certainly some merit to what she says.
Between the Vegas orgies, suicide footage and those country music videos, there's not much focus on the animals.
Instead, Tiger King is far more concerned with the people who act like animals instead. Throughout all seven episodes, viewers are encouraged to sympathise with a gun-waving sociopath over the tigers he mistreated in his roadside attraction.
It's no wonder that stars like Jared Leto and Cardi B have dressed up like Joe Exotic and even (jokingly) campaigned for his freedom. Come Halloween, don't be surprised if people wear Joe's signature mullet in their thousands, ignoring the fact that he's currently serving a 22 year prison sentence for orchestrating a murder-for-hire plot.
That's not all Exotic was imprisoned for either. Speaking out on what he considers to be "one of the most appalling shows I’ve ever seen," famed tiger biologist John Goodrich told Daily Beast that the show's overwhelming focus on its characters is deeply problematic:
"If it were more focused on the tigers, ‘Tiger King’ wouldn’t have left out that Joe Exotic wasn’t just convicted of murder-for-hire, but nine violations of the Endangered Species Act.
"Federal agents found bones belonging to five tigers in the back of Joe Exotic’s zoo — tigers that he shot to death and buried there."
Goodrich also criticised Baskin's portrayal in the series, arguing that viewers shouldn't start seeing her as some kind of big cat saviour either:
"One of the problems with ‘legitimate’ sanctuaries is that some of them might be making profits off of their sanctuaries, and it gives the public the impression that they’re making some great contribution to cat conservation and protecting cats by giving money to these sanctuaries. It is not a contribution to saving big cats."
In the wake of Tiger King's success, National Geographic has spoken up about the animal welfare issues that surround the documentary, hoping to fill in the many gaps that the series fails to address.
Did you know that cross-breeding tigers and lions can cause genetic defects and health problems? Or that cub petting is incredibly stressful for the animals involved? Probably not, because Tiger King is more interested in who Joe Exotic married and who killed Carole Baskin's partner.
Questions like "Is tiger breeding conservation?", "What’s the deal with cub petting?", and "What's up with the ligers?" are all key issues that the series should have tackled head-on.
Unfortunately, Tiger King only pays lip service to this cause, occasionally throwing in facts as an afterthought before pushing the next eccentric "character" in front of the camera.
It's easy to see Exotic's draw, along with all of the chaos that surrounds him. It's often said that truth is stranger than fiction, but nowhere is that more apt than in Tiger King.
Still, it's rather troubling that the show deliberately skirts around these issues, not to mention how it leaves out so many key facts from the case.
Back in 2011, The Humane Society of the United States went undercover at Exotic zoo and filmed some horrific footage of Joe abusing his animals which can be found on their site.
While Joe and the others involved have only recently become household names, this organisation has long worked to stop these kind of cruel operations by campaigning for Congress to pass the Big Cat Public Safety Act.
Joe's niece has since spoken out against her uncle too, claiming via The Daily Mail that Exotic is "100 times worse" than the man we're introduced to in Tiger King.
Whether he really did the terrible things she claims or not, it's clear that Joe doesn't deserve to be celebrated like he is in the series.
By making a celebrity of Joe Exotic, Tiger King revels in his freakshow appeal, omitting cruel instances of animal abuse and even racism in order to create meme-able content out of his feud with Baskin.
Documentaries don't have to always change the world, but they should still inform us of what's happening to the best of their ability.
In that respect, Tiger King could have easily dug deeper into the allegations against Exotic, but the series wastes too much time on villainising Carole Baskin to care.
Despite all this, Tiger King has still managed to spark new conversations about big cat conservation, and this could even lead to positive developments in legislation later down the line. Sadly though, that's a byproduct of the show's obsession with Exotic rather than anything deliberate on the filmmaker's behalf.
Tiger King producer Eric Goode told EW that the big take away from his series is, "what one should do to protect tigers, in particular, big cats... to support more programs in the wild."
With more nuance and a genuine concern for the cause it supposedly champions, Tiger King could have actually helped protect tigers instead of just creating fun memes. Now how wild is that?
Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness is available to stream on Netflix.
Digital Spy now has a newsletter – sign up to get it sent straight to your inbox.
Looking for more TV recommendations and discussion? Head over to our Facebook Group to see new picks every day, and chat with other readers about what they're watching right now.
You Might Also Like
