By Annica Wu
Netflix’s newest true crime documentary, “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness,” directed by Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin, follows the life of eccentric zoo owner Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage, better known as Joe Exotic. This is the perfect show to binge during quarantine. Filled with action, vulgar language and tigers (of course), there is never a dull moment.
Exotic rose to popularity by breeding tigers and holding cub pettings at his roadside zoo, Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park (G. W. Zoo) in Wynnewood, Oklahoma. His feud against Big Cat Rescue owner Carole Baskin, who strove to shut down roadside zoos and combat animal abuse, caused much of the drama in the show.
The series follows the chaotic nature of the constituents of the big cat industry: Exotic, with his bleach-blond mullet, country music career, 2016 presidential campaign, two husbands, and most importantly the over 700 animals, including 230 tigers and 50 species including bears, baboons, leopards and lions and many hybrids at the zoo. The first two episodes, although wild, only show the tip of the iceberg.
Episode three dives deeper into the world of Excotic’s biggest rival, Baskin. The episode outlines Bakin’s alleged murder of her husband, self made multimillionare Don Lewis. Shortly after Lewis’s disappearance, Baskin wrote all of his estates under her name. Exotic is convinced that Baskin is a murderer, claiming that she fed him to the tigers.
The rivalry heightens when Exotic hires a hitman to kill her. The plan, although unsuccessful, spirals Exotic and Baskin into a million dollar lawsuit that causes Exotic to lose his zoo to new owner Jeff Lowe. Exotic’s desperation eventually caused him to be sentenced to 22 years in federal prison over charges of animal abuse.
Every single person involved with the big cat industry is either a polygamist, operates their zoos with cult-like practices, or both. The chaos of it all seems like it should exist on another planet but, nevertheless, is entertaining to watch as one can never predict what is about to be revealed.
Critics say the docu-series fails to address the most pressing issue: animal welfare. According to the Conversation, “The best educated guess puts the number of tigers at around 10,000 [in the United States…], In comparison, there are fewer than 4,000 tigers in the wild – down from 100,000 a century ago.”
However, the point of the show was never to protect the animals; it was to show the personalities behind exotic animals in the United States. In spite of that, there is no doubt that the show has brought to light the issues of animal rights in America. Hopefully, the show sparks legislative action to combat this growing problem.
