“Why Animals Die in Cages” — Considering justice in ‘Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness’

Eric Langberg

This past weekend, Netflix released their latest true-crime docuseries, Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness. (Yes, I put the Oxford comma back in the title; no, I won’t apologize). The series tells the wild story of Joe Exotic, a mullet-wearing, gun-toting gay polygamist who owned a big-cat zoo in Oklahoma and who went to jail for allegedly trying to hire a hitman to murder Carole Baskin, the eccentric owner of a rival big-cat sanctuary. Much of the world has been staying at home since the series was released thanks to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, so the show’s resulting popularity is a no-brainer; it’s full of twists and turns and strange, bizarre characters practically begging to be tweeted about. Every episode contains multiple shocking, weird events. It’s downright addicting.

However, calling it a “true-crime” series is a fraught description, especially given the presence of “murder” in the show’s subtitle. So much of the “crime” that happens in the show is rumored or suggested rather than discussed outright, and the crime that provides the series hook — the aforementioned plot to have someone murdered — is itself full of questions and doubt. So it’s interesting, then, to consider Tiger King in the context of Netflix’s other…