Tiger King or the expected lack of virtue
When the buzz surrounding the Netflix series, Tiger King, finally reached me, I was apathetic towards watching it. I didn’t think that the story about a bunch of rednecks and their tigers would connect with me. But due to the unforeseen circumstances we face due to the coronavirus and the ensuing lockdown, I finally got a chance to grab a drink and watch this documentary series with my mates during a Netflix Party. During my viewing, I realized that this series brought forth a lot of issues relevant to the society we live in today. The characters in the show are equal parts insane and flamboyant, making for some must-see television. Each episode was trying to up the craziness level and kept me on the edge of my seat.
Tiger King (not to be confused with The Tiger King, a story by Kalki) follows the real-life story of reality TV persona, presidential candidate and exotic animal breeder Joe Schreibvogel, aka Joe Exotic, and his antics as he navigates his life breeding exotic wild animals for his gains. The centrepiece of the Tiger King story is the long-standing battle between Joe Exotic, and Carole Baskin, the founder of Big Cat Rescue and a supposed advocate for animal welfare. Much like the Maharaja of Pratibandapuram in Kalki’s Tiger King, Joe Exotic saw himself as the judge, jury and executioner of his Tiger reserve. Ironically, he too was brought down like the Maharaja, trying to take pre-emptive action against a benign threat.
Tiger King may not be for everyone, especially not for animal lovers. Filled with shots of Joe Exotic and other zoo owners abusing animals, mistreating their staff and performing deranged acts, the series can be an unsettling watch. Despite this, it is a binge-worthy series worth seeking out and throws light on some seriously disturbing issues.
These animals belong in the wild
The first thing that pops out when you watch the series is the sheer number of exotic animals that are being owned and bred privately for entertainment by zoo-owners like Joe Exotic, Doc Antle and many others. Furthermore, the staff working in those zoos are not trained animal care professionals. Unlike India, where strict conservation laws exist for the protection of tigers, the US has no such counterpart leading to large-scale private ownership of big cats. Just the fact that the number of captive tigers in the US (7000) is near twice the global wild tiger population (3900) is appalling. As the series progresses, we see how tiger cubs beyond the age of three are either sold or allegedly killed. Despite the owners claiming that they see their business as a way to fund and propel tiger conservation, any sane individual can understand the profit that they make from breeding and selling these exotic animals.
Even at Big Cat Rescue, a non-profit organization run by Carole Baskin, the tiger cages seem small and uncomfortable. Big Cat Rescue differentiates itself from other zoos by not charging people for visits. They also have volunteers rather than paid staff. Their business thrives on donations from individuals and organizations on account of their social media popularity. Most of their money, however, is being put to use to fight lengthy lawsuits against other big cat owners instead of providing better care for their animals as noted by Joshua Dial, Joe’s campaign manager.
“It has to be millions of dollars. It has to be. Think of the hundreds of thousands they spent on investigating Joe. Think of their millions of followers, donors and whatnot. Think of how far that could go saving these tigers in their natural habitats. We’ve completely lost sight and lost touch of what’s really important here. And that’s the conservation and protection of the species of this planet.”
Exotification of Indian Culture
When Doc Bhagavan Antle, the director of the Myrtle Beach Safari, starts talking about how the stripes on the tiger tell a story, it becomes apparent that the man is charismatic. He is the symbol of the West’s obsession with the myth and lore of the East. In Tiger King, Doc Antle reveals that he is a follower of Swami Satchidananda and we see that all his staff have adopted Hindu names like Moksha, Bala, etc. Since most of his customers buy into the mysticism surrounding Hindu culture, Antle’s strategy is a marketing masterstroke.
Antle claims to have taken to Satchidananda’s teachings of yoga and vegetarianism to heart. The picture of Satchidananda and the MGM lion in Doc Antle’s office shows the connection that the Swami had with animals and how that has been impressed onto Antle. But just like the tigers, this seems like smoke and mirrors to lure in unsuspecting young minds onboard his cult of a female workforce.
Lack of Virtue
With a menagerie of bewildering red-necks as the main cast in this documentary, Tiger King lacks a moral compass or a character that we can truly get behind. There is Joe Exotic, who verbally abuses and fires employees for the sake of television ratings. He is in a polygamous gay marriage with teenagers who don’t seem to be capable of understanding their sexuality. The series follows his start from humble beginnings where he advocated for animal rights to his transformation into a person who he only cared about becoming famous. By the end of the series, Joe confesses that he deprived animals of their freedom. Carole Baskin, an advocate for animal protection, is portrayed as a hypocrite who spends millions of dollars on eradicating every one of her competitors. The series also repeatedly suggests that she might have killed and fed her husband to the tigers which from her demeanour throughout the series doesn’t seem far-fetched.
Jeff Lowe, a conman, takes over Joe’s zoo under the pretence of helping him with his lawsuits. He and his wife use baby tigers to lure women to their hotel rooms. Bhagavan Antle convinces impressionable women with his charisma and the exotic big cats to join his cult and coerces them into sleeping with him in exchange for better living facilities. Jeff, Antle and many others take advantage of the fact that most people become enamoured by the opportunity to play with these wild animals and use it to gain sexual favours. Then, there is Mario Tabraue, who proclaims that he was the inspiration for the movie Scarface, casually talking about chopping up bodies. Joe Exotic gifts guns to his mentally ill teenage lover and unsurprisingly he shoots himself in the head. The callousness of these individuals is on display throughout the series as they disregard human and animal life alike for gaining fame and wealth.
Although most of these characters are train wrecks, the show became immensely popular because you can’t stop looking at them. They lack common sense and virtue, yet there is an intrigue about them because their lives are vastly different from our own. Only in America do we find such fantastical characters, who exist outside the realms of normalcy, flouting their eccentric lifestyle involving guns, drugs and exotic wild animals with no worries about breaking the law.
Like any other piece of sensational media, the hype surrounding Tiger King will fade away, and we will move on to the next big series or documentary. However, if there is one takeaway from this show, it would have to be the following quote from the Tiger King himself:
“These are very dangerous animals, very beautiful animals that have a place in the world, and that’s in Africa and Asia and India, not in Oklahoma.”
