Trigger Warning!!!
Tiger King wouldn't be popular if we weren't all stuck at home on our couches right now. There, I said it.
I know this is a controversial and unpopular opinion, but it is the reality of the situation. Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness is the Netflix docu-series that has taken the world by storm. It has literally become a cultural obsession. No one can scroll through their Tik Tok or Instagram feeds without a Tiger King reference being made. Although I am also guilty of binging the Tiger King train wreck, I can confidently say it doesn't deserve this degree of hype. It has turned a serious issue in our country into a joke by glamorizing and glossing over real stories of abuse and crime.
I'll admit, Tiger King is the perfect show to keep us entertained during quarantine. It literally has every aspect of a great reality TV show all packed into 7 juicy episodes. This docu-series is so outrageously bizarre that it helps us escape our quarantined reality for a little bit. However, the fact of the matter is that the story is SO bizarre that if we were at our normal pace of life we would not find time to watch Joe Exotic fall off his "throne." Rather, many of us would spend more time asking questions about the animal abuse and true crime that was just glazed over. In a time where we need some humor in our lives, this show filled a void. Unfortunately, by filling this void perhaps the most important parts of this story did not get the attention they deserved.
If you are anything like me, you probably had no idea that the breeding and selling of big cats was such a prominent business in America. You also probably didn't think much about it once you got sucked into the persona of Joe Exotic and grew to loath Carole Baskin. Netflix used this docu-series as a platform for top notch reality TV entertainment at the expense of a true and pressing issue. Like it was stated at the end of the documentary, this situation is a no-win. As pointed out by one of the keepers, Saff, everyone who participated in this show is a phony animal advocate because at the end of the day not a single animal has benefited. Telling the story in such a way that eliminated and minimized the harm being done to animals is a shame. Although we, myself included, love to gawk over the outrageous story of Joe Exotic we have to put it into perspective. In my opinion, if we were not in quarantine Tiger King would not have become a cultural phenomenon. We wouldn't have fallen into the trap. Even though some of the shock factor and entertainment value may have been lost if this story were told in a more responsible way, it would have been worth it. It's time for us to start asking questions other than if Carole Baskin killed her husband.
And that's the tea.
