Hey, all you cool cats and kittens.
The new Netflix documentary Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness follows several figures in the world of big cats, but it particularly focuses on Joe Exotic (or Joe Maldonado-Passage) and Carole Baskin. These two figures work against each other, with Baskin taking the side of big cat preservation (with the goal of eventually having no big cats in private captivity), while Exotic wants to continue to breed and raise big cats at his small and privately owned zoo in Oklahoma. Things turn sour when Joe Exotic is tried for attempting to take a hit out on Baskin; however, the documentary itself covers so much more than that case. Susan and Mary are trying to parse through what they’ve seen, and boy, did they see a lot. Spoilers for Tiger King to follow.
Mary: So this documentary is just a whole lot. I had two big thoughts after watching: 1) Man, I feel so bad for these cats that are being bred for profit, and 2) Who should I side with? The entire premise of this documentary seems to be that every person involved in the big cat world is indeed bonkers. Carole Baskin doesn’t seem okay, particularly in how militant she is about going after others legally, but then again, would I be okay if I were in her scenario?! No. Definitely not. What’s your take? Do you have a side, Susan?
Susan: I also had a hard time choosing a side, or knowing if there even was a better side to be on. Joe Exotic’s “zoo” seems poorly run and maintained, and it looks pretty clear that the cats don’t have as much space as they should. He also makes it difficult to side with him because some aspects of his personality — like his temper, his hunger for fame, and his frequent violent threats — make it hard to feel sympathy for him as a person. On the other hand, Carole seems downright batty, but at first, it did seem like her cat rescue was more on the side of right. But later, we find out that she used to breed big cats for profit (the thing she’s the most upset with with Joe Exotic and Doc Antle, another zoo owner, about). And the sanctuary currently operates — and profits — like a zoo, which isn’t far off of what Exotic or Antle are doing.
He’s talking about “that bitch Carole.”
Mary: One of the hot topics for this series is speculation about whether Carole killed her husband, who disappeared mysteriously in 1997. The documentary portrays Carole as the potential murderer, and speculates that she fed his corpse to the big cats the couple owned. However, I’m not sure I’m convinced that Carole has it in her to kill, and I’m not sure what this assumption does for the documentary. Joe Exotic and his compatriots are very misogynistic, rarely referring to Carole as anything aside from “that bitch.” I’m left wondering what it would have been like if Carole had been a man. Would they have had the same hate for him? Or was her femininity something that Joe also despised? I’m not sure that I have all the answers to it, but I don’t think the documentary does a great job at accurately presenting all the facts to the audience. Carole has talked about her issues with the docuseries, stating that the editing misrepresents the mission of Big Cat Rescue, and misrepresents the case surrounding the disappearance of her husband. For me, I think it’s possible he just ran away to Costa Rica, where he wanted to move anyway, and where he had a mistress. Any thoughts on this?
Susan: The popular opinion on the internet is certainly that Carole killed her late husband, Don. I, however, think it’s more likely that he disappeared willingly. There’s plenty of evidence to support this scenario, in my opinion. And you’re right about the misogyny. It wasn’t just Joe Exotic who displayed it either. Doc Antle, who also implies that Carole killed her husband, seems to be high key running a sex cult at his zoo where the women are definitely not in positions of authority or power, but more on that in a moment. Carole does come off a little...unhinged at some parts in this documentary, but I don’t know if just being weird and super into her “cause” is enough to make me think she murdered a guy and fed him to her tigers. I’ve seen enough crime documentaries to know we need physical evidence, and there isn’t any. BUT, I’d be open to being convinced otherwise, so I’m gonna need a whole documentary on Don’s disappearance. Give the people what they want, Netflix!
Carole’s not not bonkers.
Mary: Another aspect of the series that had me scratching my head was the fact that so many big cat enthusiasts were in weird polycule relationships. I’m not saying that polycules on their own are weird, and I definitely don’t have anything against that; it was the grooming and bribery that both Joe Exotic and Doc Antle engaged in that led a creepy context to their multiple partner relationships. Doc Antle recruited and groomed young women (as young as 16 or 17 it seemed) to work with his animals and then later sleep with him. He seems to have changed their names to fit his aesthetic and brainwashed them to some degree.
Joe Exotic, on the other hand, has seemingly bribed otherwise straight men to marry him, promising them cars, money, and meth in exchange for sex and companionship. I mean...what?! Why would you even want to marry a straight man?! One of Joe’s husbands (yes, ONE of the three husbands he has had in his life) left him for a secretary he was sleeping with on the side, while the other died by suicide (which is graphically described in the docuseries). There is a LOT here, and I basically need a whole OTHER series about Doc Antle’s weirdness. Does this sort of thing just happen in the big cat world?! Is there a whole other way of life we’re closed off from?
Susan: This was one of the most fascinating aspects of the documentary. I kept waiting for Carole to reveal a second or third husband because I was just certain she had more too. The grooming is definitely the weird part. One of the most interesting interview subjects in Tiger King was a former “partner” of Doc Antle’s. She revealed the name changes, the clothing requirements, the long work hours for almost no pay, and even the pressure to get breast implants. Oh, and the fact that the name they called him basically means “Lord.” Many of Antle’s partners who still worked there have been there for over a decade, which is also fascinating.
In Joe Exotic’s case, I thought his campaign manager (wow, I can’t believe he had a campaign manager) summed it up best. He said that Joe found people who needed something, and in Travis’s case, that something was meth. He explained that Joe would fill that void for them and become the only means by the young men could get what they needed. So essentially, they were trapped by addiction and manipulation. Travis’s mother broke my heart. She said that after Travis died, Joe married his next (also very young) husband, Dillon, just two months later, and then she never heard from Joe again.
Joe standing between two of his husbands, Travis and John
Mary: The docuseries has a huge cast of characters—who’s your favorite? Mine is Joe’s campaign manager-turned-worker who seemed to accidentally fall into Joe’s world while realizing the whole time that it was a bad thing. He seemed pretty down to earth and nice. And he had all his teeth!
Susan: The fact that Joe had a campaign manager just reminds me of another crazy thing that is basically just a tangent in this documentary that’s filled with crazy: Joe Exotic ran for president in 2016. And then governor of Oklahoma in 2018. And thought he was going to win. Like, what? Anyway, yes, the campaign manager, who had a great glow-up, was the one who made the most sense in this whole thing. My other favorite was John Reinke, the man who lost his legs after a zip-lining accident. He seemed to have had a pretty good grasp on reality and was able to see some of the zoo’s (and Joe’s) problems pretty clearly.
Susan: I need to talk about the murder-for-hire situation. What the hell actually went down here? Yes, Joe Exotic talked about killing Carole Baskin all the time. And I don’t doubt that he’d have shot her if she ever set foot on his property. But did he legitimately try to hire that guy to kill her, or is this more of a set-up orchestrated by Jeff Lowe, his felon friend, and the guy with the crazy-as-hell hair who runs strip clubs? I was confused with all of the he-said, he-said.
I also just want to say that I feel like the timing of the release of this documentary with everyone being basically on lock-down in their homes, has almost given it a unique kind of internet glory that I don’t know it would have otherwise gotten. For one thing, everyone is watching television right now because there’s not as much else to do. And for another, the world outside is so chaotic right now, that watching something this chaotic on a smaller scale almost feels...cathartic? I don’t know how to explain it. Somehow it was the very weird thing that we needed at a very weird time.
Honorable mentions for other crazy things that happened in this documentary
Joe’s music videos, Joe talking about his husband’s balls during his eulogy, Joe’s eyeLID piercing that’s hanging on by a miracle, how casual everyone was when an employee got their arm ripped off by a tiger, Joe Exotic TV, Joe’s magic show, the fact that Carole has millions of YouTube subscribers. The list goes on.
What did you think was the weirdest thing about Tiger King? Tell us in the comments!
