Why we all loved Tiger King
"Where do you want to start? I guess at the beginning, somewhere?" Rick Kirkham asks, with a folksy Oklahoman inflection, accompanied by a glossy cowboy hat and a cigarette. His wrinkled face imbues him with avuncular familiarity — he's the weathered old man recounting an aged story to a group of guileless children. That's how Tiger King begins.
With that introduction, and all that follows, the Netflix documentary captured the world's attention, all of the (fortunate) population isolated in their suffocating homes. Tiger King exposed them to the machinations of Joe Exotic, a private zookeeper serving time for planning to murder Carole Baskin, a big cat activist and his nemesis. Tigers and lions sprawled within the footage, mutely witnessing the madness of their owners. The show was a labyrinthine road to uncover, heretofore unseen. It was a virtual tour, a heavenly escape from the mounting monotony of our confined lives.
And this tour was astutely constructed. Every episode was distinguished, each a horrifying morceau of the convulsions of the exotic animal business. One episode documents the disappearance and presumed death (perhaps murder?) of Carole Baskin's wealthy husband, in which Carole swiftly becomes an insidious figure, a conniving villain to Exotic's bumbling antihero. A different episode chronicles the mutilation of one of Exotic's zookeepers. Another covers the cultish atmosphere in the zoo of one of Exotic's associates, Doc Antle (he calls himself Bhagavan, the Hindu term for deity). No major figure emerges unscathed from scrutiny, least of all the titular character: Joe Exotic, "Tiger King."
In an act of centripetal force, everything falls into the personage of Joe Exotic. The anachronistic investigations of others’ misdeeds are dollops within the chronological narrative of Tiger King's fall from grace (whatever grace he could muster). He is the epitome of an antihero — someone for whom you harbor some partiality, despite all of their wickedness. He is undoubtedly a despicable person, but he does manage to elicit a fond fascination, from his workers, his straight husbands (yes, that's right), filmmakers, and audience. Attracting attention is his forte. He is a magisterial man — a king, of his own world.
This world is fascinating in and of itself. It is a world permeated by beautiful and formidable wildlife and unruly and deranged personalities. This novel backdrop is essential to the thrall of the documentary. It allows the primordial components of the saga (murder, betrayal, lust) to feel novel too. The audience is not placed in Verona or Moses-era Egypt, but "bumf*ck Oklahoma,” as Rick Kirkham so delicately puts it. And the filmmakers amplify it as much as possible. They superimpose country music over the episodes. Interviews are conducted in the interviewee's natural habitat, some in groomed homes, some outside a timeworn garage, some sitting in eroded folding chairs. The audience feels like they are in the fray of the country, hearing age-old stories draped over a new background.
The coronavirus has upended our lives, suppressing humanity's disposition for exploration and discovery. We are offered brief respites with books, movies, and shows like Tiger King — fertile places for indulging curiosity and inquiry. As this is our only mode of voyage at this moment, we cling on it more than ever before. In Tiger King, specifically, we cling to the beauty of the tigers, the dustiness of Oklahoma, the crazed zookeepers — the enthralling wildness of America.
Photo courtesy of Netflix.