LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Everyone has been working from home or self isolating during the pandemic, which means a lot of people are probably bored at home trying to find the next thing to watch.
And it seems everyone on the internet has all at once found Tiger King, the truly bizarre documentary series from Netflix that chronicles the life of Joe Exotic and his obsession with big cats and hating Carole Baskin.
But why is everyone so fascinated with this documentary?
We're gonna give you five reasons why before you decide whether you want to watch it or not.
Joe Exotic
Joe Exotic is an open book in this documentary. He is a gay man in Oklahoma who owns a private zoo full of big cats and other exotic animals.
But what makes Exotic entertaining to watch goes beyond the trainwreck that is his life. Despite always making the bad decision, he seems to be a truly magnetic person who pulls in people for reasons we still don't fully understand (beyond manipulating people with the lure of drugs and dangerous animals).
He is a walking controversy and that makes the perfect subject for a documentary.
Carole Baskin
And Exotic is juxtaposed with Carole Baskin, who is a conservationist that is a whole different type of magnetic character.
It is clear she cares about these big cats, but the documentary shows a woman that is kinda hypocritical at times and sometimes ruthless on her mission to end private zoos like the one owned by Exotic.
She may be on the morally right side of the story, but what we see in the documentary presents Baskin without taking a side.
Big Cats
What is most eye opening about the documentary is that it shows a world of big cats being exploited through these private zoos.
But that exploitation sort of takes a back seat due to the larger than life people that run these private zoos and conservation efforts.
From Doc Antle to Jeff Lowe, each new person in the documentary further complicates the morals of the documentary, which makes it even more bonkers as it goes on.
The crimes
There's a lot of bad people in this show, but the main crime beyond Exotic's murder-for-hire plot and animal abuses is what happened to Baskin's ex-husband who disappeared?
No one really knows for sure what happened, but in the documentary Exotic is obsessed with the idea that she killed her ex-husband.
He doesn't really have proof, but the mystery around it and Baskin's standoffish behavior in the series really lends credence to that mystery.
The people
With all that said, there are some good people in the show!
Some of Exotic's employees just seemed like people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
So, while the focus may be on the grimy world of Joe Exotic, just remember that a woman got her arm chewed up by a big cat and still went to work a week later!
It's hard to say if this was a good documentary and whether it fairly represented the people in it, but what is clear is that it's an entertaining thrill ride about big cats and the people who own them.
