The Tiger King: What Did I Watch?

So when I saw The Tiger King on Netflix, I wasn’t really all that interested. Then I saw all the memes about it and I said to myself  “I need to check this show out” The power of the internet is a crazy thing.

There will be spoilers, so I am warning you now.

First thought before I started. The cover art and description on Netflix, made it look like it was going to be about a guy who owned tigers and was also a huge crime murderer. I thought he was doing this for years and no one could prove it and then one day they caught the mastermind and this is his story.

Nope. It was not like that at all. It  was a bootleg version. 

The more I watched the show, the more confused I became about what was actually going on. There are so many things happening in this show it is like a new layer every episode. So after I began the first episode, I realized how wrong I was about the show. It was pretty much, not what I thought it would be. Below are the 8 things or 8 layers I think we’re crazy in the show in no particular order.

Layer 1:You watch the show and you see Joe Exotic and he is someone you can never forget once you see him. He is over the top and quite a character. Joe Exotic has a zoo full of tigers and he likes to think of himself as the tiger king.  He also had a show on the internet and you soon find out that he hates Carol Baskin. You can not go a minute without him telling you how much he hates her. 

Layer 2: We then meet Carol Baskin. She says she loves tigers and is trying to stop Joe from mistreating them and breeding them. Well that sounds nice. She wants to save the tigers. So I thought Carol Baskin is the good guy. Well then you learn she might not be as innocent as you might think. We learned that her previous husband vanished and was never found again. This man was rich and apparently he was planning on leaving Carol. 

Maybe he did up and disappear without a trace but then I thought why would he leave all his money? The part that got me was his will. On his will it said “in case of my disappearance.” The lawyer they interviewed said he had never seen anything like that. Who thinks that they will disappear? I started to question what really happened to her husband. Do you know what Joe Exotic thinks? He thinks that Carol fed her husband to the tigers. He even wrote a song about it. 

Layer 3: Yes, Joe Exotic is a country singer. He has a couple albums and he wrote a song about Carol Baskin feeding her husband to the tigers. He even had a look a like to play Carol Baskin. The person looked like her so much I thought it was her for a second. 

Layer 4: You do meet some other people who own tigers and other big cats and a lot of them are against Carol Baskin. She wants to shut them down because of how they are treating their tigers. Another person we see a lot in the show is Doc Antle. He owns a zoo with big cats. We then find out that these people working for him are all practically in a relationship with him. He has like 5, 6,7, or who knows how many girl friends. Then we see Joe Exotic has 2 husbands.  Do all people that have big cats also have multiple partners?

Layer 5: You then find out that both of Joe’s husbands are straight. I am like how did he get them to marry him? Everyone who worked at the zoo knew that they were both straight. 

Layer 6: You find out that the people are working 12hr days. They get paid on average $100 a week. Some do not get paid at all. This point I started to try to figure out what I was watching. Did I step into an alternate reality. How is all of this happening?

Layer 7: Joe decides to run for president. Like why? And yes, he really did. He ran for president and lost and then ran for governor. He ended up losing that too. His campaign was entertaining.

Layer 8: Finally we get to the end of this. Joe ends up going to jail for hiring someone to kill Carol Baskin. The crazy part is that he wasn’t the only one that was planning it, but he was the only one that got arrested for it. Currently Joe is in jail. 

If you can believe it or not, I barely scratched the surface. There are definitely a lot more things that happen that make you think “What am I watching?” There were definitely some serious parts in this with everything that was going on. I thought over all it was more of a comedy because this stuff was crazy and Joe was hilarious in my opinion. 

This show is currently on Netflix and a new episode will be coming soon. So I would say to catch up before then. I was nervous to watch it because I was afraid of seeing animal abuse. In my opinion, it was a bit on the lower end of the spectrum. There were definitely some parts that I felt super sad for the animals and other parts where I covered my eyes. I am super emotional so, it really is based on the person. 

I thought it was an okay documentary. It was more entertaining than interesting in my opinion. They did get me to watch all the episodes, so they are doing something right. To me the best part of the show were the memes that came out of it. 

If you have seen the show what did you think?

Other posts you might like:

McMillions: McDonalds Monopoly Game Fraud

Making a Murderer

Photo from: https://www.nickiswift.com/199264/the-truth-about-the-tiger-king-spin-off-series/

no copyright intended