REVIEW: 'Tiger King' on Netflix is a cornucopia of absurdity

The irrepressible Joe Exotic poses with a friend in a photograph used in the Netflix documentary miniseries Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness.
The irrepressible Joe Exotic poses with a friend in a photograph used in the Netflix documentary miniseries Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness.

The Netflix sensation Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness is less a documentary than a cornucopia of absurdity -- like directors Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin are slipping drugs into our feeds.

So, how weird is this tale?

Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness

86 Cast: Joe Exotic (aka Joseph Maldonado-Passage), Bhagavan “Doc” Antle, Jeff Lowe, Rick Kirkham, Carole Baskin

Directors: Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin

Rating: TVMA

Running time: 7 episodes, less than an hour each

Streaming on Netflix

Its protagonist, Joe Exotic (aka Joseph Maldonado-Passage), is a gun-toting, big cat-raising, elected office-seeking, vlog posting, Oklahoma-based gay polygamist.

I forgot to mention that he stars in a series of eye-rolling country music videos. The songs were apparently written and sung by others, but wouldn't you rather see them performed by Joe Dirt's unhinged cousin?

Thankfully the series gets by on more than simple shock value. There's a side-splitting meme circulating where Bill Hader's Saturday Night Live character Stefon accurately describes components of Tiger King as if it were one of the freakshow clubs he frequents.

Goode and Chaiklin have assembled a formidable collection of human eccentrics and exotic creatures, but they also manage a gift for pulling viewers into a complicated and disturbing tale. Curiously, by hinting on the outcome of a five-year saga early, they effortlessly make viewers want to stay put as Netflix starts the next chapter.

At first, the series plays like a celebration of Exotic and his unusual approach to making a living. His roadside Greater Wynnewood Zoo featured lots of tigers and lions, which he took to malls and presented to adoring crowds. People drive for miles to pose with tiger cubs, and facilities like his and those of fellow cat collector Bhagavan "Doc" Antle have more tigers than those who are living in the wild. Apparently, there are only 4,000 wild tigers still around, so thanks to showmen like these, the species survives.

Antle loans out his creatures for movies and has a harem of women who dress in leopard or tiger-print outfits. A follower of eastern religions, Antle considers these women his wives, which helps cut down on his labor costs. The big cats make him a lot of money, but feeding tigers doesn't come cheap.

Not to be outdone, Joe has a few husbands and pays his staff wages that would seem paltry to fast food workers. He cuts corners getting meat by literally obtaining Walmart leftovers that are just a few days too old for humans to eat. If this sounds troubling, tune in later because it does get worse.

At first, it's fun to see Exotic preen like a redneck Liberace. His videos promoting his zoo are entertaining for their unapologetic crassness. There's also something appealing about people who are genuinely in love with what they are doing. His fondness for the large cats seems genuine.

Tiger cubs, however, don't stay cubs. Exotic's trade requires incessant breeding with potentially disastrous results.

It's no wonder Carole Baskin of Big Cat Rescue and other animal welfare activists have worked to force Exotic to find other ways to pay his bills. To say he doesn't take the challenge well is an understatement. He rants about her in his videos, not letting little things like libel laws get in the way. Because her previous husband Jack Donald "Don" Lewis has been missing since 1997, Exotic claims she killed him and even stars in a music video where a Baskin lookalike feeds Lewis' "remains" to one of his cats.

And then things get weird.

After Baskin's lawsuits threaten to wreck Exotic financially, he gets a new backer with legal problems of his own and then decides that America needs a new president. He's volunteering.

For all the bacchanal of silliness, there's a melancholic undertone to Tiger King that keeps it from being as shallow as it is sensational. Raising tigers and leopards has given a misfit like Exotic an identity and purpose to his life.

Protecting tigers and other predators is essential because top-line predators keep herbivores from overbreeding, which endangers the crops we need to live.

As the recent pandemic which has helped this series find a massive audience demonstrates, we have not mastered nature. I'm a meat-eating computer geek, and it's obvious even to me that we haven't handled our place in the world properly.

Joe Exotic and his ilk are a troubling reminder of how we have failed.

MovieStyle on 04/03/2020

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