Or in the words of a loved one, “a beautiful shit show.”

I don’t know if it’s fair of me to make an assessment as I may not finish the final 2 of episodes but “beautiful” isn’t a word that comes to mind. “Shit show” may be perfectly accurate in several respects. It’s certainly the hottest mess based on a true story that you’ll ever see. It also appears to have no redeeming qualities as a television show, and little as entertainment. It’s an Atrocity Exhibition, to borrow from JG Ballard and Joy Division. This is paid entry to the asylum to gawk and poke fun. It’s rubbernecking at an accident. It’s American favela tourism. But again, I haven’t watched the final 2 episodes.

Tiger King has generated more intertoobz buzz than I’ve seen in an age. There is endless commentary. There are thousands of memes. Infinite chatter. My own son sent me this just yesterday morning:

Yet for all the laughs, 5 episodes left me feeling spiritually defeated. Let me backtrack though. This is the synopsis that someone cut and pasted into Wikipedia. I’m not sure the source and should probably give credit somewhere, but for now:

“Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness is a 2020 true crime documentary television series about the life of Joseph Maldonado-Passage.^[1] It was released on Netflix on March 20, 2020.^[2] The series focuses on the small but deeply interconnected society of big cat conservationists like Carole Baskin, owner of Big Cat Rescue, and collectors such as Maldonado-Passage (a.k.a. “Joe Exotic”) who Baskin accuses of abusing and exploiting the wild animals.

The series focuses on the little-known but deeply interconnected society of big cats conservationists and collectors in America, exploring the private zoos and sanctuaries they’ve set up for these unusual and deadly pets. Some eccentric characters include a former cocaine drug lord running a secret conservation facility, and Bhagavan “Doc” Antle, an animal trainer who founded a 50-acre animal preserve in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and trains animals for Hollywood films.

The major conflict and emphasis of the series revolves around the contentious, years-long hatred between the flamboyant owner of the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park, Joseph Maldonado-Passage (a.k.a. “Joe Exotic”), and Carole Baskin, owner of Big Cat Rescue. Carole Baskin alleges that Joe Exotic’s breeding programs, zoo and animal conditions, and practice of charging visitors to pet lion or tiger cubs are abusive to the big cats. She makes it her personal mission to end private big-cat ownership in general and Joe Exotic’s cobbled-together, private Oklahoma zoo in particular. In turn, Joe Exotic alleges conditions at Carole Baskin’s Florida rescue are sub-par, and that Carole Baskin is waging a hypocritical campaign of focused harassment against him, by creating websites naming him an animal abuser, hiring people or encouraging PETA to track his movements, and damaging his sources of income by likewise badgering potential clients.

The feud escalates as Carole Baskin organizes protests against Joe Exotic, who retaliates by holding big cat shows with cub petting under trademark knock offs of Big Cat Rescue’s logos. Big Cat Rescue sues over these trademark infringements, winning a million dollar settlement against Joe Exotic. In revenge, Joe Exotic attempts to hire someone to murder Carole Baskin, resulting in his arrest and later conviction”

Simple enough and compelling, right? It’s not that the details of the crimes and misdemeanors aren’t compelling enough. It all makes for a fascinating story. “Murder, mayhem and madness” is an apt description for sure! So where did it leave me gasping? I think it’s that it is so up close and personal with decades of footage inside a community of sick narcissists and lunatics that spent years filming themselves and all their day to day lives. Watching Tiger King is so deep into their lives that it’s almost like diving from one living autopsy into the next with very little time to come up for air. I’ve rarely seen such a collection of people who are so grotesquely deformed, emotionally speaking, and a few physically. Narcissists, cultists, addicts… lost people, many emotionally and/or intellectually stunted. You, as a viewer, receive little or no respite from the parade of atrocities. There is never cause for compassion or empathy. It is a relentless onslaught of petty behavior, egomaniacal rants, every level of addiction and co-dependency, murder, suicide, loss, rage and… well, madness. Sadness.

There was no point though in 5 episodes where there was enough pause to reflect and feel anything for any of the people involved. There were people, perhaps if it were presented on an individual basis, that I might have felt some bit of sympathy for. The way it’s laid out though, en masse, is like walking through a morgue with multiple autopsies being performed at once on living subjects. It’s too damn much. I felt attacked and then emotionally distanced. It’s a bit like shell shock. I’ll admit that it may have been less so had I not watched 5 episodes back to back, because that just left me feeling revulsion. It recalled Agent Smith from The Matrix saying that the human race is like a virus. A friend said to me last night when I was expressing my horror that I am too sensitive. That may be the case but it’s a lot more too. There is a failing in Tiger King that falls in the lap of the creators of the series. The success of any show like this as a meaningful piece of work would have to depend upon their ability to balance reality with some sense of human connection with the subjects. There has been no room whatsoever for that so far. It’s a freak show in the classic sense and viewers come in to take everything at face value. There is no point where you are compelled to connect with anyone. There was even a point where you’re seeing a face-to-face interview with one of the ex-wives of a polygamist zoo-keeper who calls himself Bhagavan (Lord, or friend of God in Hindi) and while she’s easily identifiable as a victim, the edits present her as just another player. I found the entire affair exhausting. Without the pause to connect with any of the subjects of the docu-series, it was simply depleting.

The main subject of the series is a narcissistic, gay, gun-toting, redneck zookeeper called Joe Exotic (pictured above). There is decades of footage, some of which he began and some taken by a reality TV series maker, through which you watch Joe unravel from what first appears to be an eccentric asshole, and a raving lunatic. There are any number of events in his filmed life that may have evoked compassion or sympathy in an otherwise more rounded documentary. With the series beginning and ending (I’ve heard) with him in jail, I was never left with anything but a sense that he belongs there. There were surely others in this freak menagerie that belong there as well, but again, there is nothing even approaching sympathy for him. You’re just never given the chance. It was like watching an endless asswhipping, with mankind against mankind.

I’ll cop to being a very sensitive person, but that being said, one would think that the creators of this series wouldn’t have had a hard time at all finding some way to draw out some compassion for any of the subjects. That’s where Tiger King, to me, fails as anything approaching meaningful. I have a very dark sense of humor too, but it was all beyond my ability to find humor in. I may expound on some of the details later, but it really is an Atrocity Exhibition. I bought a ticket into Bedlam to rubberneck at a horrible accident of nature. True that given the current social climate with everyone fearful locked in doors it may have come down less violently, like a hammer, but it’s still hard to find any promise or reason to move forward and complete the series. It’s too much work.