I am Team Carole Did Kill Don And Feed Him To The Cats And Also That “Disappearance” Line in The Power of Attorney Was Wild, and still she is better than Doc Antle.
Don’s first “date” with Carole involved him insisting that a strange woman he found wandering the streets and sobbing in the middle of the night get into his car and point a gun at him!! That man was 100% FULLY capable of getting himself murdered without any assistance from Carole at all.
I've read in other places on the internet that Carole was most likely a sex worker when she first met Don. I can see why she would not want to admit that on camera.
Also I am sure that the doc was a little unfair to lump Carole's facility in with the others, but she is fully profiting off this (not for profits can make money! you just have to funnel that money back into the org somehow!), and has created a total Scientology cult with her unpaid labor (calling people who work for you 70 hours a week "volunteers" seems a stretch). The t-shirt color thing was one of the creepiest parts of the show, which is REALLY saying something.
I checked the 990! I think she takes $60k a year in salary, and Howard $68k. It's a little awkward because neither is listed as staff and both are directors, but neither of those salaries are out of line for staffers doing that work. I bet they run into some issues with all the attention though - you can't really sit on the board and draw salary as a staffer and have no oversight and raise no questions.
I'm with you that it's a seemingly reasonable salary, AND it's still a conflict of interest that Carole, Howard, and Jamie all appear to be voting members of the board, with oversight over their own salaries. I also have questions about the donation of "income-producing real estate" from the early 2000s and whatever tax advantage there might have been.
I couldn’t agree more and also, watch how quick her tune will change about breeding the tigers if she ever successfully gets that big cat bill passed. She absolutely gets off on the adoration and sainthood. She is not just doing to turn around and give it up.
Yeah, Don's lawyer's answer and weird body language makes me think the lawyer probably knows more than he is saying which also makes me think there is something to the pushed-out-of-an-airplane story, but I also still think Carole was more than likely involved. AND that Doc is the worst.
what if I told you it's also not a magical 50/50 split! WHAT IF PEOPLE MIGHT BE OPEN TO VARIOUS GENDERS BUT ALSO PREFER ONE MORE THAN THE OTHERS? but I guess the Saff misgendering also tempered my expectations for gender and sexuality theory in TIGER KING
I’m only on Episode 2 but Joe misgenders Saff at the beginning of the ep. when he tells the customers that the tiger “tore *her* arm off.” (Which! Is not the way to communicate this information to customers! But that’s like way way low on the Things Wrong With This Situation list)
yeeeeahhhh speculating about their sexuality either way seems like a bit of a red herring given the level of abuse we're talking about and the level of confusion and discomfort they expressed with the situation. The Antle escapee also hinted that she wasn't that attracted to him, just that she was going along to get along, y'know?
John Finlay can tell me all he wants that he’s not gay, but my dude, you are at least a little bit gay if you spent that much time in a relationship with a man.
It’s such Joe to transfer everything into his mom’s name and then act outraged when they came after his mom for the money. You did this! This is the direct result of your actions!
The fraudulent property transfers!!! The part where he secretly recorded a meeting with his lawyer!!!! The multiple multiple inculpatory VIDEO calls from jail.
The credit Joe got for hiring felons and people no other options when in fact those were just the people willing to work for a trailer to sleep in and expired Walmart meat out of a trash bag.
One Tiger King angle I wish had been developed: how did Joe get from a conservationist/anti-breeder type who goes to schools to tell kids not to drink and do drugs to a cub-euthanizer who keeps vulnerable people in thrall through meth? The show’s answer seems to be “fame and money got him” but there is SO much footage, you wonder if there aren’t more (and more nuanced) answers in there somewhere.
I don't know, I went to enough weird school assemblies in the '80s and '90s that I think a lot of low-rent entertainers in those years inserted some anti-drug stuff into their acts in order to get gigs at schools/churches/etc. and generally to give a veneer of being respectable and inspirational. So there are better than even odds it was always a cynical grift. That having been said: Joe's parents seem like incredibly sweet, decent people and some deeper exploration of How He Got That Way.
My best theory for How He Got That Way (the foundation is there in the doc but not really explored at all) is: 1) start an exotic animal rescue operation with good intentions but poor executive function and a textbook case of Dunning-Krueger effect, 2) get really into meth/coke/whatever other drugs, 3) see from other people in the exotic animal trade that cubs sales and petting is the way to make money in the field (also, be ignorant/credulous enough to believe scumbags who argue stuff like “the way to save endangered species is to breed more of them in my backyard”)... and bam, suddenly you’re Joe Exotic.
Hmmm, Joe said he got into it because his brother was killed by somebody driving under the influence... which... maybe wasn’t true? Has anyone confirmed or denied?
Yes! I like how they praised him for hiring people no one else would and then conveniently waited until 2 episodes later to discuss the conditions his employees were living in.
Yes, at first I was all behind it. Animal therapy to reduce recidivism! Then I realized it was a cult just like Doc Antle's but with different victims.
I have to look at porn stars' social media a lot for work (I know how this sounds but it's true) and I am going to be COMBING through those instas for tiger cubs in Vegas now
Cats are cats. We have had Rory for 12 years and usually she is a bitch but fairly chill and then randomly she tries to kill one of us for the hell of it and bc she weighs nine pounds it’s okay but if she weighed 700 lbs we would have died several times. One day you’ll get bit by your adorable tiger you knew since she was a baby, and it will mean very little to her! It’s just a matter of time.
People would always coo over the big cats paying attention to their toddlers and I would think “you wouldn’t have done well back when we lived in caves.”
Last time I saw a big cat in a zoo it was casually sizing everyone up and stalking them through the fence just to mess with them. I was both full of respect and terror.
Also they hinted a lot that Joe's cats were underfed and badly fed - Doc said he paid like $10k/month to feed each of his cats and Joe only paid $3k? And he fed them roadkill and expired meat? If I was a tiger I'd eat every one of those fuckers.
I think $625 is what Doc Antle was charging in Myrtle Beach. I read an AMA with a former employee of Joe's and I think he said admission was $15 and cub petting was $55
There are a lot of weird animal nuts in rural Oklahoma. If you lease your mineral rights you can have a fairly steady passive income to use on playing with baby tigers or your other insane, dangerous hobby. I'm also wondering if people might trade an orphaned calf for the chance to play with tigers.
It's not THAT far away from OKC and plenty of people here could, to be honest. Like. It isn't CHEAP but there are plenty of oilmen who make good money.
Also, guys, never agree to be on a reality tv show. Everyone thinks they will be the first person in history to be portrayed as lovable and relatable and it is just not gonna happen.
I felt bad for Carole. She agreed to be in what she thought was going to be a serious documentary about big cat abuse and instead was portrayed as being in a quirky feud with a man who tried to have her killed.
Everything about it was crazy, but I kept coming back to being amazed at how the Wal-Mart ammo salesman turned libertarian campaign manager seemed like the most thoughtful and put-together person on the show.
Apparently he got to know joe because he is also gay and thanked joe for being the only out and proud gay man in that area which adds a sad layer to his agreeing to help joe.
Ohhh he was my LEAST FAVORITE person in the movie (if arguably the most articulate). "I'm a libertarian so fuck the Feds." And then he rolled like a little bitch.
I took a screen shot video of that one line and sent it to all my friends. Of all the random terribleness something about that exchange was the funniest thing
Isn’t this literally all libertarians? Like they either go full sovereign citizen, or they roll over on their principles as soon as it is beneficial to them personally. My best friend was married to this libertarian clown who didn’t wear a seatbelt bc fuck the gov’t, but if he got pulled over the first thing he did was buckle up.
What I told my friend the other day, after I finished watching the series was, “Joshua will be absolutely fine if he can get out of his Libertarian mindset.” I hope he’s at least able to move somewhere bigger and better and more accepting.
I think Jeff Lowe could five Doc Antle a run for his money. He was arrested for strangling his first wife and his comments about how his new wife needed to get right back in the gym after giving birth (not to mention his obsession with having a hot nanny) made me feel so bad for the women in his life.
I think Jeff was the worst of the lot. Just a gross misogynist con man. And all the Affliction attire he wore was inexcusable. And what was then weird hair situation under that hat?
I can't possible put these in any sort of order but top 5 wildest moments:
1. Serving pizzas made with expired meat from wal-mart
2. When Saff got his arm bit off and Joe immediately put on an EMT jacket before actually helping?? (Saff is trans which they do not mention in the doc at all)
3. Singing his own song and talking about balls while dressed as a priest at Travis's funeral, with his mother in the front row, then getting remarried 2 months later
4. John discovering DURING FILMING that James was an FBI informant
5. That extended shot of James on the water ski for no real reason
Honorable mention goes to finding a campaign manager in the gun department of wal-mart.
I am sure I am forgetting so many things because it was just non-stop but these are the ones that come to mind.
This is not any sort of fresh insight but the way this show exploited people like John (interviewing him shirtless was a choice, and why was that other guy interviewed in a bathtub?) was awful. Saff is trans and yet female pronouns and his deadname are used throughout. Joe's abuse of his young partners was just glossed over like it was another wacky thing about him. So while I don't think picking THE worst person in this show is useful, I do think AMONG the worst are the filmmakers themselves.
Hard agree. There are so many things that were just sort of glossed over for the sake of the drama. Watching it was just one shock after another, and then I realized all the things that were just mentioned (like the woman saying she was pressured into sex with Doc Antle!) and then just never mentioned again. I can't believe Joe is the only one in prison.
It was when I saw Joe taking the newborn cubs away without any of the filmmakers intervening that I turned against them. I finished out the series for closure, but they are absolutely culpable.
Seeing Eric (? Former employee with long blonde hair) grieving, looking at photos, obviously under the influence, asking “have you ever walked a tiger?” was one of the saddest minutes ever captured on film
When I saw the bottle of Smirnoff on the table behind him, I just knew the producer bought that to "lube him up" for that interview. No way that poor guy could afford Smirnoff! That whole last episode just broke my heart all around.
He seemed like one of the better souls (as a group, the employees and volunteers were so much better people than everyone else). I felt very sad for him in that scene. Deep addiction issues, and so sad.
There's such a profound difference between the vulnerable, addicted, animal loving cult-member victims/employees and the evil, greedy men/women at the top. I think it's important not to sweep everyone together into one pile. Most of the people interviewed were absolutely victims on some level.
I kept thinking about this - so many of the staff seem like lovely weirdos who were looking for their community and ended up in a cult/exploitation scheme by accident
I felt similarly sad when the keeper without legs was talking about the lion who was buddies with his dog and not being able to get him back. It just seemed so sad overall
I did feel bad for Eric. I was fascinated when the weird TV producer saying there is some kind of weird high you get from being around the big cats. I would be interested to hear the science of that! Adrenaline rush from somewhere deep in your lizard brain or something?
I read that the TV producer guy's Texas studio (after he left Joe) ALSO mysteriously burned down. And that now he lives in Norway. I hope Norway is more fireproof!
I think these people obviously feel a profound experience. To the rest of us they are just very dangerous big predators. The way that cat’s instinct kicked in when she grabbed Joe’s boot and just dragged him...
I will never get over the zoo manager losing both his legs from ziplining. Or the woman whose boob job was planned for her, and who was grateful for it because it meant she got to rest.
Right!!! Or even Saff, who SEEMED like the most rational one until you realise he literally chose to have his arm amputated so he didn't make Joe look bad
According to a thread the man behind the original podcast put out, there was more to that included lack of insurance, no way to pay for treatment and joe showing up with a non disclosure and manipulating saff.
When Saff said he signed something while in hospital I SHRIEKED. Saff needs a good lawyer. There is no way he wasn't gacked on painkillers while signing away his rights to sue.
Once they started talking about how very little the employees were paid, it made a lot more sense to me. Rehab could get very time consuming and expensive, plus the manager lost his legs after trying to save them anyway.
It sounded more like he went for amputation because he didn't want to go through two years of surgery and PT, and wanting to go back was separate from that.
Ah yes. I just commented that he seems to be a balance of brainwashed and realistic, but I forgot the bit where he decided to go back so that Joe didn't lose any business.
Honestly, one of the wildest moments was post-trial when Carole's husband leaned in to the camera conspiratorially and revealed he likes to celebrate big victories with a fancy glass of champagne, as a treat. What a sweet, boring man. How did he possibly find himself in this world?
Mr. Carole seemed OK until I saw the wedding pictures. JESUS TAPDANCING CHRIST. I do respect his habit of keeping splits of champagne in the fridge for special occasions. I also enjoy brie and shrimp cocktail as his go-to snack choices.
I would believe that!! My first thought at seeing her expression in one of those wedding photos was that she looked indulgently amused. (I remember thinking this specifically because it seemed odd--she had been painted out to be the only one with an opinion in the relationship at this point.)
“How did he possibly find himself in this world?” Is the exact question plastered all over his face as he knelt in a tiger costume at the end of a leash on his wedding day.
(For those who maybe felt like the documentary was exploitative and maybe a little immoral: I am your kind. We can talk about it below. It feels a little like an expose on child slavery that focuses the bulk of its attention on how wacky the slavers are. I don't feel better for watching it -- and I watched the whole thing.)
Yep. The last two episodes connected all the dots. This is what happens to marginalized people that capitalism and evangelical culture left behind: Meth.
Ugh thank you, this makes my wariness about it seem less unfounded. So many people on my social media feed have been sharing memes that seem to make joe exotic look cool and funny? It all seems awful.
Between this and the cat documentary from earlier this year (or late last year? Time is a mystery) I have realized I am become My Mom and I just can't stomach these things the way I used to.
I had to stop. The first ep was sort of entertaining in its bizarreness and the constant leveling up of wtf, but I just kept feeling sadder & sicker as I watched.
At least at the end I got the impression it was all set up so they could get Jeff Lowe finally taken down. That final moment when he was like "I got them to admit to everything on tape" was like *turn to the camera like on the Office but real life."
That said, yes, this is peak true crime trash and I'm pretty sure no one comes out looking good, the documentaries among them. At least all the interviewees definitely got a healthy pay day for talking.
I hate to be a spoil sport, but does anyone else find the Carole hate distasteful? Like, all the memes are Carole, all the nastiness is about Carole. Doc Antle is some kind of sex cult leader, Joe Exotic probably set fire to his office, destroying all the video and killing the alligators, NOT TO MENTION making his mother the fall guy for his property, but Carole gets the hate? Not saying she's a saint, but the GLEE with the hate bothers me.
I am totally with you- I don't think Carole is a hero or anything but I think it's far more likely that her husband crashed a plane into the gulf of mexico than she managed to murder him with no traces left behind. The amount of online abuse she is getting is upsetting to me (don't look at her rescue's twitter replies, they are awful).
I also really wanted an actual veterinarian/zoologist or something to talk about the Big Cat rescue. Obviously what Doc Antle and Joe are doing to animals is horrific (not to mention what they are doing to people) but I also want to know if Carole's approach is actually the best or should something else be being done.
I think there were some hugely irresponsible creative choices here, and one of them is not bringing in an expert to go over the real differences between an accredited sanctuary and the private zoos. (The other big ones for me are not putting a real content warning for Travis' death and misgendering Saff with no attempt at correction.)
I am 100% with you. It's been very disturbing to me to see how many people have walked away with the idea that CAROLE is the main villian? I am not a big fan of hers, but she's practically a saint compared to all these other guys, and the documentarians REALLY did her dirty.
FWIW, a friend of mine interned at Big Cat Rescue for 3 months and says she had a positive experience. She thinks the Tiger King makers portrayed Carole unfairly.
exactly, i didn't even realize there was questionable (abusive?) treatment of young people (minors??) in this because all I see is carole-killed-her-husband jokes
We're only two episodes into this absolute shit show, but the interview with Barbara "Bala" from Ames, Iowa was haunting because of the stuff that you know she wanted to say but couldn't or wouldn't. And also disturbed by how all of those super creepy Tiger men wanted doc's secret about how to form a harem.
This is why Doc Antle is unequivocally the worst. Joe is awful and evil too, but he’s a dumb chaotic mess of awful. Doc Antle runs a tight ship of an evil tiger sex cult.
Doc Antle definitely the lowkey worst, he is (was?) running a CULT. All his mystical bullshit and fake "doctor" thing. Ugh. But man, it's hard to believe all of these people are real.
I think there was a little too much plausible deniability in there that maybe Joe didn’t REALLY want Carole killed and Jeff set him up. If you read the thread also linked in here by the man who did the podcast on Joe, it’s very obvious that he was 100 percent on board with offing Carole. (I also think Carole is a shady lady who knows more about what happened to her husband than she is saying, but whatever crap he was involved in that meant he needed to fly small planes to Costa Rica under the radar may possibly have led to his demise, as opposed to her machinations.)
He wanted her dead and he tried to get the job done. The DA was right on when she said “yes, obviously Joe made a million videos about wanting Carole to die, but what matters is what he said about it when no one was listening.” It was a murder-for-hire. Sure, Jeff (a trashmonster) may have encouraged him in order to get him in trouble, but Joe absolutely put a hit out on Carole.
A hard core libertarian who decided he was on Team Government REAL QUICK when faced with any kind of consequences for trying to get a lunatic elected governor of an actual state.
- "Don Lewis had a green thumb -- everything he touched turned to money" this is pretty light compared to everything else in this show, but that they used this phrase instead of Midas Touch really tickled me in a non-judgmental way
- The look on John Finlay's face when he first heard that the feds had been investigating Joe was absolutely precious and a source of light in a very dark and twisted tale
- Every music video
As far as the worst person, ESH except maybe John Finlay and the other victims of these horrible men, but yeah, Doc Antle is probably the most vile. The grooming and abuse are evil enough without the appropriation and being the outright worst cliche of "Polyam Dude With Ponytail"
One interesting thing about the show, toward the end, was how often they turned to Doc Antle for the Jim Halpert -level stare at the camera- “WHY ON EARTH WOULD HE GO AND DO A FOOL THING LIKE THAT” take.
Such a good point. Doc's differentiator seems to be that he is basically slightly more competent and less on meth than Joe and his crew, so the fact that even he is horrified by how obviously they were being about all their crime-ing was telling.
The most normal and, in my opinion, likable person in the show turned out to be the dude with no legs. Everyone else in the show is just an awful human being.
I laughed my ass off at "the man is a walking chucky doll" tho
same! and that walking chucky doll guy was hellbent on being the rat who could throw EVERYONE else under the bus as much as possible to shield himself from any sort of accountability or consequences for his own actions. Like a more cowardly less evil less predatory version of Jeff L. The dude has some big time Peter Pettigrew on a jet ski energy
Yeah, I forgot about that guy just now when trying to think of who wasn't the worst person (harder to think of an answer for that one!). He actually seemed to truly care about the animals.
Oops wait I was thinking of Eric, who testified against Joe in court and definitely cared about the animals deeply. I don't remember whether thiiiis guy did or not but he seemed like one of the least egregious folks iirc
Erik’s last scene is what connected all the dots for me that what we had just spent 8 episodes watching was the ongoings of a backwater methhead refuge.
It's pretty wild that of everyone in the documentary, the one who comes across as the most levelheaded and trustworthy is the cocaine kingpin who inspired Scarface and admitted to standing by as his buddy chopped up a body.
Glad to see I'm not the only one who thought Mario was the best of the tiger people. He reminded me powerfully of a great many immigrant dads of my acquaintance. He just wants to live with his wife and their exotic animals and their closets full of monkey clothes.
This description is how I got my dad and several friends to watch it and they all agreed completely. I was bummed we didn't get a check in on him in response to Joe's arrest.
Yes! I loved Mario. He seemed to really understand that, yeah, what he did before was bad, and now he’s just living his life and he’s happy that his wife loves all of her monkey clothes.
Glad to see I'm not the only one who thought Mario was the best of the tiger people. He reminded me powerfully of a great many immigrant dads of my acquaintance. He just wants to live with his wife and their exotic animals and their closets full of monkey clothes.
The filmmakers were 100% with the men in this show. Carol, whose beaded headpiece doesn't help her, is not very likable, but there was no attempt to make her appear otherwise. The most telling line was when Carol appeared for the first interview and the producer/director (?) says "she's dressed perfectly!" They wanted her to appear as nutty as possible -- sensationalism combined with a healthy dose of misogyny. Plus, my sense is that despite the interview with the (lovely) woman who was 'given' breast implants the filmmakers also wanted to know his secret.
I watched with some college friends over Watch Party because we're Okies. That's when we realized we all had nebulous connections to people in the doc; Joe Exotic used to come into Staples where my friend worked to print campaign materials, the campaign manager went to our liberal arts college, and even the town I went to high school in got a shout-out. It felt very surreal because we've known about Joe for awhile. Crazy things were always happening at the zoo and people suspected something bad when his husband killed himself. It's weird but I definitely feel like Joe was the ...least worst? I at least have more understanding for him. But Doc 💯 the worst and Jeff not far behind.
Also by far the worst moments were after Travis's death and his mother sitting at the funeral and the next wedding. My heart broke for her when she said she had no idea how her son ended up with Joe.
My friend that worked at Staples said Joe was the type to come in 15 minutes before closing with a big project to print.
And our local satire blog The Lost Ogle posted on Twitter from supposedly Joe's twitter that Joe isn't in Oklahoma prisons anymore and that he has coronavirus
1. It was a fun documentary, but I came away from it incredibly disappointed because they had so much opportunity to shed light on wild animal abuse and they didn't. The scene where Joe took the tiger cub from its mother the moment it was born? Fucking horrific. They never touched on how awful and evil cub breeding and cub petting is because they wanted Carole and Joe to be seen as "equally bad" for the narrative, but it's so, so clear that Joe is a fucked up animal abuser.
2. My boyfriend went to college in rural Ohio and when it got to the part about the guy who let all his wild animals loose in Ohio he yelled "THAT'S why I had to be scared of being eaten by a lion on campus for a YEAR??" The Midwest is wild.
I am 100% IN for your first comment. There's an interview with the filmmakers in the LA Times and they discuss the animal abuse more nakedly and then try to excuse it not being the focus of the doc as "the story went a different way", which is such bullshit.
Reinke was so sweet. Just a lost soul like so many of the people who got sucked into these literal sex cults of personality and also meth and tigers and faux-Hindu nonsense.
Saff is by so far the best person on the show. Has clearly been through some serious shit in his life, even apart from the arm, but so measured and compassionate to the animals.
I went to high school with Travis. We weren’t friends but had classes together and some mutual friends. One time in theater we did an improv skit together and he did very well. He was a very typical Southern California skater/stoner kid but also uncommonly nice. I already knew what had happened to him, but I hadn’t heard just how abusive and exploitative the situation was and it was extremely sad to see.
I know people who have been to Carole's rescue and they said it was well run and very nice. I am very miffed that she is lumped with the others when she does not breed the animals, does not allow posing pictures, and the people that work there are free to leave and not induced to stay with cult mind games and drug use. Carole found herself a loving husband, is doing what she is passionate about without hurting her volunteers/employees, and seems pretty darn content with life - fully on Team Carole.
Thank you!! I know Carole is kind of annoying, but she's the only person in that doc who isn't currently, actively abusing animals.
Not surprised the internet turned against her, since she's a lady who's trying to stop a bunch of dudes from doing whatever they want, just disappointed at the sheer number of people who think she's "just as bad."
1. In the first ep, when someone says all exotic animal people are weird, but monkey people are just nerds and the big cat folks are the real sociopaths. I want to know all the negative stereotypes exotic animal people have about each other. Are bird people cheap? Are elephant guys bad drivers?
2. Noticing that Joe took a time during his gubernatorial campaign to get a neck tattoo of his new child groom's name. That's what love looks like.
3. I sincerely appreciated Carole's insight that a lot of sexual predators are mixed up in this exotic animal stuff because it's a way to lure young people into their orbit.
4. Noticing how working/volunteering at any of these places is more or less an MLM.
5. Any scene with the sheriff or the federal prosecutor, for a dose of sanity.
Every time I thought I had a handle on how wild and absurd EVERYTHING was, something else happened and threw me for a loop! A sex cult! A disappeared multimillionaire husband! A coercive throuple! Country diss tracks! I googled ahead and knew Travis died “in a gun accident while the zoo was open” and I was like, woof, that sounds dramatic, and THEN it was a suicide that was sort of caught on CCTV? I was NOT prepared for that, I was not prepared for anything that happened in episodes 2-7.
I completely agree with all the commenters defending Carole. The documentary draws a clear equivalence between Carole and Joe, Doc, Jeff etc., who are all OBVIOUSLY worse people! Sure, Don's death is suspicious, but Occam's Razor people, she probably had nothing to do with it. Her real crime in the eyes of the American public is being annoying. The reaction to the show reveals that Americans will forgive a lot -- misogyny, animal abuse, coercion -- but not sanctimony.
My personal Occam’s Razor works the other way: when a very rich person who has just tried to get a restraining order against their spouse disappears and is never heard from again and leaves over ten million dollars to their spouse, the spouse probably did it.
And I think he was prob a real piece of shit and have no general beef w Carole who seems to run a good sanctuary and should not be lumped in with these horrible men.
You want to fake your death and start a new life in Costa Rica, you leave like $2 mil behind. This man was not El Chapo, walking away from over ten million.
I think it's COMPLETELY fair to lump her in with the horrible men! 1) Her sanctuary doesn't look any better than any of the others to me? 2) She is presumably not sexually exploiting her underlings but where Joe Exotic and Doc Antle are craven capitalists she is...doing something very similar, just with the veneer of nonprofit respectability. Or maybe I have a chip on my shoulder about the nonprofit industrial complex (and have worked for/with some Caroles). To be clear: all of these people are terrible.
(Also I'm more convinced than ever that all zoos are bullshit because THEY ALL make the same "seeing these animals in cages will somehow inspire people to save the worrrrrrld" arguments that never actually connect the dots on how that actually works.)
Her sanctuary is objectively better than the “zoos” and is operated according to credible standards (the cats have huge enclosures with appropriate vegetation, and absolutely no physical contact with humans). Running something like that on volunteer labor definitely doesn’t get her great human points, but it’s also objectively better than running coercive sex and meth cults... Finally, she doesn’t have the same rationale or mission as the other guys—she is providing the best place she can for the cats to live out their days.
Yeah an actual big picture doc about animal cruelty, treatment, behavior and human accountability is the penance I need after watching the worst/weirdest/saddest of humans exploit each other.
I read a response to the show from Carole, and she claims that she had reports after his disappearance that he was seen in Costa Rica a couple of times, which I find very interesting, if true.
1. Using the expired meat on the pizzas they fed to paying customers.
2. The documentary didn't mention that Don's assistant actually was stealing from him and was sued just before the disappearance. Makes more sense why the POAs were changed out of her name and I'm less inclined to believe her view of Carole.
3. That there weren't MORE gun related injuries with the way they all wildly swung around loaded weapons and shot things while presumably high.
4. Doc Antle's voice/behavior changing SO MUCH when the cameras were rolling. Truly a practiced conman.
5. That Joe Exotic managed to win 19% of the vote! Also his campaign videos were gold.
Someone tweeted that Lisa Kudrow’s whole career has been an extended audition for the role of Carole Baskin and I can’t get it out of my head?? She would be PERFECT
Just so much WTF when Carole is talking about how Joe keeps his tigers in cages and THANK GOD she is there for the tigers...and the cameraman pans over her tigers, also in cages.
And did anyone marvel at how much the Carole lookalike really looked like Carole in that video?
Respectfully—you’re missing a lot of context. Big Cat Rescue is a GFAS-accredited sanctuary. It has to provide humane amounts/types of space, enrichment, diet, corporate governance. Regardless of how a given scene was shot, there’s not actually a parallel between the roadside zoos and the reputable sanctuaries that have to take in the animals they abuse.
Thank you! It made me so mad that they framed Big Cat Rescue as basically the same as the other roadside zoos. That one guy who complained 'I've asked GFAS to come give me accreditation and they wouldn't!' and the show framed it as yet another class distinction instead of going into what it means to be an accredited sanctuary! How they compared a sanctuary having an all-volunteer workforce as basically the same kind of brainwashing and exploitation as a literal sex-cult blew my top.
YES! The filmmakers tried to create an equivalence between those disgusting men with roadside zoos and a woman who had done breeding and selling in her younger years under the influence of an abusive husband, and then once she realized how bad that was stopped the exploitation and opened an accredited sanctuary.
I would love more information about that, the doc really seemed to equate her work to Joe and Doc et al and I'm like, y'all this seems profoundly unfair (but of course very juicy)
Thank you for saying this - I came away from the doc really disappointed at how they NEVER touched on how horrific and abusive cub breeding and cub petting is, and how Carole is the only one of the subjects not actively taking part in it.
Yes, I wish they had actually covered this. Because I think too many people will watch this doc and still not understand why this is a problem and why there is such a difference between people like Carole and AZA zoos and idiots like Joe and Doc and everyone else
I also found it interesting that when Joe was flying over Big Cat Rescue, it's clear that the enclosures for the cats are huge whereas at his "zoo" they're tiny.
Also I asked a friend of mine if he'd seen the show and he said, and I quote, "Murder docs aren't really my thing." Calling Tiger King a murder doc is akin to calling Les Miserables a book about sewers, my good dude.
I actually think the doc WAY underplayed the role drugs played in all of this? Like, it was clear it was happening, I kept waiting for an episode to overtly say "oh, and all these people were on so, so many drugs!" but they didn't. I think Joe used drugs as a manipulation tool even more than they let on, including with his poor employees that he treated just like expired wal-mart meat.
I feel like they downplayed the drugs because they kept trying to make Joe Exotic look like some kind of cult leader with incredible powers of charisma who could make people change their whole lives to be close to him. "He just gave them drugs" is less compelling, but probably much more true.
I had no idea that there are more than double the amount of tigers in captivity than in the wild. It also felt weird that the filmmakers stuck that in at the very end because that clearly wasn't the point of the series at all and it felt shoehorned in at the end...although now that I think about it, that seems pretty fitting. The tigers felt like the eventual last priority to all the main "characters" involved, too.
It struck me as the documentary series version of a viral social media pile-on, where everybody is joking and meme-ing and dunking and then somebody finally steps in and reminds everyone that this is all actually real-life horrifying, and we all just sort of look sheepishly at our feet and mumble "yes, yes, of course, the animals."
To be fair the number of tigers in captivity vs in the wild does come up at the very beginning but it's a blink and you'll miss it snippet of a news broadcast. But yeah, the lack of emphasis on that definitely speaks to the animals not being the priority
I think it was originally planned as a documentary about tiger exploitation but then they realized how absolutely out there everyone involved was and the murder for hire stuff happened and they decided they had to go a different route for profitability but still kind of wanted to throw a little of the original goal in there.
I felt like the documentarian did exactly what Joe claimed he was doing initially- raised awareness by exciting the audience with something outrageous so they would pay attention to the message. The ethics are...interesting.
I think it was just there to add an extra oomph to their very old footage of Joe Exotic as a well meaning rescue boy back before the Tiger Riches and Tiger Fame went to his head.
i had listened to the podcast on the subject before the doc came out, so getting through episode three and announcing “we havent even gotten to the murder for hire” to my house was a kind of christmas.
I want a documentary about this documentary. How did they get so much access (My strong hunch: these greedy dipshits would talk about anything for a crisp hundo bill) to these con artists? How did they balance the perspectives and keep everyone talking? DId they start the doc before Joe was arrested? How guilty/ashamed of themselves do they feel now?
Okay, I am admittedly a little sensitive to animal abuse themes, so i I haven’t watched it and only read a lot about the series, but what the fuck? The filmmakers have said they set out to make the “blackfish of the roadside zoo industry” (in other words, a heavy doc that alerted people to issues, and in this case, one that sparked real change at sea world) and they felt like Netflix leaned into sensationalizing the characters for entertainment value. I get that, i get reality tv and docuseries about weirdos, i love real-life-Christopher-guest vibes, but it sounds like this is about a really seriously gross corner of human behavior treated with some amount of levity because of the people in it and it’s not sitting well with me. I don’t want to find joy in an animal abuser, no matter what. And Carole does seem totally insane (have you guys volunteered or worked in rescue at any level? You get some wild characters) but her organization IS a sanctuary, so i am hating seeing her villanized and memed to death because even if she’s a criminal she seems to be on the right side for the tigers, at least. I don’t know. Please help me feel less bad, if that sounds possible.
Co-signed on the sadness on the Carole piling-on. I’ve met her (very briefly; my Dad did some photography at Big Cat Rescue That they wound up using to fundraise way back when) and she is A Character for sure. That said, the sanctuary itself is stellar and does the best they can for the cats and to raise awareness around the abusive structures of cub-petting and owning wild animals for fun. They’re trying to put legislation through to ban the kinds of things shown in the documentary! I’ve been going there since I was literally a child, so there’s personal bias here for sure, but also...it’s just all so weird. I was shouted down in a group chat about this yesterday, too, which is exacerbating a lot of feelings about it.
update, thank you all for the confirmation bias. don't feel bad for watching things you want to watch but i'm glad it came off (to some rational humans) as a clear missed opportunity to shed light on real issues
Jessie, I didn’t want to watch it for the same reason. My daughter assured me you did not see animal abuse so I watched it. They are pacing in cages but appeared to be ok, many were fat. Some stuff comes out in the last episode so you can turn that off Mid episode or not watch the last episode that deals with the trial. I did some follow up and found 42 of them ended up at a well respected big cat rescue on the plains in Colorado where they roam in large fenced areas so watch it and keep that in mind!
I prewatched for Steve bc he cannot handle any animal abuse, ever, and elected to tell him to skip it, even though the animals are mostly ok. The baby tigers having issues bc of premature separation from their moms and that horrible story about the chimps at the end (a rare moment of self-awareness and responsibility-taking from Joe) were too much. And I personally have a tremendously unfair-dislike-verging-on-phobia around non-human primates, which only manifests around ones in captivity who are behaving weirdly as a result, it's not like I see a baboon in a wildlife documentary and feel revulsion, and it still made me cry.
I am terrified of chimps who live with people, full stop. It's really not the chimps' fault! It's just some kind of personal uncanny valley issue. But the way they grabbed each other the minute they could...thinking of these social creatures being in separate cages for ten years broke my heart.
I also don’t like non-human primates. I think it goes back to a Discovery Channel doc when I was a kid about chimps doing cannibalism—but that story just tore my heart out. I don’t Ike them, but they deserve to be cared for and I recognize their ability to suffer. That was horrific.
1) Joe Exotic getting into his car and saying, "My favorite thing to do is drive around and sing along to myself" then proceeding to "sing along to himself" completely off-key and maybe also not knowing the words really?
2) Doc Antle renaming those poor young women to very clearly have what he thinks are "exotic" names but he is so unimaginative and DUMB that the one woman's name is just....China. A real "first thought, best thought" kinda guy.
3) Wal-mart meat on the pizza.
3a) "Pizzaria" - Granted, so many places across the US use this misspelling of pizzeria, but boy oh boy did it make me chuckle.
4) Carole's ex-husbands family. I mean... the hair, the house, the outfits, the everything.
5) Joe's gift shop announcement a la "Imm'on tell you cuz you're gonna hear about it"
IMO the hands-down most fucked up person is Jeff Lowe!
It is off-key because someone else sings the songs and Joe “softly sings on top of the vocals”, they covered that in the podcast Over My Dead Body. 100% the person singing in all the music videos is not Joe.
Oh yes, of course-- there's no way someone who speaks in his range could bust out that sultry, deep baritone! Truly just love the commitment on his part.
So I haven't watched it but I an familiar with the case through podcasts and honestly it sounds like the doc makes did Carole Baskin real dirty here, especially with the insinuation she murdered her much older, abusive husband
Yeah I am sort of shocked more people aren't on her side, even if she did remove that piece of shit husband. Yeah, sure, murder is bad but like the hatred for an eccentric older woman with power and money is really shining through in even "progressive" circles.
This was my big problem with the show! It’s very easy to demonize Carole but she has been taken advantage of by men when she was young and even abused, is getting death threats now, was the focal point of murder for hire plot. She isn’t the same as all the men, she isn’t in abusive relationships with people much younger than her, she doesn’t do cub petting, her sanctuary follows actual rules and I hate that the filmmakers tried to equate her to Joe, Jeff and Doc. There’s so much misogyny in the show
The more you listen to true crime podcasts and watch true crime documentaries the more it seems like literally every single person who commits horrific crimes was abused as a child
This is something that really bothered me too, especially given the absolutely vile way Joe used his online platform to abuse her. Carole is definitely not a 'likeable' person but she is nowhere near as bad as Joe, Jeff and Doc.
I also think they were journalistically dishonest in trying to equate her sanctuary with Joe and Doc. The wildcat biologist who had the great thread on the show mentioned some huge differences which the show flattened or ignored.
I don't think Carole killed her husband, but I think she knows what happened. I also think her husband wanted it to seem like she'd killed him (the note about her apparently threatening him etc).
I agree, and support her in it. The “open this if I die” stuff is classic abuser, and people seem to be flossing over the fact that Don was completely a Joe/Jeff/Doc type.
I do think the first husband sounded sketchy enough to have died any number of ways, so she had some plausible deniability until a friend pointed out to me that so much of the paperwork regarding the estate was altered to benefit her. It's circumstantial but significant.
I think that regardless of whether she killed him or whether he died in some misadventure she had knowledge about (like drug smuggling as has been suggested) she definitely altered that paperwork herself. But whether she killed him herself or took advantage of his mysterious death to alter the estate isn’t clear to me.
I think the latter. I think she knew he was up to something that was stupid and would likely get him killed, and quietly made sure she'd get hers if it came to that.
I am Team Carole Did Kill Don And Feed Him To The Cats And Also That “Disappearance” Line in The Power of Attorney Was Wild, and still she is better than Doc Antle.
Don’s first “date” with Carole involved him insisting that a strange woman he found wandering the streets and sobbing in the middle of the night get into his car and point a gun at him!! That man was 100% FULLY capable of getting himself murdered without any assistance from Carole at all.
I've read in other places on the internet that Carole was most likely a sex worker when she first met Don. I can see why she would not want to admit that on camera.
Plus I understand that she was a teenager fleeing an abusive situation at the time.
wandering the streets in a NOTED like street you walk down to get up to shit (apparently)
Also I am sure that the doc was a little unfair to lump Carole's facility in with the others, but she is fully profiting off this (not for profits can make money! you just have to funnel that money back into the org somehow!), and has created a total Scientology cult with her unpaid labor (calling people who work for you 70 hours a week "volunteers" seems a stretch). The t-shirt color thing was one of the creepiest parts of the show, which is REALLY saying something.
I checked the 990! I think she takes $60k a year in salary, and Howard $68k. It's a little awkward because neither is listed as staff and both are directors, but neither of those salaries are out of line for staffers doing that work. I bet they run into some issues with all the attention though - you can't really sit on the board and draw salary as a staffer and have no oversight and raise no questions.
I'm with you that it's a seemingly reasonable salary, AND it's still a conflict of interest that Carole, Howard, and Jamie all appear to be voting members of the board, with oversight over their own salaries. I also have questions about the donation of "income-producing real estate" from the early 2000s and whatever tax advantage there might have been.
I couldn’t agree more and also, watch how quick her tune will change about breeding the tigers if she ever successfully gets that big cat bill passed. She absolutely gets off on the adoration and sainthood. She is not just doing to turn around and give it up.
I cannot tell you how glad I am that this thread is here. I need Tiger King comments, opinions and rants like I need OXYGEN
I still don't think she killed him. I do think she was involved in the disposal of his body, but yeah Doc Antle is the literal worse.
Yeah, Don's lawyer's answer and weird body language makes me think the lawyer probably knows more than he is saying which also makes me think there is something to the pushed-out-of-an-airplane story, but I also still think Carole was more than likely involved. AND that Doc is the worst.
Also, the fact that there a million people in this series and none of them have ever heard of bisexuality.
What if Joe’s first two husbands were capable of being attracted to MORE THAN ONE GENDER?
there are dozens of us! dozens!
what if I told you it's also not a magical 50/50 split! WHAT IF PEOPLE MIGHT BE OPEN TO VARIOUS GENDERS BUT ALSO PREFER ONE MORE THAN THE OTHERS? but I guess the Saff misgendering also tempered my expectations for gender and sexuality theory in TIGER KING
Joe is basically the only one who doesn't misgender Saff (at least in what the footage shows)
I’m only on Episode 2 but Joe misgenders Saff at the beginning of the ep. when he tells the customers that the tiger “tore *her* arm off.” (Which! Is not the way to communicate this information to customers! But that’s like way way low on the Things Wrong With This Situation list)
Oh, I thought he said “his arm off.”
The guy who did the podcast about this said Joe was actually the worst about misgendering Saff.
I was gonna SAY! I mean. Can we separate out the “manipulative brainwashing creep” part from the “they were straight” talk? Please?
yeeeeahhhh speculating about their sexuality either way seems like a bit of a red herring given the level of abuse we're talking about and the level of confusion and discomfort they expressed with the situation. The Antle escapee also hinted that she wasn't that attracted to him, just that she was going along to get along, y'know?
They were all shit at misgendering poor Saff too. He was my favourite on the series
John Finlay can tell me all he wants that he’s not gay, but my dude, you are at least a little bit gay if you spent that much time in a relationship with a man.
It’s such Joe to transfer everything into his mom’s name and then act outraged when they came after his mom for the money. You did this! This is the direct result of your actions!
The audacity to infringe on their logo/brand/trademark, make videos about wanting to kill her, and then be outraged that he is sued by Carole.
"what if I just change the name of my business every three weeks, surely no lawyer could see through this plan"
Joe is every lawyer’s nightmare client.
The fraudulent property transfers!!! The part where he secretly recorded a meeting with his lawyer!!!! The multiple multiple inculpatory VIDEO calls from jail.
This might actually have been the worst part of the doc for me. How dare you drag your mother into this then claim to be the victim!!
Yeah but no doubt that's why he did it -- so they wouldn't come after it. PSYCH!
Like jeezus, YES.
The credit Joe got for hiring felons and people no other options when in fact those were just the people willing to work for a trailer to sleep in and expired Walmart meat out of a trash bag.
One Tiger King angle I wish had been developed: how did Joe get from a conservationist/anti-breeder type who goes to schools to tell kids not to drink and do drugs to a cub-euthanizer who keeps vulnerable people in thrall through meth? The show’s answer seems to be “fame and money got him” but there is SO much footage, you wonder if there aren’t more (and more nuanced) answers in there somewhere.
I don't know, I went to enough weird school assemblies in the '80s and '90s that I think a lot of low-rent entertainers in those years inserted some anti-drug stuff into their acts in order to get gigs at schools/churches/etc. and generally to give a veneer of being respectable and inspirational. So there are better than even odds it was always a cynical grift. That having been said: Joe's parents seem like incredibly sweet, decent people and some deeper exploration of How He Got That Way.
My best theory for How He Got That Way (the foundation is there in the doc but not really explored at all) is: 1) start an exotic animal rescue operation with good intentions but poor executive function and a textbook case of Dunning-Krueger effect, 2) get really into meth/coke/whatever other drugs, 3) see from other people in the exotic animal trade that cubs sales and petting is the way to make money in the field (also, be ignorant/credulous enough to believe scumbags who argue stuff like “the way to save endangered species is to breed more of them in my backyard”)... and bam, suddenly you’re Joe Exotic.
Hmmm, Joe said he got into it because his brother was killed by somebody driving under the influence... which... maybe wasn’t true? Has anyone confirmed or denied?
Sorry, I spaced out and hit Post too soon. Some deeper exploration of How He Got That Way seems entirely in order.
Yes! I like how they praised him for hiring people no one else would and then conveniently waited until 2 episodes later to discuss the conditions his employees were living in.
Yes, at first I was all behind it. Animal therapy to reduce recidivism! Then I realized it was a cult just like Doc Antle's but with different victims.
I want Dillon Passage to have a good life.
also he is a BABY
Apparently he was a cheerleader at a jr. college in Texas and there are pictures of him with the Navarro kids.
Yes, omg. I want him to find some good role models and have a lovely life
the straight up grooming of young people (both antle and joe) is horrifying
I want Dillon and Josh to find each other and be happy together.
when Jeff said "a little pussy can get you a lot of pussy" I truly truly worried I could never have sex again
like, my body closed up like a bear trap at those words
I have to look at porn stars' social media a lot for work (I know how this sounds but it's true) and I am going to be COMBING through those instas for tiger cubs in Vegas now
Right??? Euuuugh.
The look on Lauren’s face every time he said stuff like that... she needs to run.
Cats are cats. We have had Rory for 12 years and usually she is a bitch but fairly chill and then randomly she tries to kill one of us for the hell of it and bc she weighs nine pounds it’s okay but if she weighed 700 lbs we would have died several times. One day you’ll get bit by your adorable tiger you knew since she was a baby, and it will mean very little to her! It’s just a matter of time.
No one had to put anything on your shoes, Joe, she just remembered you were made of meat.
So I used to work at an Actual Zoo, as a peon, and the tigers will literally stalk you when they sense an opportunity.
That tiger was totally just seeing what she could get away with, and once Joe was down, everyone else wanted to get in on the action
My two-year-old was stalked by a leopard at the Zoo through the glass. It was unmistakable.
People would always coo over the big cats paying attention to their toddlers and I would think “you wouldn’t have done well back when we lived in caves.”
Well they might have, but the toddler wouldn't!
Last time I saw a big cat in a zoo it was casually sizing everyone up and stalking them through the fence just to mess with them. I was both full of respect and terror.
Every time they refer to one of these places as a "zoo" I felt like I was physically struck THIS IS NOT A ZOO
His outrage that she attacked him was telling (not that everything else about him was too).
He was PERSONALLY OFFENDED that the colossal animal acted like an animal towards him.
AND THEN his complaints about being caged in prison?!?! The lack of self-awareness BOGGLES.
didn't know this happens and it just makes me want to rewatch Grizzly Man
YES
I mean! Siegfried and Roy had been working with tigers for YEARS without incident when Roy was mauled!
I believe it was Chris Rock who said "That tiger didn't go crazy. That tiger went tiger."
Also they hinted a lot that Joe's cats were underfed and badly fed - Doc said he paid like $10k/month to feed each of his cats and Joe only paid $3k? And he fed them roadkill and expired meat? If I was a tiger I'd eat every one of those fuckers.
Joe’s cats were skinny, especially compared to how obese Antle’s cats were.
Yeah Doc’s cats were chonky bois
Big cats can react like that to some colognes: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/6/100624-big-cats-cologne-vin-video/
if ever I knew a man was bathing in some sort of horrific cologne, it was All The Men In This Documentary
I bet Jeff Lowe stinks of Aqua di Gio
or Drakkar Noir
Also WHO IN RURAL OKLAHOMA could drop a cool $625 to play with baby tigers? Repeatedly? Enough to keep the adults in expired meat and cow legs?
I was trying to run the numbers and could not believe how much he was able to charge, while still barely covering his meth and ammo overhead.
I think $625 is what Doc Antle was charging in Myrtle Beach. I read an AMA with a former employee of Joe's and I think he said admission was $15 and cub petting was $55
My impression is that mall tours were what was keeping Joe solvent and once those got shut down is when the wheels started coming off
That makes so much more sense.
There are a lot of weird animal nuts in rural Oklahoma. If you lease your mineral rights you can have a fairly steady passive income to use on playing with baby tigers or your other insane, dangerous hobby. I'm also wondering if people might trade an orphaned calf for the chance to play with tigers.
It's not THAT far away from OKC and plenty of people here could, to be honest. Like. It isn't CHEAP but there are plenty of oilmen who make good money.
Also, guys, never agree to be on a reality tv show. Everyone thinks they will be the first person in history to be portrayed as lovable and relatable and it is just not gonna happen.
Unless it is the Great British Bake Off, in which case, carry on :)
I felt bad for Carole. She agreed to be in what she thought was going to be a serious documentary about big cat abuse and instead was portrayed as being in a quirky feud with a man who tried to have her killed.
Everything about it was crazy, but I kept coming back to being amazed at how the Wal-Mart ammo salesman turned libertarian campaign manager seemed like the most thoughtful and put-together person on the show.
He was the only person in the show who seemed to know you are not supposed to point guns at people.
I love that he agreed to the job because he was like this is the craziest dude I’ve ever met And this is gonna be an Shishow
If anyone ever shot toward me as joke I would have fed them to the tigers.
Apparently he got to know joe because he is also gay and thanked joe for being the only out and proud gay man in that area which adds a sad layer to his agreeing to help joe.
I was all in to hate Josh until this exact moment and then it was clear every single person in this doc is just a tragic figure.
Yes. It was very endearing when he described being asked to be the campaign manager “That was like my dream job!”
Ohhh he was my LEAST FAVORITE person in the movie (if arguably the most articulate). "I'm a libertarian so fuck the Feds." And then he rolled like a little bitch.
"So TECHNICALLY fuck the feds" sent me rolling with laughter.
I took a screen shot video of that one line and sent it to all my friends. Of all the random terribleness something about that exchange was the funniest thing
I’ve been saying it for days!
Isn’t this literally all libertarians? Like they either go full sovereign citizen, or they roll over on their principles as soon as it is beneficial to them personally. My best friend was married to this libertarian clown who didn’t wear a seatbelt bc fuck the gov’t, but if he got pulled over the first thing he did was buckle up.
What I told my friend the other day, after I finished watching the series was, “Joshua will be absolutely fine if he can get out of his Libertarian mindset.” I hope he’s at least able to move somewhere bigger and better and more accepting.
He's young, which gives me some hope! I absolutely know a lot of politically thoughtful adults who had bananas politics at his age.
I think Jeff Lowe could five Doc Antle a run for his money. He was arrested for strangling his first wife and his comments about how his new wife needed to get right back in the gym after giving birth (not to mention his obsession with having a hot nanny) made me feel so bad for the women in his life.
Oh my Lord, the nanny.
I have been worried ever since watching the doc that they got an au pair and she's trapped with them
Also that Oakley hat is inexcusable
He just looks like and acts like every single contractor I ever interacted with as a lumber salesperson in (very rural) Northern New York.
The best description of Jeff that I've seen is "if Axe body spray was a person." He is an absolute douchecanoe. Barf.
My stomach sank when they revealed his wife was pregnant with a girl. I don't want to think about that man having a daughter.
I was TRULY horrified at that moment. I kept wanting them to go back to how he strangled??? his first wife?!?
YES I really expected them to ask him about that at some point, but no, just more of we let men's violence against women slide
That gym comment was the single meanest moment in the entire series. Fuck Jeff Lowe.
a truly horrible person! that comment about getting his wife straight into the gym after she gives birth? trying to get a hot nanny? uuuuuughhhhh
I think Jeff was the worst of the lot. Just a gross misogynist con man. And all the Affliction attire he wore was inexcusable. And what was then weird hair situation under that hat?
A complete trash monster. And, again with the young woman who is maybe more malleable than another woman!
I can't possible put these in any sort of order but top 5 wildest moments:
1. Serving pizzas made with expired meat from wal-mart
2. When Saff got his arm bit off and Joe immediately put on an EMT jacket before actually helping?? (Saff is trans which they do not mention in the doc at all)
3. Singing his own song and talking about balls while dressed as a priest at Travis's funeral, with his mother in the front row, then getting remarried 2 months later
4. John discovering DURING FILMING that James was an FBI informant
5. That extended shot of James on the water ski for no real reason
Honorable mention goes to finding a campaign manager in the gun department of wal-mart.
I am sure I am forgetting so many things because it was just non-stop but these are the ones that come to mind.
The bathtub interview
Yes! just remembered that and it definitely should be up there
Thank you for remembering the EMT jacket.
#5! The filmmakers had to use the song "The Eye of the Tiger" at some point and they NAILED IT.
This is not any sort of fresh insight but the way this show exploited people like John (interviewing him shirtless was a choice, and why was that other guy interviewed in a bathtub?) was awful. Saff is trans and yet female pronouns and his deadname are used throughout. Joe's abuse of his young partners was just glossed over like it was another wacky thing about him. So while I don't think picking THE worst person in this show is useful, I do think AMONG the worst are the filmmakers themselves.
I was so shocked to learn Saff was trans bc of the aggressive misgendering.
I was mad as hell when literally the first time I googled him it was clear he was trans.
Just learning this now and I AM SO MAD
There's definitely a lot of questions to asked about the ethics of the documentarians here
Hard agree. There are so many things that were just sort of glossed over for the sake of the drama. Watching it was just one shock after another, and then I realized all the things that were just mentioned (like the woman saying she was pressured into sex with Doc Antle!) and then just never mentioned again. I can't believe Joe is the only one in prison.
It was when I saw Joe taking the newborn cubs away without any of the filmmakers intervening that I turned against them. I finished out the series for closure, but they are absolutely culpable.
Seeing Eric (? Former employee with long blonde hair) grieving, looking at photos, obviously under the influence, asking “have you ever walked a tiger?” was one of the saddest minutes ever captured on film
He looked like Tom Petty and has a good heart.
When I saw the bottle of Smirnoff on the table behind him, I just knew the producer bought that to "lube him up" for that interview. No way that poor guy could afford Smirnoff! That whole last episode just broke my heart all around.
I had the exact same reaction.
I don’t know I feel so validated by your comment but... I do. Thank you for all you do for us!
He seemed like one of the better souls (as a group, the employees and volunteers were so much better people than everyone else). I felt very sad for him in that scene. Deep addiction issues, and so sad.
There's such a profound difference between the vulnerable, addicted, animal loving cult-member victims/employees and the evil, greedy men/women at the top. I think it's important not to sweep everyone together into one pile. Most of the people interviewed were absolutely victims on some level.
I kept thinking about this - so many of the staff seem like lovely weirdos who were looking for their community and ended up in a cult/exploitation scheme by accident
Yes, I loved Eric. He was clearly responsible for keeping all of those cats alive on a day to day basis and you can tell he loved them.
His stuffed tiger toy!
I felt similarly sad when the keeper without legs was talking about the lion who was buddies with his dog and not being able to get him back. It just seemed so sad overall
I did feel bad for Eric. I was fascinated when the weird TV producer saying there is some kind of weird high you get from being around the big cats. I would be interested to hear the science of that! Adrenaline rush from somewhere deep in your lizard brain or something?
I read that the TV producer guy's Texas studio (after he left Joe) ALSO mysteriously burned down. And that now he lives in Norway. I hope Norway is more fireproof!
I think these people obviously feel a profound experience. To the rest of us they are just very dangerous big predators. The way that cat’s instinct kicked in when she grabbed Joe’s boot and just dragged him...
I will never get over the zoo manager losing both his legs from ziplining. Or the woman whose boob job was planned for her, and who was grateful for it because it meant she got to rest.
Right!!! Or even Saff, who SEEMED like the most rational one until you realise he literally chose to have his arm amputated so he didn't make Joe look bad
According to a thread the man behind the original podcast put out, there was more to that included lack of insurance, no way to pay for treatment and joe showing up with a non disclosure and manipulating saff.
When Saff said he signed something while in hospital I SHRIEKED. Saff needs a good lawyer. There is no way he wasn't gacked on painkillers while signing away his rights to sue.
For sure I was thinking that the choice had to be more due to costs/no insurance and not the misdirected altruistic reason.
Once they started talking about how very little the employees were paid, it made a lot more sense to me. Rehab could get very time consuming and expensive, plus the manager lost his legs after trying to save them anyway.
Tbf, I think anyone would become lose their rationality living in Joe's cult of personality, and having to endure such horrible living conditions.
It sounded more like he went for amputation because he didn't want to go through two years of surgery and PT, and wanting to go back was separate from that.
But he also said that if he did the surgery and PT "the media won." 🤔
I think the pressure Joe put on him was very much a part of that decision.
Ah yes. I just commented that he seems to be a balance of brainwashed and realistic, but I forgot the bit where he decided to go back so that Joe didn't lose any business.
After watching this my wife had a work stress dream but her job was organizing tigers in excel.
this made me laugh out loud
She said it was way better than her usual work dreams!
Honestly, one of the wildest moments was post-trial when Carole's husband leaned in to the camera conspiratorially and revealed he likes to celebrate big victories with a fancy glass of champagne, as a treat. What a sweet, boring man. How did he possibly find himself in this world?
Mr. Carole seemed OK until I saw the wedding pictures. JESUS TAPDANCING CHRIST. I do respect his habit of keeping splits of champagne in the fridge for special occasions. I also enjoy brie and shrimp cocktail as his go-to snack choices.
I mean, maybe it’s a kink thing? All of his weird stuff is harmless.
I read that he surprised her with the outfits at their informal beach wedding. She thought it was hilarious.
I would believe that!! My first thought at seeing her expression in one of those wedding photos was that she looked indulgently amused. (I remember thinking this specifically because it seemed odd--she had been painted out to be the only one with an opinion in the relationship at this point.)
“How did he possibly find himself in this world?” Is the exact question plastered all over his face as he knelt in a tiger costume at the end of a leash on his wedding day.
It's a caveman outfit he wore to surprise her https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/09/joe-exotic-and-his-american-animals.html
(For those who maybe felt like the documentary was exploitative and maybe a little immoral: I am your kind. We can talk about it below. It feels a little like an expose on child slavery that focuses the bulk of its attention on how wacky the slavers are. I don't feel better for watching it -- and I watched the whole thing.)
Yep. The last two episodes connected all the dots. This is what happens to marginalized people that capitalism and evangelical culture left behind: Meth.
Ugh thank you, this makes my wariness about it seem less unfounded. So many people on my social media feed have been sharing memes that seem to make joe exotic look cool and funny? It all seems awful.
Between this and the cat documentary from earlier this year (or late last year? Time is a mystery) I have realized I am become My Mom and I just can't stomach these things the way I used to.
I had to stop. The first ep was sort of entertaining in its bizarreness and the constant leveling up of wtf, but I just kept feeling sadder & sicker as I watched.
At least at the end I got the impression it was all set up so they could get Jeff Lowe finally taken down. That final moment when he was like "I got them to admit to everything on tape" was like *turn to the camera like on the Office but real life."
That said, yes, this is peak true crime trash and I'm pretty sure no one comes out looking good, the documentaries among them. At least all the interviewees definitely got a healthy pay day for talking.
I hate to be a spoil sport, but does anyone else find the Carole hate distasteful? Like, all the memes are Carole, all the nastiness is about Carole. Doc Antle is some kind of sex cult leader, Joe Exotic probably set fire to his office, destroying all the video and killing the alligators, NOT TO MENTION making his mother the fall guy for his property, but Carole gets the hate? Not saying she's a saint, but the GLEE with the hate bothers me.
I am totally with you- I don't think Carole is a hero or anything but I think it's far more likely that her husband crashed a plane into the gulf of mexico than she managed to murder him with no traces left behind. The amount of online abuse she is getting is upsetting to me (don't look at her rescue's twitter replies, they are awful).
I also really wanted an actual veterinarian/zoologist or something to talk about the Big Cat rescue. Obviously what Doc Antle and Joe are doing to animals is horrific (not to mention what they are doing to people) but I also want to know if Carole's approach is actually the best or should something else be being done.
I think there were some hugely irresponsible creative choices here, and one of them is not bringing in an expert to go over the real differences between an accredited sanctuary and the private zoos. (The other big ones for me are not putting a real content warning for Travis' death and misgendering Saff with no attempt at correction.)
I really could have used a trigger warning on the suicide episode full stop. It absolutely sent me over an edge I hadn't seen in a while.
I’m so sorry.
Conservation biologist's live-tweet, very positive about BCR https://twitter.com/biologistimo/status/1244045831923212288?s=19
Thank you for posting this! I had the same question as I was watching last night and this thread is really helping to put things into perspective :)
I am 100% with you. It's been very disturbing to me to see how many people have walked away with the idea that CAROLE is the main villian? I am not a big fan of hers, but she's practically a saint compared to all these other guys, and the documentarians REALLY did her dirty.
FWIW, a friend of mine interned at Big Cat Rescue for 3 months and says she had a positive experience. She thinks the Tiger King makers portrayed Carole unfairly.
exactly, i didn't even realize there was questionable (abusive?) treatment of young people (minors??) in this because all I see is carole-killed-her-husband jokes
We're only two episodes into this absolute shit show, but the interview with Barbara "Bala" from Ames, Iowa was haunting because of the stuff that you know she wanted to say but couldn't or wouldn't. And also disturbed by how all of those super creepy Tiger men wanted doc's secret about how to form a harem.
Bala and Saff were so compelling.
By which I mean “Bala”, as she is Barbara and happy to be out.
This is why Doc Antle is unequivocally the worst. Joe is awful and evil too, but he’s a dumb chaotic mess of awful. Doc Antle runs a tight ship of an evil tiger sex cult.
Nerd alert but here is why I find Lawful Evil way more insidious than Chaotic Evil
I would watch a whole documentary on her. She was one of maybe three people I didn't loathe.
I live in Des Moines and I wish I could just call her up and ask. She’s like 30 min away.
Doc Antle definitely the lowkey worst, he is (was?) running a CULT. All his mystical bullshit and fake "doctor" thing. Ugh. But man, it's hard to believe all of these people are real.
DEFINITELY a cult!!! the one woman who got out was so lucky.
Just a garden variety sex cult run on unpaid labor.
Idk if anyone has said this yet but the zoo pizza shop Joe started was called ZOOTERS
what
It shows it for just a few seconds when it pans out from them serving expired meat pizza
That was 100% my favorite moment of the entire series. Everything else was too weird or sad or enraging.
I think there was a little too much plausible deniability in there that maybe Joe didn’t REALLY want Carole killed and Jeff set him up. If you read the thread also linked in here by the man who did the podcast on Joe, it’s very obvious that he was 100 percent on board with offing Carole. (I also think Carole is a shady lady who knows more about what happened to her husband than she is saying, but whatever crap he was involved in that meant he needed to fly small planes to Costa Rica under the radar may possibly have led to his demise, as opposed to her machinations.)
Yup. While Jeff clearly helped make the scheme happen, Joe did more than enough to earn his convictions.
He absolutely gave that Creed-from-the-Office-looking dude $3k to kill Carole. No bones about it.
He wanted her dead and he tried to get the job done. The DA was right on when she said “yes, obviously Joe made a million videos about wanting Carole to die, but what matters is what he said about it when no one was listening.” It was a murder-for-hire. Sure, Jeff (a trashmonster) may have encouraged him in order to get him in trouble, but Joe absolutely put a hit out on Carole.
OMG yes - Creed! I couldn't put a finger on who he reminded me of and it was him.
I hope they hire him for the TV show
I thought he looked like Barry the Baptist from Lock Stock
I felt so bad for Josh the campaign manager until he declared he’s a hard core libertarian.
A hard core libertarian who decided he was on Team Government REAL QUICK when faced with any kind of consequences for trying to get a lunatic elected governor of an actual state.
oh that's just the rural Oklahoma talking. He is just WAITING to be radicalized. If he were remotely close to an urban center he'd be a leftist.
the shot of him desperately vaping was incredible
Favorite moments
- "Don Lewis had a green thumb -- everything he touched turned to money" this is pretty light compared to everything else in this show, but that they used this phrase instead of Midas Touch really tickled me in a non-judgmental way
- The look on John Finlay's face when he first heard that the feds had been investigating Joe was absolutely precious and a source of light in a very dark and twisted tale
- Every music video
As far as the worst person, ESH except maybe John Finlay and the other victims of these horrible men, but yeah, Doc Antle is probably the most vile. The grooming and abuse are evil enough without the appropriation and being the outright worst cliche of "Polyam Dude With Ponytail"
One interesting thing about the show, toward the end, was how often they turned to Doc Antle for the Jim Halpert -level stare at the camera- “WHY ON EARTH WOULD HE GO AND DO A FOOL THING LIKE THAT” take.
Such a good point. Doc's differentiator seems to be that he is basically slightly more competent and less on meth than Joe and his crew, so the fact that even he is horrified by how obviously they were being about all their crime-ing was telling.
yeah, like, telling us you would have hired a more expensive hit man does not make you the voice of reason, sex cult leader
And you know that's how he thinks of himself "the voice of reason."
As a public librarian I have to say that almost everyone in this series would be a NIGHTMARE PATRON
It would be no small thing at the end of my life to be described as a "good patron of the library." Very much goals.
did you see the staples comment downthread, that 100% makes sense
Yes! That's what made me think of it. I was like "oh, I know EXACTLY what that means."
The most normal and, in my opinion, likable person in the show turned out to be the dude with no legs. Everyone else in the show is just an awful human being.
I laughed my ass off at "the man is a walking chucky doll" tho
same! and that walking chucky doll guy was hellbent on being the rat who could throw EVERYONE else under the bus as much as possible to shield himself from any sort of accountability or consequences for his own actions. Like a more cowardly less evil less predatory version of Jeff L. The dude has some big time Peter Pettigrew on a jet ski energy
PETER PETTIGREW ENERGY
"This man has absolutely raped many women" was a thought I had about....multiple men in this doc! What does this say about me that I finished it?
Yeah, I forgot about that guy just now when trying to think of who wasn't the worst person (harder to think of an answer for that one!). He actually seemed to truly care about the animals.
The "walking Chucky doll" comment also sent me 😂
Oops wait I was thinking of Eric, who testified against Joe in court and definitely cared about the animals deeply. I don't remember whether thiiiis guy did or not but he seemed like one of the least egregious folks iirc
Eric's last scene was so heartbreaking and such a contrast from when he was at the zoo. That was a stone cold bummer.
Erik’s last scene is what connected all the dots for me that what we had just spent 8 episodes watching was the ongoings of a backwater methhead refuge.
Yes I had the same reaction. He is awesome!
It's pretty wild that of everyone in the documentary, the one who comes across as the most levelheaded and trustworthy is the cocaine kingpin who inspired Scarface and admitted to standing by as his buddy chopped up a body.
Glad to see I'm not the only one who thought Mario was the best of the tiger people. He reminded me powerfully of a great many immigrant dads of my acquaintance. He just wants to live with his wife and their exotic animals and their closets full of monkey clothes.
This description is how I got my dad and several friends to watch it and they all agreed completely. I was bummed we didn't get a check in on him in response to Joe's arrest.
Yes! I loved Mario. He seemed to really understand that, yeah, what he did before was bad, and now he’s just living his life and he’s happy that his wife loves all of her monkey clothes.
Glad to see I'm not the only one who thought Mario was the best of the tiger people. He reminded me powerfully of a great many immigrant dads of my acquaintance. He just wants to live with his wife and their exotic animals and their closets full of monkey clothes.
The filmmakers were 100% with the men in this show. Carol, whose beaded headpiece doesn't help her, is not very likable, but there was no attempt to make her appear otherwise. The most telling line was when Carol appeared for the first interview and the producer/director (?) says "she's dressed perfectly!" They wanted her to appear as nutty as possible -- sensationalism combined with a healthy dose of misogyny. Plus, my sense is that despite the interview with the (lovely) woman who was 'given' breast implants the filmmakers also wanted to know his secret.
I watched with some college friends over Watch Party because we're Okies. That's when we realized we all had nebulous connections to people in the doc; Joe Exotic used to come into Staples where my friend worked to print campaign materials, the campaign manager went to our liberal arts college, and even the town I went to high school in got a shout-out. It felt very surreal because we've known about Joe for awhile. Crazy things were always happening at the zoo and people suspected something bad when his husband killed himself. It's weird but I definitely feel like Joe was the ...least worst? I at least have more understanding for him. But Doc 💯 the worst and Jeff not far behind.
Also by far the worst moments were after Travis's death and his mother sitting at the funeral and the next wedding. My heart broke for her when she said she had no idea how her son ended up with Joe.
Oh! Two more things!
My friend that worked at Staples said Joe was the type to come in 15 minutes before closing with a big project to print.
And our local satire blog The Lost Ogle posted on Twitter from supposedly Joe's twitter that Joe isn't in Oklahoma prisons anymore and that he has coronavirus
1. It was a fun documentary, but I came away from it incredibly disappointed because they had so much opportunity to shed light on wild animal abuse and they didn't. The scene where Joe took the tiger cub from its mother the moment it was born? Fucking horrific. They never touched on how awful and evil cub breeding and cub petting is because they wanted Carole and Joe to be seen as "equally bad" for the narrative, but it's so, so clear that Joe is a fucked up animal abuser.
2. My boyfriend went to college in rural Ohio and when it got to the part about the guy who let all his wild animals loose in Ohio he yelled "THAT'S why I had to be scared of being eaten by a lion on campus for a YEAR??" The Midwest is wild.
I am 100% IN for your first comment. There's an interview with the filmmakers in the LA Times and they discuss the animal abuse more nakedly and then try to excuse it not being the focus of the doc as "the story went a different way", which is such bullshit.
Yes, that was horrific. I watched it while nursing my newborn and that scene just did me in.
My kid is 19 and that scene did me in. Visceral horror.
Oh and Saff and zip-line guy are the only two seemingly redeemable humans in this whole thing. "I had to go buy pants!" was such an endearing line.
Reinke was so sweet. Just a lost soul like so many of the people who got sucked into these literal sex cults of personality and also meth and tigers and faux-Hindu nonsense.
I’m sad his marriage ended but he has his skeleton passenger friend I guess
It took me two hours to remember what you were talking about (is she being metaphorical?) and now I am laughing so hard.
And then the pants he did buy were the type you can zip off in to shorts!
Oh ALSO important note: the show fucked up about this but Saff is a trans man and uses he/him pronouns
None of them deserves Saff.
Saff is the BEST person on this show and I will fight for him.
Saff is by so far the best person on the show. Has clearly been through some serious shit in his life, even apart from the arm, but so measured and compassionate to the animals.
I went to high school with Travis. We weren’t friends but had classes together and some mutual friends. One time in theater we did an improv skit together and he did very well. He was a very typical Southern California skater/stoner kid but also uncommonly nice. I already knew what had happened to him, but I hadn’t heard just how abusive and exploitative the situation was and it was extremely sad to see.
I know people who have been to Carole's rescue and they said it was well run and very nice. I am very miffed that she is lumped with the others when she does not breed the animals, does not allow posing pictures, and the people that work there are free to leave and not induced to stay with cult mind games and drug use. Carole found herself a loving husband, is doing what she is passionate about without hurting her volunteers/employees, and seems pretty darn content with life - fully on Team Carole.
Thank you!! I know Carole is kind of annoying, but she's the only person in that doc who isn't currently, actively abusing animals.
Not surprised the internet turned against her, since she's a lady who's trying to stop a bunch of dudes from doing whatever they want, just disappointed at the sheer number of people who think she's "just as bad."
me too, tbh
Top 5:
1. In the first ep, when someone says all exotic animal people are weird, but monkey people are just nerds and the big cat folks are the real sociopaths. I want to know all the negative stereotypes exotic animal people have about each other. Are bird people cheap? Are elephant guys bad drivers?
2. Noticing that Joe took a time during his gubernatorial campaign to get a neck tattoo of his new child groom's name. That's what love looks like.
3. I sincerely appreciated Carole's insight that a lot of sexual predators are mixed up in this exotic animal stuff because it's a way to lure young people into their orbit.
4. Noticing how working/volunteering at any of these places is more or less an MLM.
5. Any scene with the sheriff or the federal prosecutor, for a dose of sanity.
I believe I read the sheriff is currently in jail!
oh please share the link to that!
It's in the twitter thread linked below (which omg please read), but... https://kfor.com/news/former-police-chief-accused-of-sexually-assaulting-intellectually-disabled-man-multiple-times/
Yeah, that's not the sheriff they interviewed in the documentary. That's the police chief from a different town.
Correct, different guy. I don't think the one that was actually in it is in jail now? That would be far too nuts.
Every time I thought I had a handle on how wild and absurd EVERYTHING was, something else happened and threw me for a loop! A sex cult! A disappeared multimillionaire husband! A coercive throuple! Country diss tracks! I googled ahead and knew Travis died “in a gun accident while the zoo was open” and I was like, woof, that sounds dramatic, and THEN it was a suicide that was sort of caught on CCTV? I was NOT prepared for that, I was not prepared for anything that happened in episodes 2-7.
I completely agree with all the commenters defending Carole. The documentary draws a clear equivalence between Carole and Joe, Doc, Jeff etc., who are all OBVIOUSLY worse people! Sure, Don's death is suspicious, but Occam's Razor people, she probably had nothing to do with it. Her real crime in the eyes of the American public is being annoying. The reaction to the show reveals that Americans will forgive a lot -- misogyny, animal abuse, coercion -- but not sanctimony.
My personal Occam’s Razor works the other way: when a very rich person who has just tried to get a restraining order against their spouse disappears and is never heard from again and leaves over ten million dollars to their spouse, the spouse probably did it.
And I think he was prob a real piece of shit and have no general beef w Carole who seems to run a good sanctuary and should not be lumped in with these horrible men.
but he would never leave that much money behind, rich abusers aren’t leaving that kind of cash behind for their spouse
Me: “I think she did it”
Steve: “how much money did he leave in the accounts when he disappeared”
Me: “over ten million”
Steve: “oh for sure, that’s killing money”
You want to fake your death and start a new life in Costa Rica, you leave like $2 mil behind. This man was not El Chapo, walking away from over ten million.
I think it's COMPLETELY fair to lump her in with the horrible men! 1) Her sanctuary doesn't look any better than any of the others to me? 2) She is presumably not sexually exploiting her underlings but where Joe Exotic and Doc Antle are craven capitalists she is...doing something very similar, just with the veneer of nonprofit respectability. Or maybe I have a chip on my shoulder about the nonprofit industrial complex (and have worked for/with some Caroles). To be clear: all of these people are terrible.
(Also I'm more convinced than ever that all zoos are bullshit because THEY ALL make the same "seeing these animals in cages will somehow inspire people to save the worrrrrrld" arguments that never actually connect the dots on how that actually works.)
Her sanctuary is objectively better than the “zoos” and is operated according to credible standards (the cats have huge enclosures with appropriate vegetation, and absolutely no physical contact with humans). Running something like that on volunteer labor definitely doesn’t get her great human points, but it’s also objectively better than running coercive sex and meth cults... Finally, she doesn’t have the same rationale or mission as the other guys—she is providing the best place she can for the cats to live out their days.
Yeah an actual big picture doc about animal cruelty, treatment, behavior and human accountability is the penance I need after watching the worst/weirdest/saddest of humans exploit each other.
I read a response to the show from Carole, and she claims that she had reports after his disappearance that he was seen in Costa Rica a couple of times, which I find very interesting, if true.
(walking Chucky doll voice) “that’s Panhandle water”
1. Using the expired meat on the pizzas they fed to paying customers.
2. The documentary didn't mention that Don's assistant actually was stealing from him and was sued just before the disappearance. Makes more sense why the POAs were changed out of her name and I'm less inclined to believe her view of Carole.
3. That there weren't MORE gun related injuries with the way they all wildly swung around loaded weapons and shot things while presumably high.
4. Doc Antle's voice/behavior changing SO MUCH when the cameras were rolling. Truly a practiced conman.
5. That Joe Exotic managed to win 19% of the vote! Also his campaign videos were gold.
WHOA about Don’s assistant!
19% of the libertarian vote, i think. i got thrown by that number at first too.
Someone tweeted that Lisa Kudrow’s whole career has been an extended audition for the role of Carole Baskin and I can’t get it out of my head?? She would be PERFECT
You're right but also this is great https://www.clickorlando.com/entertainment/2020/03/30/rejoice-kate-mckinnon-will-play-carole-baskin-in-tv-show-reports-say/
she is in Feel Good, another Netflix production, and she is SO GOOD there!!!
Just so much WTF when Carole is talking about how Joe keeps his tigers in cages and THANK GOD she is there for the tigers...and the cameraman pans over her tigers, also in cages.
And did anyone marvel at how much the Carole lookalike really looked like Carole in that video?
Respectfully—you’re missing a lot of context. Big Cat Rescue is a GFAS-accredited sanctuary. It has to provide humane amounts/types of space, enrichment, diet, corporate governance. Regardless of how a given scene was shot, there’s not actually a parallel between the roadside zoos and the reputable sanctuaries that have to take in the animals they abuse.
Thank you! It made me so mad that they framed Big Cat Rescue as basically the same as the other roadside zoos. That one guy who complained 'I've asked GFAS to come give me accreditation and they wouldn't!' and the show framed it as yet another class distinction instead of going into what it means to be an accredited sanctuary! How they compared a sanctuary having an all-volunteer workforce as basically the same kind of brainwashing and exploitation as a literal sex-cult blew my top.
YES! The filmmakers tried to create an equivalence between those disgusting men with roadside zoos and a woman who had done breeding and selling in her younger years under the influence of an abusive husband, and then once she realized how bad that was stopped the exploitation and opened an accredited sanctuary.
I would love more information about that, the doc really seemed to equate her work to Joe and Doc et al and I'm like, y'all this seems profoundly unfair (but of course very juicy)
At the risk of providing truly dull reading—the standards any GFAS big cat sanctuary has to follow can be found here: https://www.sanctuaryfederation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/FelidStandards-Dec-2019.pdf
If I can speak for a majority of folks here, truly dull reading is easy to fit in between dog walks!
thanks for posting this
Thank you! I really wanted to know more about sanctuaries and you saved me the internet sleuthing.
This whole thread (it's long)
https://mobile.twitter.com/biologistimo/status/1244061737990729728
thanks for this tooooo
Thank you for saying this - I came away from the doc really disappointed at how they NEVER touched on how horrific and abusive cub breeding and cub petting is, and how Carole is the only one of the subjects not actively taking part in it.
Yes, I wish they had actually covered this. Because I think too many people will watch this doc and still not understand why this is a problem and why there is such a difference between people like Carole and AZA zoos and idiots like Joe and Doc and everyone else
I also found it interesting that when Joe was flying over Big Cat Rescue, it's clear that the enclosures for the cats are huge whereas at his "zoo" they're tiny.
Seriously, I really thought it was Carole for more than a second and my brain just could not compute what was happening.
Me too! BUT, due credit to the actress as well. She really nailed Carole's whole carriage I think.
Yes! Whoever was responsible finding a Carole-lookalike knocked it out of the park.
YES!!
yes!!!
Also I asked a friend of mine if he'd seen the show and he said, and I quote, "Murder docs aren't really my thing." Calling Tiger King a murder doc is akin to calling Les Miserables a book about sewers, my good dude.
amen sister
I actually think the doc WAY underplayed the role drugs played in all of this? Like, it was clear it was happening, I kept waiting for an episode to overtly say "oh, and all these people were on so, so many drugs!" but they didn't. I think Joe used drugs as a manipulation tool even more than they let on, including with his poor employees that he treated just like expired wal-mart meat.
I feel like they downplayed the drugs because they kept trying to make Joe Exotic look like some kind of cult leader with incredible powers of charisma who could make people change their whole lives to be close to him. "He just gave them drugs" is less compelling, but probably much more true.
Yeah, I was surprised it took them like 5 episodes to mention meth and coke when John Finley's mouth has been showing us the truth from ep 1
I had no idea that there are more than double the amount of tigers in captivity than in the wild. It also felt weird that the filmmakers stuck that in at the very end because that clearly wasn't the point of the series at all and it felt shoehorned in at the end...although now that I think about it, that seems pretty fitting. The tigers felt like the eventual last priority to all the main "characters" involved, too.
It struck me as the documentary series version of a viral social media pile-on, where everybody is joking and meme-ing and dunking and then somebody finally steps in and reminds everyone that this is all actually real-life horrifying, and we all just sort of look sheepishly at our feet and mumble "yes, yes, of course, the animals."
That's a great way to reframe it. Thanks!
To be fair the number of tigers in captivity vs in the wild does come up at the very beginning but it's a blink and you'll miss it snippet of a news broadcast. But yeah, the lack of emphasis on that definitely speaks to the animals not being the priority
yeah the whole series is basically 'pet owner narcissism' x 1000000
I think it was originally planned as a documentary about tiger exploitation but then they realized how absolutely out there everyone involved was and the murder for hire stuff happened and they decided they had to go a different route for profitability but still kind of wanted to throw a little of the original goal in there.
I felt like the documentarian did exactly what Joe claimed he was doing initially- raised awareness by exciting the audience with something outrageous so they would pay attention to the message. The ethics are...interesting.
I think it was just there to add an extra oomph to their very old footage of Joe Exotic as a well meaning rescue boy back before the Tiger Riches and Tiger Fame went to his head.
i had listened to the podcast on the subject before the doc came out, so getting through episode three and announcing “we havent even gotten to the murder for hire” to my house was a kind of christmas.
I want a documentary about this documentary. How did they get so much access (My strong hunch: these greedy dipshits would talk about anything for a crisp hundo bill) to these con artists? How did they balance the perspectives and keep everyone talking? DId they start the doc before Joe was arrested? How guilty/ashamed of themselves do they feel now?
Yes! I need a making of with a timeline.
Okay, I am admittedly a little sensitive to animal abuse themes, so i I haven’t watched it and only read a lot about the series, but what the fuck? The filmmakers have said they set out to make the “blackfish of the roadside zoo industry” (in other words, a heavy doc that alerted people to issues, and in this case, one that sparked real change at sea world) and they felt like Netflix leaned into sensationalizing the characters for entertainment value. I get that, i get reality tv and docuseries about weirdos, i love real-life-Christopher-guest vibes, but it sounds like this is about a really seriously gross corner of human behavior treated with some amount of levity because of the people in it and it’s not sitting well with me. I don’t want to find joy in an animal abuser, no matter what. And Carole does seem totally insane (have you guys volunteered or worked in rescue at any level? You get some wild characters) but her organization IS a sanctuary, so i am hating seeing her villanized and memed to death because even if she’s a criminal she seems to be on the right side for the tigers, at least. I don’t know. Please help me feel less bad, if that sounds possible.
It was all really uncomfortable but showing him taking the newborn cubs away from their mother really pushed me over the edge.
Co-signed on the sadness on the Carole piling-on. I’ve met her (very briefly; my Dad did some photography at Big Cat Rescue That they wound up using to fundraise way back when) and she is A Character for sure. That said, the sanctuary itself is stellar and does the best they can for the cats and to raise awareness around the abusive structures of cub-petting and owning wild animals for fun. They’re trying to put legislation through to ban the kinds of things shown in the documentary! I’ve been going there since I was literally a child, so there’s personal bias here for sure, but also...it’s just all so weird. I was shouted down in a group chat about this yesterday, too, which is exacerbating a lot of feelings about it.
You don't need to feel bad, it is truly a guilty pleasure for me, at least, and I would never insist other people watch it.
update, thank you all for the confirmation bias. don't feel bad for watching things you want to watch but i'm glad it came off (to some rational humans) as a clear missed opportunity to shed light on real issues
Jessie, I didn’t want to watch it for the same reason. My daughter assured me you did not see animal abuse so I watched it. They are pacing in cages but appeared to be ok, many were fat. Some stuff comes out in the last episode so you can turn that off Mid episode or not watch the last episode that deals with the trial. I did some follow up and found 42 of them ended up at a well respected big cat rescue on the plains in Colorado where they roam in large fenced areas so watch it and keep that in mind!
I prewatched for Steve bc he cannot handle any animal abuse, ever, and elected to tell him to skip it, even though the animals are mostly ok. The baby tigers having issues bc of premature separation from their moms and that horrible story about the chimps at the end (a rare moment of self-awareness and responsibility-taking from Joe) were too much. And I personally have a tremendously unfair-dislike-verging-on-phobia around non-human primates, which only manifests around ones in captivity who are behaving weirdly as a result, it's not like I see a baboon in a wildlife documentary and feel revulsion, and it still made me cry.
I am terrified of chimps who live with people, full stop. It's really not the chimps' fault! It's just some kind of personal uncanny valley issue. But the way they grabbed each other the minute they could...thinking of these social creatures being in separate cages for ten years broke my heart.
I also don’t like non-human primates. I think it goes back to a Discovery Channel doc when I was a kid about chimps doing cannibalism—but that story just tore my heart out. I don’t Ike them, but they deserve to be cared for and I recognize their ability to suffer. That was horrific.
1) Joe Exotic getting into his car and saying, "My favorite thing to do is drive around and sing along to myself" then proceeding to "sing along to himself" completely off-key and maybe also not knowing the words really?
2) Doc Antle renaming those poor young women to very clearly have what he thinks are "exotic" names but he is so unimaginative and DUMB that the one woman's name is just....China. A real "first thought, best thought" kinda guy.
3) Wal-mart meat on the pizza.
3a) "Pizzaria" - Granted, so many places across the US use this misspelling of pizzeria, but boy oh boy did it make me chuckle.
4) Carole's ex-husbands family. I mean... the hair, the house, the outfits, the everything.
5) Joe's gift shop announcement a la "Imm'on tell you cuz you're gonna hear about it"
IMO the hands-down most fucked up person is Jeff Lowe!
It is off-key because someone else sings the songs and Joe “softly sings on top of the vocals”, they covered that in the podcast Over My Dead Body. 100% the person singing in all the music videos is not Joe.
Oh yes, of course-- there's no way someone who speaks in his range could bust out that sultry, deep baritone! Truly just love the commitment on his part.
Don Lewis's first wife and daughters were delusional. I got the feeling they thought that it's all Carole's fault they didn't get Don's millions.
So I haven't watched it but I an familiar with the case through podcasts and honestly it sounds like the doc makes did Carole Baskin real dirty here, especially with the insinuation she murdered her much older, abusive husband
Yeah I am sort of shocked more people aren't on her side, even if she did remove that piece of shit husband. Yeah, sure, murder is bad but like the hatred for an eccentric older woman with power and money is really shining through in even "progressive" circles.
This was my big problem with the show! It’s very easy to demonize Carole but she has been taken advantage of by men when she was young and even abused, is getting death threats now, was the focal point of murder for hire plot. She isn’t the same as all the men, she isn’t in abusive relationships with people much younger than her, she doesn’t do cub petting, her sanctuary follows actual rules and I hate that the filmmakers tried to equate her to Joe, Jeff and Doc. There’s so much misogyny in the show
She was *gang raped* when she was 14 and blamed for it by her fundamentalist Christian family. Carole has seen some shit.
The more you listen to true crime podcasts and watch true crime documentaries the more it seems like literally every single person who commits horrific crimes was abused as a child
Yes!!!
This is something that really bothered me too, especially given the absolutely vile way Joe used his online platform to abuse her. Carole is definitely not a 'likeable' person but she is nowhere near as bad as Joe, Jeff and Doc.
I also think they were journalistically dishonest in trying to equate her sanctuary with Joe and Doc. The wildcat biologist who had the great thread on the show mentioned some huge differences which the show flattened or ignored.
I don't think Carole killed her husband, but I think she knows what happened. I also think her husband wanted it to seem like she'd killed him (the note about her apparently threatening him etc).
I agree, and support her in it. The “open this if I die” stuff is classic abuser, and people seem to be flossing over the fact that Don was completely a Joe/Jeff/Doc type.
I do think the first husband sounded sketchy enough to have died any number of ways, so she had some plausible deniability until a friend pointed out to me that so much of the paperwork regarding the estate was altered to benefit her. It's circumstantial but significant.
I think that regardless of whether she killed him or whether he died in some misadventure she had knowledge about (like drug smuggling as has been suggested) she definitely altered that paperwork herself. But whether she killed him herself or took advantage of his mysterious death to alter the estate isn’t clear to me.
I think the latter. I think she knew he was up to something that was stupid and would likely get him killed, and quietly made sure she'd get hers if it came to that.