The King of the King of the Jungle

AP

Roadside zookeeper’s devious exploits on full display through Netflix

Give a man a tiger, and you make him a local celebrity. Show him how to breed more tigers, and you make him the star of a hit docuseries.

And if he’s Joe Exotic, the once-proud owner of G.W. Exotic Animal Park, then he’ll engage in enough off-the-books activities to transform that series into a true crime thriller, giving audiences just what they want but not enough of what they need.

Released on Mar. 20, Netflix’s latest binging extravaganza, “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness,” explores the exotic animal trade in America, focusing on private big cat zoos and preserves in the South. Today, more tigers live in captivity than in the wild, and the filmmakers use Exotic as the poster boy of this bizarre and rough business.

“People everyday they're like, you must have the most incredible life to live with 187 big cats,” says Exotic early in the first episode.

But, as filmmakers Rebecca Chaiklin and Eric Goode pull back to reveal the rat-infested trailers, starving animals and endless lawsuits plaguing Exotic and his staff, audiences discover the lies behind Exotic’s enticing invitations to pet soft tiger cubs at his zoo.

Still, Exotic—otherwise known as Joseph Maldonado-Passage—is enough of a natural showman and believer in the American Dream to ensnare the audience’s sympathy. He’s scruffy and always coming up with new schemes to boom his business and keep his name in the press, whether it’s learning magic to spruce up his shows, fighting PETA or running for president—and when that doesn’t work out, running for state governor. 

He also demonstrates tenderness in the way he prepares a Thanksgiving feast for those without loved ones on the holiday and also in his care for husbands John Finlay, Travis Maldonado and Dillon Passage.

The filmmakers improve Exotic’s image even more by pitting him against Carole Baskin, the owner of Big Cat Rescue, a conservation center dedicated to giving rescued big cats a comfortable place to spend their sunset years. The series primarily documents the Hatfield-McCoy-style feud between Exotic in Wynnewood, Okla. and Baskin near Tampa, Fla., as she weaponizes her seemingly endless assets to single-handedly put Exotic out of business.

Despite her organization’s noble goal, Baskin’s “Arrested Development” style out-of-touchness and her self-righteous smugness contrasts with Exotic’s relatable outbursts of anger, making his brand of egotism palatable. In contrast to her corporate coolness, he’s the type of guy who says what most people want to, but don’t. Americans tend to respect those types. 

Plus, the filmmakers convincingly make the case that Baskin may have murdered her rich, second husband to achieve financial independence over her preserve, and Exotic’s music video response, “Here Kitty Kitty”—in which he has a Baskin lookalike feed her husband’s body to the big cats—is hilariously priceless. 

Beyond Baskin, “Tiger King” is filled with an eclectic cast unimaginable to even Hollywood’s hippest screenwriters. There’s Jeff Lowe, the villain who made a name for himself smuggling tiger cubs into Las Vegas hotels to fuel his swinging habits; Mario Tabraue, a tiger owner and the reported inspiration for Tony Montana in “Scarface”; and Bhagavan “Doc” Antle, a mentor to Exotic and a more successful private zoo owner who once performed on stage with Britney Spears.

There’s also Allen Glover, a bald, sinister character who works as Lowe’s handyman and may or may have not set Exotic up on charges of murder-for-hire against Baskin. These charges led to Exotic’s arrest and sentencing to 22 years in prison earlier this year.

Exotic holds this candy colored cast of characters together, and though the filmmakers use him as their central focus, they succeed in preventing his perspective from controlling the narrative.

In fact, the show often reflects poorly on Exotic. Though Cardi B and other fans may be trying to free Exotic from jail, he still fed his employees (and zoo guests) bad meat scavenged from a Walmart dumpster and potentially set fire to his own recording studio, killing five alligators in an attempt to slander Baskin.

“I’m never gonna financially recover from this,” he states immediately after one of his keepers, Kalci Saffrey, loses an arm to one of the tigers, revealing his priorities during one of the show’s more frightening moments. Though he may be a big cat fanatic, he’s a businessman at heart.

All of these elements—the exotic animals, the trailer park lifestyle, the failed political campaigns, the suspicious animals rights activists and the bumbling murder plot—combine to form a seven-part reflection of America and the outrageous lifestyles simultaneously encouraged and condemned by the public. The show’s equal parts hilarious and depressing, like so many memes about the end of times.

And while the show never sags like so many other overstretched streaming series—there’s too many oddball characters and outrageous incidents—it does sometimes fall prey to the charisma of its cast, basking in the insanity of Exotic and his rivals at the expense of the big cats.

In the show's final moments, Chaiklin and Goode redirect the audience’s attention from the keepers to the kept, urging for more care and consideration for the animals used as pawns in the wars between Exotic, Baskin, Lowe and the government, among others. 

These final moments make viewers wish the series had lingered more on the living conditions of these caged animals throughout. Where do these big cats sleep? Are they receiving proper nutrition? And where are all the vets? The show is often too enamored with its crooks to answer these necessary questions.

But, for viewers confined to their homes like the lions and tigers in Exotic’s cages, the zeitgeist power of the “Tiger King” overwhelms these concerns. It’s a messy show for a messy moment. Like the guests at Exotic’s zoo, just don’t ask too many questions.