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Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness

Started by C_Larence, March 24, 2020, 07:55:18 AM

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C_Larence

Couldn't see a thread for this anywhere. The new Netflix limited series documentary that everyone would be talking about in the office if they were allowed to go to the office.

The first episode finds Joe Exotic, owner of the Greater Wynnewoods Exotic Animal Park and with it hundreds of dangerous animals, in prison for hiring somebody to murder Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue, a PETA linked big cat sanctuary. Pretty much everybody in this is absolutely fucking mental, with very few exceptions. Bhagavad "Doc" Antle, the Colonel Kurtz-esque yoga practitioner who rides around on an elephant and has three wives, is definitely the slimiest character so far (I'm on episode three of six).

My brain may have been broken by US politics, but I feel like Carole Baskin is a pretty solid Hillary Clinton analogy. All the clips of her so far have portrayed her as a flower child, cycling along in slow motion around her tiger haven, but there is something sinister underneath the veneer. The second episode shows how she is surrounded by an endless stream of white women who are willing to work for her for free, despite her having the means to pay for all of them many times over, and ends with the revelation that
Spoiler alert
she inherited a vast sum from her first husband, who mysteriously went missing, with a lot of people suspecting that she fed him to the tigers.
[close]

Joe Exotic himself transcends description, nothing I say here could do justice to him, so here is a picture of him with his two husbands instead.


Famous Mortimer

I had a "Joe Exotic For President 2016" pack, from the man himself. Annoyingly, I lost it in a move otherwise I'd be living large off the "please buy a Joe Exotic sticker off me" money.

Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse

I heard the podcast of this from Wondery a while back. Will have to check this out.

Ja'moke


EOLAN

Quote from: C_Larence on March 24, 2020, 07:55:18 AM

My brain may have been broken by US politics, but I feel like Carole Baskin is a pretty solid Hillary Clinton analogy.


Yep - it is very easily to watch as a political allegory for the United States after just one and a bit episodes in. Could close my eyes and Carole Baskin just sounds so much like Hilary in her manner of speaking. And then she had that song of the video like the hilarious fight song. Very well media managed and strategy but yep definitely something cold and calculating about her.

C_Larence

Quote from: EOLAN on March 25, 2020, 11:48:18 PM
Yep - it is very easily to watch as a political allegory for the United States after just one and a bit episodes in. Could close my eyes and Carole Baskin just sounds so much like Hilary in her manner of speaking. And then she had that song of the video like the hilarious fight song. Very well media managed and strategy but yep definitely something cold and calculating about her.

The series takes an overt turn into politics around halfway in, when Joe
Spoiler alert
runs for president, and then governor
[close]
.

I finished this tonight. In a way it was very predictable, everybody involved ended up exactly where you imagined they would, but the journey to get there is very entertaining.

Ja'moke

This shit is like Game of Thrones for shady exotic animal owners. So many different factions and rivalries and fascinating characters.

Thomas

This series is fucking mad. An absurd standout among the myriad sprawling crimedocuseries on Netflix.

Watched it all last night and this morning, on the recommendation of Bob Mortimer in a recent Athletico Mince. Increasingly fantastic, terrible, and sometimes grimly hilarious with each episode. The caged animals come away with the largest share of sympathy, but the entire human cast have lived rough and bizarre lives. All plight, all weird. So many of the issues covered in individual episodes might have spawned full series of their own - the mysterious
Spoiler alert
vanishing of Don Lewis
[close]
, for example. For legal reasons I probably cannot speculate that
Spoiler alert
he was definitely fed to tigers
[close]
.

If you're clicking into this thread out of curiosity, I suggest you definitely watch.

Ja'moke

I could have watched a full series of Joe Exotic learning magic from that 10 year old kid and going on his mall magic tour.

Schnapple

I think this is perhaps the only show I've ever seen that I found genuinely exhausting in its absurdity. I tried to trace the events backwards from him giving away the zoo to the other mad cunt (in a show populated entirely by mad cunts), and I was totally lost. Great call on the Carol/Hilary comparison!

kngen

Joe Exotic's
Spoiler alert
eulogy at Travis's funeral
[close]
was like something Kenny Powers would do in EB&D, except Danny McBride would probably cut it, as it was too unbelievable. And then he starts fucking singing! The long, low cringing moan that sequence elicited from me was a sound I didn't think my body was capable of.

PlanktonSideburns

Quote from: Thomas on March 28, 2020, 06:33:48 PM
In a recent Athletico Mince. Increasingly fantastic, terrible, and sometimes grimly hilarious with each episode.


Guessing you're not an Andy Dawson fan

The editing/sequencing of this is sublime, feels like there is a WTF! moment every 15 mins.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

We watched the first three episodes last night. It started out all mocking laughter, but the guffaws petered out as it became clear just how messed up and horrible these people all are. I know there is editorial bias and such in effect, but it's quite amazing that the real-life Tony Montana comes across as the least frightening one.

Dex Sawash


My wife can't watch children animals being hurt/abused. I pre-watched about 20 minutes and it looked safe enough aside from
Spoiler alert
chopping off bits of dead cows
[close]
. Is it safe to watch with her?

Wild animals kept as pets is a level of abuse, but she will sort of accept that.

Thomas

There is spoken detail later on (big cats ambiguously 'euthanized'), but I don't think there's anything violent shown onscreen.
Spoiler alert
Warning shots are fired
[close]
at one point, but not
Spoiler alert
directly at the cats.
[close]
The final episode moved me with
Spoiler alert
two chimps, deprived of contact for ten years, finally getting to meet and hug and all that
[close]
.

neveragain

I think a photo of some killed rabbits is the worst thing shown on screen.

hummingofevil

Well in a twist as weird as the show itself it turns out that the video of the Undertaker in a pool with a tiger is at that. fucking creep Doc Antle's place.




SteveDave

I think Joe's campaign manager's reaction to Travis blowing his brains out was exactly how I'd react if something like that happened in front of me too. Indeed it's what I did as I watched.

Thomas

#19
Quote from: SteveDave on March 31, 2020, 07:58:03 AM
I think Joe's campaign manager's reaction to Travis blowing his brains out was exactly how I'd react if something like that happened in front of me too. Indeed it's what I did as I watched.

Astonishing, tragic footage. One of several properly shocking moments.

And to be insensitively technical - and to refer again to to brilliant editing of the series - the way
Spoiler alert
the CCTV was framed
[close]
was weirdly perfect. The
Spoiler alert
horrible visual takes place just offscreen, signified by a bang and a flash, leaving our undivided attention on the stark reaction of the witness - whom we can then cut to an interview with
[close]
. For all the horrors and oddities taking place, the filmmakers were gifted with so much incredible material.

See also
Spoiler alert
Joe almost eaten by tigers as his crew gazes on, or Joe's lawyer effectively advising him to destroy his studio
[close]
. I suppose that's what happens when a man gives himself the surname 'Exotic' and insists on filming himself 24/7.

Also, I knew it - that's not actually Joe singing. I was suspicious from the off, as his speaking voice is pure Oddworld Abe.

EDIT: More amazing footage:
Spoiler alert
the funeral!
[close]
Fucking hell.
Spoiler alert
Eulogizing about balls while the dead boy's mother shakes with grief and drugs on the front row.
[close]


C_Larence

Quote from: hummingofevil on March 31, 2020, 02:43:08 AM
Well in a twist as weird as the show itself it turns out that the video of the Undertaker in a pool with a tiger is at that. fucking creep Doc Antle's place.





Here's Doc in the background of Britney Spears' 2001 VMA performance.




Icehaven

There's some debate in our house over wether Travis shooting himself was accidental or deliberate. I thought it was accidental as according to the witness he was always pissing about with guns, pretending to shoot himself when they weren't loaded etc., and just before he shot himself he (obviously mistakenly) said it wasn't loaded or the safety was on or something. But Mr H says that was referring to other times, and that was why the witness didn't think much of it when Travis was waving the gun around this time, but that he did shoot himself intentionally. I think I'm right of course but am I?

Cuellar

I thought it was deliberate. There was that clip played just before of him holding a gun saying to camera, "This is my last cigarette before I die". Now, he could have said that all the time and it was just edited to make it look premediated, but I dunno. I'd assumed it was suicide.

There seems to be a lot of vitriol on 'the internet' directed towards Carole Baskin. Yes, she may have fed her husband to tigers but there's no proof of that. There is, however, lots of evidence that the gang of psychopaths actually plotted to kill her, that they kill tigers when they're no longer profitable and that they are well-documented utter fucking cunts (i.e. Jeff Lowe), and yet there isn't the same level of vitriol.

Very strange that, isn't it. Very strange.

Thomas

Quote from: Cuellar on April 01, 2020, 01:02:19 PM
I thought it was deliberate. There was that clip played just before of him holding a gun saying to camera, "This is my last cigarette before I die". Now, he could have said that all the time and it was just edited to make it look premediated, but I dunno. I'd assumed it was suicide.

I think there can be shades of suicidal ideation in a mishap. He was clearly unwell. Addicted to meth, in a dependent relationship with a terrifying, strange man he wasn't attracted to. You must be suffering an unhappy mindset to flippantly pull a trigger at your temple, even if you're half-sure the gun won't fire.

Quote from: Cuellar on April 01, 2020, 01:02:19 PM
There seems to be a lot of vitriol on 'the internet' directed towards Carole Baskin. Yes, she may have fed her husband to tigers but there's no proof of that. There is, however, lots of evidence that the gang of psychopaths actually plotted to kill her, that they kill tigers when they're no longer profitable and that they are well-documented utter fucking cunts (i.e. Jeff Lowe), and yet there isn't the same level of vitriol.

Very strange that, isn't it. Very strange.

Yeah. A (female) friend of mine just said Carole Baskin was the person she 'hated most' in the series. And that's ahead of egotistical animal abusers, a sleazy apparent cult leader, a man enabling the drug addictions of teenagers in exchange for sex, and your aforementioned rabble of psychopaths plotting to kill someone.

There seems to be a popular sense that terrible men are cartoonishly entertaining, but morally dubious women are to be condemned without the same layers of ironic enjoyment.

neveragain

Rabble of psycho hicks versus "This is a champagne and brie day!"[nb]Actually a quote from her husband[/nb]
Hard to affiliate one way or the other.

Which is as much as to say I found them equally detestable but perhaps that does betray an underlying bias, that I should view a smug woman[nb]Tiger murder decision pending[/nb] as negatively as I do all those unfettered scumbags.

Cuellar

I didn't begrudge them a celebration when the man who is monomaniacally obsessed with you to the point of threatening to kill you on camera, making videos in which he shoots an effigy of you in the head and sending you snakes in the post on your birthday got sent down

neveragain

Certainly not, I get that, and I do like cheese and booze as well. It just sounds frightfully middle class. Again, prejudice on my part.

Puce Moment

Is anyone else struggling to watch this? I found myself halfway through the second episode last night getting distracted by all sorts, and I realised I was hardly watching it. Not much is happening and I find the world of big cats just very uninteresting.

hummingofevil

The first two episodes are shit because you think it's going to be about tigers and the idea of Netflix giving these horrible tiger people a platform to justify their cruelty is piss boiling. But then that twist comes at the end of episode 2 and I rattled through the series in one sitting.

And yes. Carol is clearly the least evil of all of them (if on the evil scale) and internet deciding she is the bad guy for maybe killing her husband (who himself seemed to be an utter prick let's not forget - womanising and tiger breeding - lots of dodgy trips to Costa Rica and millions in unexplained wealth) is just more good old awful woman hating on mass.