‘Tiger King’; Good entertainment right ‘meow’

Joe+Exotic+with+one+of+his+tigers.+Exotic+has+recently+gone+to+prison+on+murder+for+hire+charges.

Fair use image by Netflix

Joe Exotic with one of his tigers. Exotic has recently gone to prison on murder for hire charges.

Drew Miller, Video Editor

The new series “Tiger King” released on Netflix on March 20 and has been swelling among the student population. The show is about Joe Exotic and his feud with Carol Baskin about private U.S. ownership of big cats.

Joe Exotic is the owner of the G.W. zoo, that specializes in big cats, and he starts a feud with Carol Baskit the owner of Big Cat Rescue on his internet show. The feud between the two continues to an extreme.

Junior Jacob Fischer said, “The show feels like animal-plant when it starts, but then it turns into a crazy investigative drama. And with all that combined, it is hard to stop watching, can’t stop watching.”

Joe Exotic is a “gay gun-toting big tiger owner” and he is pro personal tiger ownership. Carol Baskin is on the absolute opposite side of the argument, believing big cats should not be privately owned.

“I do think both Joe and Carol are wrong by keeping these animals in captivity. I think Carol is wrong in many ways, but at least tries to bring in some of the conservation pieces and how they should be treated NOT saying she makes the best decisions,” AVID teacher Sarah Neitz said.

The show feels like animal-plant when it starts, but then it turns into a crazy investigative drama. And with all that combined, it is hard to stop watching, can’t stop watching.

— Jacob Fischer

What makes the show so interesting is how chaotic it is and viewers never know what is going to happen; one moment they are doing cub petting and the next a worker gets their arm ripped off by a tiger.

“The show is interesting because we like to see weird people and laugh at them. Even crazier is the amount of things that the show left out. For example, Joe’s campaign manager was arrested for threatening police officers with a sword, but it was never even mentioned. It’s sort of like a freak show but less controversial and just as morally bankrupt,” junior Cooper McCurdy said.

There are so many angles to the story and so many characters with different motivations. First, there is the point of bad working environments in privately owned zoos, then it quickly switches to who burned down Joe’s shed. Truly the show never gets boring. 

“I like to see how some of these facilities work and what is involved and who gets involved in the breeding and captivation of Tigers. It shows how people can get so obsessed about something and what they will do to get what they want,” Neitz said.

Overall “Tiger King” is sometimes a chaotic mess but it keeps people interested the whole way through. “Tiger King” is a spectacular watch and with unpredictable characters, it gives an edge of your seat feeling from start to finish, definitely an 8/10.