King of the Tigers Pt. 1

As you can probably tell from the title, I’ll be going over the crazy show that embraced us throughout the quarantine. Now, I’ve tried my best to keep from any information regarding this show other than the knowledge that this show is absolutely crazy. For that reason, I decided that if I truly want to talk about this show appropriately, I would need to go episode by episode in discussing the craziness that happens. I am writing this as of watching the first episode, so spoilers through that episode.

Let me first begin this review by saying that what is occurring is some white people nonsense. Owning animals seems to be something that only they do… for reasons. That is honestly what is going to be the storyline for this show until a murder-for-hire story comes along, but we’re not there yet.

The director, from Florida, because of course, it’s Florida, realizes that there is an entire industry concerning the buying, selling, and breeding the big cats such as lions and tigers. The director also wanted to point out that this story was five years in the making, so I’m expecting tons of twists and turns.

Joe Exotic built his zoo, GW Zoo in 1999 in Oklahoma. From then on, it was expanding. He documented every single aspect of his life for the use of his online TV show, and music videos that he produced. The weirdest part for me was that he got his initial employees from Craigslist.

The main problems started in 2006 when animal rights activist and owner of a big cat sanctuary, Carole Baskin from Florida, started to write articles about how Exotic was abusing his animals. The most ironic thing about her was that she is allergic to cats. It was just hilarious for me.

Exotic designed his zoo after Doc Antle’s, another hands-on zoo facility from South Carolina. Overall, I feel that the documentary did a good job of comparing and contrasting the three character’s facilities. All three people seem to truly care about the animals that they care about. They all have programs for conservation work. Antle and Exotic, unlike Baskin, include interactions with animals to form connections between people to get everyday people to care about conservation efforts, something that I 100 percent agree with. Also using these animals as wildlife teaching tools, I completely agree with it.

Despite all of the bickering between the three characters, they are literally all doing the same exact thing. Antle and Exotic just call their facilities zoos while Baskin calls hers a sanctuary. They are all using the same techniques to generate money for their causes, which are pretty much the same. In ranking who I believe treats the animals the best, Antle definitely goes at the top of the list. His facilities look nice, animals look healthy, and seems to not take any shortcuts when it comes to taking care of his animals. Next, I would have to say Exotic. His facilities don’t look as nice as Antle’s, but his animals seem fit and have their space and socialization needs somewhat taken care of. Lastly, there is Baskin, and there is a lot I can say about her.

Baskin does not give us any information concerning how she takes care of her animals, so I do have to knock some points off for that. Next, she makes a stink about how tigers need lots of space to roam, yet she keeps all of her animals in these tiny cages that are barely fit some of the animals while others are completely isolated. Another knock against her is the fact that she works with Peta. Now, I do care about animal welfare and rights, but I despise Peta and the tactics that they use.

Everything from there was hunky-dory, just a general feud until Exotic starts talking about how if any animal rights activist come to his zoo, it would be another Waco. That was the moment that is the moment that things started to go get real crazy. That was the moment where I was not surprised the Exotic would be accused of hiring a killer to deal with some of his problems.

And that is where the story leaves off for now. Anything that you agree or disagree with me about, put it in the comments, and we will talk about it with you. Now I just need to somehow get through this rest of this series.