Tiger King: Was There More To Be Said?

By this point in quarantine, many of us have probably seen, or at least heard of, the Netflix show Tiger King. I for one cracked around week three of quarantine and settled in for what I thought would be a trashy reality series about a guy with a bunch of tigers (not wrong) - but boy did it surprise me. Tiger King combined aspects of TV that people have a hard time passing up: drama, true crime, and a star that seems too crazy to be real. And for all these reasons, it kind of took America by storm. 

However, despite its odd charms and ridiculous characters, Tiger King tackled an interesting topic: illegal wildlife trafficking and exploitation. As people increasingly tend to justify their worth by what they own, it didn’t surprise me that there was a sizable market for big cats in the US; if you can’t attract someone on your own, why not bait them with a tiger cub (seems foolproof). While the statistics weren’t shocking, it upset me to learn that our best bet to launch a movement towards reforming the illicit wildlife trafficking ring lies in the hands of people like Carole Baskin, an animal rights activist who profits off of people’s fascination with exotic animals all the same as those she protests against.

While Tiger King brought attention to animal trafficking in its own distinctive way, it didn't do a lot to raise serious awareness for the issue at large. If I think of Joe Exotic or Carole Baskin every time I hear the words “tiger” or “big cat trafficking” I’m never going to take it seriously. Now, this article isn’t intended to call Netflix out for not being earnest enough; their goal was to make a TV series that would attract a plethora of viewers and they did just that. Generally, reality TV sells and documentaries have less viewership and less awareness. That being said, I think Netflix could have done more to advocate for the tightening of laws surrounding animal trafficking. With Carole Baskin as the spearhead for reform, one hardly finds themselves on her side, whether they believe in her cause or not. By portraying figures like Joe Exotic and Doc Antle as victims in viewers’ eyes, Netflix made them sympathetic to their cause: profiting from the captivity of exotic animals. Rather than placing some statistics over a black screen at the end of the last episode to raise awareness, Netflix could have placed more facts and increased focus on the mistreatment of animals in these exotic animal theme parks during the entirety of the show. Even Doc Antle was able to escape public scrutiny for his cult-like animal park and shifty business practice of killing cubs once they reached adulthood, while Carole Baskin became the center of the controversy for maybe (but for real, probably) killing her husband. 

I’m hardly against reality TV, in fact, as quarantine drags on I find myself watching more and more of it. But, I’d love to see a reality show that chooses not to victimize the guilty parties and instead exposes the real wrongdoings we so easily ignore.