'TIGER KING'.......KITTY LITTER

Tiger King (Netflix Documentary 2020)    

              Simple question:

              Would this series become a global sensation if we weren't all quarantined in our homes, with hours upon hours of time at our disposal?

               If we were still allowed to live our lives and move freely about with fear of a horrible,
gasping-for-air death, would anyone obsess over this show and its repulsive, clown car cast of characters?

              Just sayin'..........

             We will NOT stand accused of obsessing over "Tiger King", so we'll  just roll out quick thoughts and impressions.........

               #1,:  An ongoing horrorshow like this could only occur in Donald Trump's America, populated with brain-dead, severely under-educated mouth-breathers with virtually no wills of their own.......and borderline psychotic. The only thing these lowest-of-the-lowlifes lack in their costumes of leather vests, tattoos and rotted teeth are MAGA caps.......

                #2.:  It's pointless to assess blame to any one particular participant in this freakish carnival. Only one of them ended up in jail, but if this was a fair and just world, someone should have dropped a net on all of them........

                   Let us now consider the story's three principal gargoyles..........

                   Joe Exotic   He's the radioactive fallout of Reality TV........an empty vessel who hungers for attention like an addict hungers for heroin......and lives his life not as a human being, but enacting an exaggerated cartoon character fashioned in what's left of his mind.........

                    In the series seven hours, you'll only get one fleeting, real glimpse of the real Joe, when he's not performing his loony-tune persona......it comes when you see him viciously kicks and shoots a lion who's clawing at his feet......... the lion's just being a lion, but in that split secondat last you see Joe's mask come off......

                    ......to reveal a snarling, sniveling little man.

                    His fate seems almost too perfect in its brutal irony........he at last achieves the fame he lusted after, but only at the price of being caged like his cats........Just like the Emperor, the Tiger King has no clothes......

                     Bhagavan "Doc" Antle  A far more creepy loathsome specimen than the strutting, preening Joe.......with his recruitment and collection of teen girls to help run his 'zoo'.  We'll say no more, we're getting nauseous at the mere thought of him......

                     Carole Baskin   We'll give her at least  this much......only a true master manipulator of public relations could pull this off........to somehow emerge from this trainwreck as the only person resembling a rational, sane human being.........even though suspected of killing her husband and feeding him to her tigers.......

                       We definitely got the feeling that anyone married to her should sleep with one eye open...….somewhere in another room. Maybe another house altogether.

                      That'll give you an idea of what a low bar is set for behavior here.......

                      As for the rest of the 'cast'........the crawling coterie of con-artists, felons, boy-toys, and overall creepezoids......please, let's not waste our breath........

                       So is it worth watching?  Entertaining?

                      Truth is.......like many others, we found ourselves hooked.........in the same way you slow down to gape at a car accident on the side of the road.

                       You'll have to decide if this is worth slowing down for 7 hours.  You'll shake your head in disbelief a lot, laugh out loud more than a few times..........

                        But make no mistake about what this show puts on display.......the very heart of darkness. And you may find yourself  wanting to mutter...."the horror.....the horror...."....not to mention sigh in sadness for the true victims Joe, Carole, and the whats-his-name Bagavoolie.....the abused, caged animals.

                       For "The Tiger King", 2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2)......for the people on view in it....
.....minus infinity.