About

Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness is a true-crime documentary television series created by Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin that aired on Netflix. The series focuses on Joseph Maldonado-Passage, aka "Joe Exotic," an eccentric big cat zoo owner in Oklahoma, who eventually ran for government office and was later arrested for initiating a murder-for-hire plot against Carole Baskin, a woman running a big cat preservation organization named Big Cat Rescue, that some have noted appeared to operate similarly to Exotic's zoo, despite her stance against big cat zoos.

History

Tiger King was created by Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin. The series follows Carole Baskin and Joe Exotic. Exotic developed a big cat zoo in Oklahoma while Baskin ran a wildlife preservation organization designed to stop the breeding of big cats for zoos. Big cats like lions and tigers in captivity are often preferred when they are young and when they get older are treated poorly or euthanized.^[1] On March 10th, 2020, Netflix released the trailer to Tiger King, gaining over 250,000 views in ten days (shown below). The show debuted on March 20th.^[2]

Reception

The series was widely praised by critics for the surreality of its setting and its central characters. Writing in Vanity Fair,^[1] Julie Miller wrote:

Tiger King has it all. The series also features enough serious plot twists to contend with The Jinx; romantic tragedy; one large-cat owner who claims to be the real-life Scarface; another large-cat owner who seems to carry on a deeply problematic, polygamous relationship with the female interns in his employ; and a cowboy-hat-wearing, Big Lebowski-esque narrator.

On Metacritic,^[3] the show has a score of 70 out of four critic reviews, with critics noting that while the series was entertaining, it perhaps covers too much in detail, resulting in some of the plot being lost. Some critics noted that it was a particularly welcome release as it could prove particularly binge-worthy during the self-quarantine social distancing measures taken place during the Coronavirus Outbreak. ^[4][5]

Online Presence

The series did not develop a strong internet presence prior to release. Much of its impact was made on Reddit, where threads about the film's trailer in /r/television,^[6] /r/LPOTL,^[7] and /r/oklahoma^[8] gained 320, 407, and 249 points, respectively. The Twitter account for Big Cat Rescue^[9] posted about the documentary, gaining over 50 retweets and 100 likes (shown below).

Search Interest

External References