“Tiger King” offers a glimpse of the bizarre world of big-cat ownership

By W.Z.

ERIC GOODE and Rebecca Chaiklin, the directors of “Tiger King”, could not possibly have predicted that their creation would be such a hit. The docuseries has a 94% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a review-aggregator site; according to Netflix (which rarely releases comprehensive viewing figures) it is currently the most-watched show on the streaming service. Mr Goode is a conservationist; his past films have mainly been conventional nature documentaries. According to one of the main characters in “Tiger King”, Mr Goode and Ms Chaiklin had originally intended to produce a “Blackfish” for big cats—videos which would show viewers how cruel it was to keep large animals confined in small cages just so humans could have something to gawk at. But as they started gathering footage, the directors quickly realised that the people who ran America’s private exotic-animal zoos were far more interesting than the creatures they kept.

It is not hard to see how they came to that conclusion. Just two minutes into the first episode of the series, the audience is introduced to the Tiger King himself, Joe Maldonado-Passage. “Joe Exotic”, as he prefers to be known, is a gay, gun-loving libertarian in Oklahoma with a bleached-blond mullet and a penchant for seducing young, heterosexual men. Much of the series focuses on the day-to-day operations of Mr Maldonado-Passage’s tiger-filled menagerie, the Garold Wayne Exotic Animal Memorial Park. (It is named after his late brother.)