Louis Theroux: Shooting Joe Exotic (2021, Jack Rampling)

If its aloof and earnest host is to be believed, Louis Theroux: Shooting Joe Exotic was totally going to be about said host, Louis Theroux, journeying to Texas during the COVID-19 pandemic to do a new documentary about Joe Exotic. Exotic appeared on one of Theroux’s documentary specials ten years ago and, since being convicted of multiple crimes and then becoming a folk hero for people who don’t think Covid is real, actually, thanks to the Netflix series “Tiger King,” wrote to have Theroux come and tell his side of the story.

Only Exotic—and many other people—all signed contracts with the hacks behind “Tiger King” and can’t talk to anyone but them for season two or whatever. Theroux gets to the United States and basically can’t interview anyone he thought he’d be able to interview. So instead, he talks to Carole Baskin (who “Tiger King” directors Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin implied murdered someone to make for compelling Netflix), some relatives of Exotic’s who aren’t getting Netflix money, and the lawyers trying to get Exotic pardoned. And lots of Theroux watching old footage of him and Exotic and musing on what he was or wasn’t thinking. And lots of Theroux reading correspondence aloud.

It’s never as interesting as it should be, partially because Theroux doesn’t really want to interrogate his past behavior, like when he eggs Exotic on about Baskin in the footage from ten years ago. Exotic’s in prison for trying to hire someone to kill Baskin (in addition to killing a bunch of animals at his zoo). Theroux just didn’t take Exotic’s rants about hiring someone to kill Baskin seriously. Seems like Theroux should do a Google search on his former interviewees to see what else he’s missed, especially given his track record with other past subjects.

There’s not much structure to Shooting. We find out whether or not Exotic gets pardoned, but not really any fallout from it because who’s Theroux going to talk to about it. Anyone not glad he’s still in prison—other than the lawyers who make you wonder why there are even bar associations—is under contract with Netflix. Shooting doesn’t use much footage from “Tiger King,” but there are enough reminders of some of that series’s worst people, and there’s a bit of catch-up with what’s going on with them. It just reminds it was actually all about terrible people doing terrible things, and thanks to the old footage, it turns out Theroux was encouraging of it for television’s sake.

Theroux doesn’t comment on the “Tiger King” phenomenon other than to mention the series dropping at the right time of lockdown. He presents reaction to the show as universal, not addressing viewers who realized the manipulative hackwork Goode and Chaiklin were doing; everyone fell in love with Joe Exotic. Only they actually didn’t, which doesn’t help Theroux’s “who could’ve known” take on all of it.

Theroux’s a fine host and ages really well—it’s hard to tell the historical footage from the modern—but Shooting didn’t need to be ninety minutes. It didn’t need to be, but it certainly didn’t need to be so long for so little. It’s rubbernecking a rubbernecking of a rubbernecking.

But Team Carole, obviously.

Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness (2020) s01e04 – Playing with Fire

This episode’s about how awful both Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin turn out to be when it comes to money. Baskin’s won a lawsuit against Joe Exotic and he owes her a cool million. Carole and Howard aren’t doing it to prove a point or to stop Joe from doing his cub petting roadshow, they’re doing it to bleed him dry.

The problem with bleeding Joe Exotic dry is he’s pretty smart about putting everything in other people’s names so it doesn’t seem like he owns anything. And when they do start trying to squeeze that stone… well, it’s just going to hurt Joe’s sweet old mom, who had the zoo in her name or something, which leads to Joe’s mom on the streaming channel talking about how Baskin’s been hounding her.

Again, really want to know how many people watched these streams.

Meanwhile, Rick Kirkham is making his reality show and trying to get Joe Exotic to amp it up. Kirkham doesn’t need to push hard because give Joe the chance, he’ll play mean private zoo boss all on his own.

But all suing Joe Exotic’s going to do is starve the animals and it never seems like Baskin—Howard speaks the most this episode—has any concern for the tigers. When we hear about the settlement Joe Exotic turns down, there’s nothing about what to do with the 200 tigers. You’d think it’d be a story thread to pick up on but the history intervenes. Joe’s new pal, “businessman” Jeff Lowe—you get the feeling people are going to investigate him after this series and he’s going to sue them all—is going to step in and save the zoo. So Joe puts it in Jeff Lowe’s name and Lowe steals it. The cliffhanger is Lowe beating the tigers. It’s swell.

Because the episode’s already upbeat after someone sets fire to Joe’s studio, which is the same building as the alligators and they all die. Kirkham’s footage gets destroyed too. Basically Joe Exotic and company think Kirkham did it, Kirkham thinks Joe Exotic did it.

Kirkham sort of has a better reason for not doing it—without his footage, the reality show is just… but, seriously, he didn’t make backups? In like, 2015 or something. He could have pretty easily made back-ups. It’s a weird screw-up.

But then Kirkham had screwed Joe out of his own Internet streaming show so motive for Joe. The show doesn’t look too hard into it before Lowe shows up to ruin the day.

Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness (2020) s01e02 – Cult of Personality

Somehow this episode manages to bury the lede. Will I spoil that lede? Not yet, but probably. “Tiger King” is a masterwork of manipulation as far as narrative non-fiction. Directors Rebecca Chaiklin and Eric Goode have a great sense of what to hold back and what to get out there.

For example, a disaster at Joe Exotic’s zoo feeling like low budget Jurassic Park for rednecks? It’s out there right away, along with Exotic’s indifference to employee Kelci Saffery’s newly missing limb. In fact, Saffery had the arm amputated so she could get back to work. Why does she want to rush back to work? So the animals don’t suffer, which then turns into the theme of the episode… Exotic, “Doc” Antle, and Carole Baskin all exploit their workers. In fact, Exotic’s the only one we know for sure is paying them. Between a hundred and a hundred and fifty a week, presumably in addition to room and board, but it’s unclear. Meanwhile, Baskin’s labor is all volunteer and Antle’s running a marriage cult. Antle and Baskin groom teenage girls through the Internet while Exotic tries to primarily hire people in dire life straits.

So Exotic and Antle seem to be running labor camps while Baskin relies on her volunteers’ sense of empathy for the animals. Given Baskin’s running a rescue… that reliance is… better? But Exotic is trying his damndest to keep the animals alive too… whereas Antle probably kills his tiger cubs once they’re too old to be petted. It’s mentioned and never contradicted.

We also find out this episode Exotic relies on reject or spoiled meat from Walmart to feed the tigers, which is better than the roadkill while not great. It’s almost like you shouldn’t have a 200 tiger zoo in the middle of Oklahoma without a dietary veterinarian on staff in addition to a sufficient, reliable endowment.

Or if you are going to have a private one… be like Mario Tabraue, who’s got a private zoo in Florida. Tabraue, the inspiration for the 1983 Tony Montana in Scarface—including the chainsaw—has the money to provide for his animals. Why? Presumably because he got rich enough selling cocaine and had enough of it stashed from laundering, he’s all good. He buys tigers from Joe Exotic, which—theoretically—means they have a better life than with Antle for sure and maybe even Baskin, who doesn’t have the deep post-cocaine pockets.

Tabraue, who’s aged better than Al Pacino, is way too likable. Like… way too likable. He’s like a cool grandfather. No one else in “Tiger King” is cool though, at all, so it might just be by comparison.

Also all the other guys—Exotic, Antle, major creep Tim Stark—are all violent misogynists. Like, it’s obvious some of the reason they have a problem with Baskin.

So Baskin having gotten rich from her mysteriously dead husband—that aforementioned buried lede—well… it doesn’t make their virulent misogyny okay (Antle’s dangerous), it does give them enough valid anti-Baskin fodder to hide some of it in. Or at least Chaiklin and Goode edit it so they can hide some of it.

But, yeah… Baskin’s rich because her (second) husband disappeared. She’s apparently on number three, Howard Baskin, who’s been on the show both episodes now without any mention of him having reformed a black widow. It’s a great cliffhanger and at just the right moment to make “Tiger King” “must see TV.”

Must see streaming. Whatever.