The Tiger King has been on a lot of people’s minds lately and obviously someone was thinking along a different path this time as the image found on Instagram depicting Woody and Buzz from Toy Story as Joe Exotic and his husband, oh wait, ‘partner’, John Finlay. Jordan Moreau of Variety has more to say on the topic of Finlay and the show. One has to remember that apparently Finlay and Exotic were never formally married, but were in a partnership. It also pays to remember that while Exotic is openly gay, Finlay never was and eventually went on to marry a woman that worked for Joe Exotic after getting her pregnant. The documentary on Netflix, which has been under attack from a lot of people following its release, made a few things clear while muddying up several other points in the view of many that were filmed. This picture of Buzz and Woody as Finlay and Exotic respectively is pretty funny but as anyone can likely tell you by now, a good number of those that were featured in the documentary aren’t too thrilled about how they’ve been portrayed. Anyone else feel a bit sorry for them? No? Those that do might be those that don’t want to admit that while everything was going on the animals that were supposed to take center stage for a while are basically just out of luck since those that are supposed to be taking care of them became the glory hounds and sucked up all the attention.
To his own credit John Finlay didn’t appear to really try to soak up that much attention though he did have moments in the documentary that could have been left out and still painted him as one of those that just went along for the ride without knowing too much. Most people were noticing his horrendous teeth for most of the show honestly and there have been memes aplenty that have popped up with his mug on them and some snarky remark concerning his dental distress. It’s hard not to notice really when he smiles or speaks, but the truth apparently is that he had his teeth fixed before the documentary was shot, and yet it appears as though the producer wanted to show Finlay with his ragged grill for one reason or another. Maybe it was to further discredit Finlay or Exotic just by showing him looking like a backward country bumpkin, or maybe there was something else to it. All that is known at this point is that Finlay did have a gleaming smile that could have been presented and he could have been filmed with his shirt on, which might have been a lot easier on the eyes. It certainly wouldn’t have taken away anything from the idea that Joe, Doc Antle, and Carole Baskin are all shady characters that forgot a while back that the main point of the show was to depict just how the tigers were being treated.
It’s best to leave Doc Antle out of the mix at the moment since otherwise there are too many loose ends to speak of and too many questions to ask. But as far as Joe and Carole go, the two appear to be bitter enemies in the documentary and beyond since Joe is actually in prison at the moment and was found guilty of trying to hire someone to murder Carole. For her own part Carole has been described as vicious and definitely shady no matter what kind of light she wants to paint herself in. Not a one of those folks in the documentary is a saint, no matter how much they protest or how much they want to point the finger at the next person in line. While the transportation, exploitation, and mistreatment of big cats has unfortunately been a thing for quite some time, the fact is that breeding them and raising them in captivity isn’t just wrong, it’s absolutely cruel. Before I go into a rant about how wild animals need to remain wild however I’ll say this: just watching The Tiger King, no matter how much of it was contrived, was enough to realize that those who buy and deal in big cats all appear to be shady in some way, no matter how benevolent they want to appear. Chris Schutte of SBNation has more to say on this subject.
Are they all evil personified? No, not really, but if one were to ask if they’re all delusional then the answer would be ‘definitely’. Taking an animal out of the wild and trying to train them is one thing, but breeding a wild animal in captivity is kind of soul-wrenching in a way that’s hard to describe. There are those in this particular case that weren’t to blame for everything that went down, but those that are expected to take the blame are a little too typical in that they won’t accept that they did anything wrong, and that of course, they’re the victim.
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