i havent seen the show its self but is the “big cat rescue” lady the same one who had a longish running show with that name on discovery/animal planet ? if I remember correctly it ended because of some personal weirdness with how the lady did things …
The article just says he’s in quarantine, not that he has it.
I don’t disagree with anything you said, except possibly this. My understanding was that Joe made a good bit of money taking the tiger cubs on his mall tours around the midwest, but Carole Baskin’s group put the stop to that by putting pressure on the malls to stop it. Probably cost Joe a good bit of money and he had to replace that money by selling cubs illegally, illegally killing the tigers who got too old to be useful, etc.
I don’t understand how this was made. Were they in the middle of filming a documentary when Joe went to jail?
Yes, pretty much. That is my understanding, anyway. As I posted above, this film-maker is not first on the scene for Joe Exotic. Louis Theroux was there almost a decade ago and others have been there to conduct interviews. One guy has been there for years for a podcast/radio interview and he answered questions online.
We could open up the “pedo vs. hebe” debate here, but in lieu of doing that I think he didn’t target girls who were THAT young…they seemed to be in the 16-19 range to me.
I believe so. I think it started to be about Joe Exotic and his zoo, then the lawsuits and the jail and such happened and they just kept rolling (the cameras that is…)
This is Doc Antle’s rebuttal in People magazine if you believe him:
I think it was a documentary about the big cat world in general. Doc Antle claims that over a two and a half year period he met with the filmmakers for days at a time. He thought the documentary was about his conservation efforts. He didn’t give any interviews specifically about Joe and Carole. You’ll notice in the series most of his quotes seemed to be off the cuff and in moments he may have thought were off the record. Once the Joe/Carole drama played out they realized what the narrative was going to be.
I don’t know if it’s a push to get him pardoned. Joe himself is asking to get pardoned as well as suing a bunch of people.
Of course he is. He’s the sort of guy who’s going to file a million lawsuits until some just slaps a ‘vexatious’ label on him and he’s forced to calm down.
Dear lord, this thing is a train wreck. There’s not a single sympathetic main character in this. It’s a documentary filled with villains.
Agreed. However you do get the sense that deep down, and I really mean deep, deep down that Joe is a decent guy. But then you see the approximately 1 million terrible, awful things that he does and you don’t think so. But then you do.
I have no doubt that Joe tried to pay someone to have Carole Baskin killed, but the show leaves you with a sense of unfairness. As you said, everyone in the show was a total piece of shit, but the government laser-focused on Joe because of his antics. How many serious felonies or other bad acts did it ignore or plea bargain away just to get at Joe? And I have real problems with a justice system in which the government uses the types of witnesses they used against Joe and says with a straight face that you can believe them.
And that aside about adding the tiger-killing charges to the murder for hire to get a jury conviction was spot on and terribly prejudicial. I have owned dogs my whole life and enjoy them, but juries and judges have lost their mind. I say only partially joking that you have a better chance in court if you are accused of child abuse than you are of cruelty to an animal. People have lost their minds over that stuff and it was terribly prejudicial in his trial.
Don’t F*ck with Cats on the Internet.
Depends on how you define main. I think at the end the three employees Saff, Reinke and Cowley genuinely cared for the animals.
I am also leery because I know how editing can completely change the perception of a person. An offhand remark in an hours long interview can give you a false impression when it’s isolated. String a few of those together taken out of context over multiple interviews you can make them a villain, hero or sympathetic.
It’s such a trainwreck that one of the most likeable people was the basis for Scarface. He was one of the most sane, rational, reasonable person on there and we know he actually did horrifying things.
(My actual favorite person was the lady in Iowa who escaped the Antle cult.)
The double amputee was pretty sympathetic.
My wife and I still can’t understand why there is this cult-like atmosphere in these zoos. I understand that Joe was plying his workers/boyfriends with meth to get them to stay, but why the thing in Myrtle Beach? Why are women coming in to work at slave wages, prohibited from leaving, expected to sleep with the boss, etc. to get a chance to work around tigers?
Yes, it is a cult, but usually with cults there is the promise of greater rewards in the afterlife. This is just working with fucking tigers. Why the obsession? Is it some sexual thing?
Myrtle beach guy says they only showed a few people and there are other women there who are there because they are married to guys who work there. That’s his explanation.
I got the sense that there was a spiritual element too. His upbringing was shaped by some form of Eastern mysticism. So beyond fucking with tigers (and Doc), I’m sure they anticipated a higher reward.
part 2 is on Carole Baskin and her missing husband
and next week they are adding another episode to this series , they are filming it now.