Having watched the entirety of this figurative porno of meth addicted, criminal, southern fried bumpkin inbreds that made a living off of and from the relentless and systematic cruelty & abuse of MANY animals, no, it's not an "expose" of any sort in THAT regard. I mean, the piece of shit director of course has and will continue to claim that that is what he wanted, but doc speaks for itself. Any highlight of animal abuse and calls for changes in the law is a DISTANT backseat narrative that is really only there at all as a delivery system for all the other bullshit & nonsense he spun to make this crazy "entertainment" piece... as evidenced by the notable LACK of animal abuse mention or attention whenever you see people talking about this thing... the talks of making a zany movie about it with all these lowbrow celebs wanting to play this or that "character"... the way it is marketed... the pitched "reunion" of everyone that appeared in it, etc etc etc. By comparison, actual exposes like Shark Water, Blackfish, etc. trying to legitimately help these animals don't make stars or characters out of their subjects, nor do all the media outlets ask them to come give interviews where they can sit back and laugh about how they appeared and/or were portrayed. Bottom line: NO ONE should be famous because of this thing, and ALL of these fucking losers need to be in jail, if not worse. I'm saying that in general btw - not scolding YOU about it or anything like that since it appears you haven't actually seen it. But yeah, for as great as it is that some people are apparently angry tweeting and whatever it is people "do" to claim activism now (?), make no mistake, the main takeaway from this embarrassment entertainment from the majority of people is most certainly NOT what these poor animals were put through. At all.
Nope, I was just going by trailers and reactions of people who had seen it. But still, I'd have to imagine from angry reactions, that this at least brings some light to things people might not have been aware even existed. And there have been celebrities and pro athletes who have made apologies in the wake of the documentary. And maybe there are other celebs/athletes who might have considered owning big cats but now will not. Whatever the intent of the filmmakers, I can't imagine the documentary benefits the "characters" in any way, least of all financially.
Maybe not through direct royalties, but they're absolutely being paid now for TV appearances, signing over life rights for movie adaptations, and books. So, yeah, they are very much indeed benefiting financially from it. Hell, this show is probably the BEST thing to happen to them. And really, the only celeb that ever "spoke up/out" about this was Shaq... and only because they showed footage of him in it. AKA he's just doing damage control as instructed before the hashtagging Tweeter armies (and PETA) lose their shit on him. Really, you have to see this thing for yourself to understand how relegated the animal abuse angle truly is. As I said earlier, it's just the underpinning delivery system of a documentary really about a flamboyantly gay gun toting redneck that hires criminals & drug addicts to work in his zoo, marries some of those criminals & drug addicts, has alliances and/or fights with OTHER cult-building zoo owners who just want bang all the woman who for them, the illegal sale & acquisition of animals, is in a feud with a woman who is an activist who he (and a few others) think killed her husband, and on & on & on & on. Pretty much a crock pot of the worst kind of human shit America can produce that made livings at the expensive of unprecedented animal abuse that the law completely allowed only until he Joe Exotic solicited a murder. Believe me, the reactions you're seeing and basing opinions on are as misleading as the trailers for it were and the constant recommendation people keep giving it are. Edited to add: that's of course not to say there aren't a lot of people who ARE speaking out against it, trying to draw attention to the abuse, advocate for change in this field of animal obtainment, etc. - there absolutely are. My main point was that they are brutal minority compared to those who just ramp up the hype of "how fuuuuuucked up it is!!!!" followed by dozens of "lols" and laughing emojis.
I dunno about that. There will be a lot people that come away from watching this wanting to go get their picture taken with baby tigers. It felt like one of those shows that supposedly sets out to expose bad guys, but just ends up glamorizing them and celebrating their excesses. There will be people that want to imitate and emulate what they see here. It felt like exploitation to me. I watched just the first two episodes and dropped out. Maybe one gets a different impression from the full series. For good to come of it, actual legal changes would have to come about.
And the cooler thing, of course, is to act morally superior cause you're not going to watch it, amirite.
Yeah... I think people are conflating watching this stuff because it's a giant clusterfuck of a trainwreck to somehow how approving of what's been done. This is one of those stories that you just had to see to believe. The shit is fucking insane. BUT... make no mistake about it... the treatment of the animals is cruel and basically everyone involved... including the lady who runs Big Cat Rescue down here in Florida... are all fucking horrible people. I was happy to see Joe Exotic get sent to prison and it'll be interesting to see if him giving PETA's lawyers (yeah, not a big fan of PETA either, but...) access to all the dirt he's collected over the years on all the other people involved in exotic animal extortion will lead to any other convictions and the closing of other "zoos". I do think that some people are getting the wrong take away from this documentary. Too many people are treating this like it's indy celebrity hour and making these idiots famous. Though, I guess there's an argument that many of them already were... or perhaps infamous. I personally knew who a lot of the main players in this "drama" were a long time ago since a great deal of this information was all over the news over the last couple of years as it was happening in real-time. Especially down here in Florida since Joe Exotic and Carol Baskin had a huge beef with each other. Basically everyone involved is a major piece of shit and deserves to loose their "zoos" and be thrown in jail for a long time. Hell, Bhagavan Antle needs to be looked into hard for grooming and mental manipulation of his employees ...many of which become part of his personal harem (he uses the term wives but holy shit no)... he's basically a cult leader in his own little world.
People get all worked up about Tigers and Killer Whales getting mistreated but give a fuck all about cows and pigs getting systematically impregnated and murdered at an industrial level around the whole planet. We care about cute and “cool” animals. So...yeah. 3 tigers getting shot in the head vs a couple million pigs getting offed before they’re a year old. Humans are weird fuckers that’s for sure.
Meh, wife and I liked this show. Wonderfully edited to keep us engaged. Though we were drawn in since my family and I went to the Big Cat Rescue a couple years ago since it was one of the top things to do in Tampa for kids. We were mainly there for the Lightning/Rangers game. We don't get worked up or glorify these people, but if people like the show, so what.
I don't care for animals being bred and eaten by other animals. Mommy nature ain't a kind lady. The only issue I've got is with cruel living and dying conditions imposed on the stock.
Nothing like watching a good train wreck. It was entertaining in all the worst ways. It's great watching morally corrupt people infighting and accusing one another of being worse than themselves. Every "zoo owner" on this show is human garbage. Watching it makes you think "I may not be a perfect person, but at least I'm not one of THEM."
Not sure how or why some people are getting personally defensive about watching the show. I know I said my two cents about it, the pieces of shit people featured in it, and how I think the majority of people running around the tweeter machines bellowing how "entertaining" it is it completely missed the bigger message - but I certainly never told anyone to not watch it, accused anyone of condoning animal abuse if they do... and whatever else. I'm no exception to the rule - I watched the entire thing, too. A person NEEDS to watch it in order to have an informed opinion about it. And by 'informed opinion about it", I mean about the BS documentary as it was presented and the other easy-to-find facts about these people. And with that, I see no need to dismiss people's negative opinion about an endangered species from another continent being bred, owned, stolen, killed and actively mistreated by backwoods fucking toothless hicks in 'Murica with that of mass produced farming, meat eaters in general or what people normally do/don't care about on the front of animal abuse. I would say THAT is conflating matters more than anything, and is also an entirely different discussion than that of this particular show and its disgusting ensemble of human fucking trash. Big, big, big difference between the topics there - let's keep proper perspective.
Because some people think watching or not watching a show somehow makes them superior to everyone else - which oddly fits right in line with how the people on this show think. Come on - we all know the only shows that make you superior for not watching are reality TV and singing shows.
Yeah, there have been a couple of posts with people acting morally superior to everyone else because they didn't watch it "because they don't condone animal cruelty", etc. That's the main reason I said my two cents about conflating the issue a couple of posts above yours. And it's not a matter of taking it personally so much as trying to point out that most sane people who have watched this think these people are all garbage and not that they're some kind of celebrity worth celebrating. Though as the most recent episode showed... there are plenty who are treating these shit people like minor celebs. Though I'd still argue that isn't the majority of people who watched this god awful trainwreck.
Agreed, specifically on those bolded points. And I have noticed that most of us in here ARE on the same page overall sentiment wise - but some drastically different wording per person just makes look otherwise at quick glance.
