Maybe it’s my age...

…but I'm finding it harder to watch other peoples’ train wrecks without them also wrecking me.

Everyone’s talking about Tiger King. Watching it unleashed a pandora’s box of thoughts and emotions for me. I used to be able to smile and shake my head at the sheer craziness of others’ lives. I couldn’t seem to do that here. Instead, I want to tell you, in my humble opinion, what it’s really about; why I think it’s so popular, and finally, what it says about us and the people we want to be.

What’s it about?

Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness is: "An exploration of big cat breeding and its bizarre underworld, populated by eccentric characters.” It currently has a 91% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s the talk of the internet. President Trump is “looking into” a pardon for the main character. So what’s the deal with me? Why don’t I like it?

It’s not about tigers.

This show isn’t really about some people putting tigers in cages. It’s about those people creating cages for themselves as they do. Beautiful, awe-inspiring animals pace in steel prisons while these misfits build lives of self-destruction.

We get to watch as Joe—the Tiger King—devolves into a self-absorbed, hurtful, hate-filled person. But he’s not the only one. The show is filled with damaged people. People use each other. Drugs ravage many. Some are actually physically maimed. None of these people seem to be living lives of happiness and fulfillment.

Tragedies

There’s a scene of Joe’s young husband (one of his young husbands), at a fair, in a hall of mirrors. Through the plexiglass we see him amiably running head first into wall after wall. He smiles sheepishly, and keeps trying, unable to get out. What a sad metaphor of his life. He was a simple boy. He accepted an unhealthy marriage in trade for drugs and a place to belong. He ended up (accidentally?) killing himself, and Joe turned the funeral into his own self-serving monologue and concert.

There are many heartbreaking stories.

The show is not about the tigers in their cages. It’s about the people in theirs. And it’s far more sad than entertaining.

So why do we watch?

Now, I realize I run the risk of sounding judgmental here. And feel free to disagree with me. But I believe this show is popular because the people on the show are so broken and twisted that it makes our lives look a lot better in comparison.

"Man, Joe is messed up!”

Carol definitely killed her husband, don’t you think?”

"The blond guy in Florida is really sick. He’s running a cult!”

Hey, compared to all of them, I’m looking pret-ty good.

We like watching these people because they are worse than us. It assures us that we may have our issues, but, man, at least we’re not that bad.

But there’s a level of unseemliness to all this watching and internet commenting and laughing and shaking our heads. It doesn’t improve anything. It keeps us at the level we are.

So much time on our hands.

The other reason is we have extra time. Everything is on hold. We're are all stuck in our homes, waiting out COVID-19. We pray it won’t hit us or our loved ones; we try to keep busy, but accomplish very little. It almost feels like a cage. This show allows me to while away my extra hours critiquing them instead of working on myself. This show reveals, I think, as much about us and our cages as they in theirs. We settle for less for ourselves.

It's a lazy way to “improve" ourselves without actually doing anything.

The fact is, Tiger King appeals to the worst in me.

Yes, I’ve got my own cage

I’ll take it a step further. Judging Joe and the others lets me ignore my own less-than-noble tendencies. I am a “1” on the Enneagram scale (INTJ on Myers/Briggs.) Reformer. Improver. But also, perfectionist. I can be hypercritical, controlling…a downright ugly person. I found it fascinating that so many of these big cat owners are middle-age men. Maybe they want to re-capture a fading life by controlling these powerful wild animals. It reminds me I have my own Control/Critical cage I gotta be careful not to crawl into. And the show is just too tempting for me.

Critique or construct?

In shows like Tiger King, there is no one to aspire to be like. It’s even hard to empathize, the people are so bad at life choices. So, we’re turned into judges. But it’s not helpful for me.

Fact is, just living life is wild and dangerous, too. We see how little we can control right now. This virus is kicking our butts. We can look away and critique others as an escape…but, we could look at ourselves and try to improve instead. To build the people we really do want to be.

As I write this, the Christian holiday of Easter is coming. I love it so much because it’s about the hope of positive change. It reminds me that there is the opportunity to walk out of the cages of our selfishness and weaknesses, to a new life. There’s always the chance for better; each and every day.

In the next episode…

Stuff like Tiger King allows me to watch others in their cages, when I really should be working on creating a life of my own, free from my own faults, and helping others instead.

I am responsible for myself. In the end, shows like this don’t get me closer to Good. They drag me closer to a cage that’s always waiting for me to shut myself into.

I don’t want to go there. I want to go forward.

I hear there’s a Tiger King bonus episode coming. I’m not going to watch.

Questions for you

Help me out:

Am I making way too much of this? (My daughter thinks I’m overreacting.)
What kind of a "personal cage" might you tend to create for yourself?
How do you know when you start to crawl into it?
What represents a free life to you—one that is without cages and walls?
How can you get closer to that today?

Tiger Kings and People Cages