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Tiger King, Part Two
The one thing I was super impressed with is how the editors managed to get so much footage without anyone saying the n-word once. In fact, the absence of that word is so natural that you don’t even think about it. I kept waiting for it to happen, and my admiration for the documentary grew with each episode that it didn’t.
I mean, this is a documentary about white trash in rural areas. I’m familiar with the Florida accent, and I’m familiar with the Oklahoma accent. I know how white people with those accents actually talk, and I would be very surprised if they weren’t making casual racial slurs without thinking twice. Not because they’re racist, per se, but because that’s just the linguistic culture of “the South.”
And there would be no reason for the people being interviewed not to feel comfortable using racial slurs in casual conversation. The three big cat owners profiled by the documentary – Joe Exotic, Doc Antle, and Carole Baskin – are only seen in the company of other white people. With one (charming and perfect nonbinary hero of my heart) exception, they only work with other white people, and all of their business contacts and associates are white as well. When you look at shots of the diverse crowds who come to their zoos, as well as the diverse crowds of people who showed up to Joe Exotic’s various publicity events while he was running for public office, you can clearly see that these are not “white parts of the world” engaging in “white culture.” Still, these three zoo owners are the sort of white people who only surround themselves with other white people.
Joe Exotic is a creepy and abusive asshole, Doc Antle is a creepy and abusive sex pest, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why Twitter is so in love with Carole Baskin, who is not an asshole or a sex pest or abusive but still manages to creep me out.
(I should say that my take on Carole Baskin has nothing to do with the allegations that she murdered her disgusting millionaire ex-husband and fed him to her tigers. If she did, good for her.)
Regardless, I think the documentary is trying to portray Joe Exotic as some sort of contemporary folk hero (which he MOST DEFINITELY is not), and showing him and the people he worked with actually use the racial slurs common to their vernacular would have flown directly in the face of that message.
It’s been so surprising to me to see a surge of interest in the South during the past three or four years, with people from places like Brooklyn and Boston and Chicago and Seattle saying that they love sweet tea and that they’re fans of country music. NPR’s Radiolab just did a special on Dolly Parton, and even Steven Universe is saying “y’all” now. And I guess, if Southern culture and vernacular are scrubbed and sanitized in such as way that Joe Exotic never says the n-word and Carol Baskin doesn’t have to answer any questions about why all her volunteers are white, then Southern culture might seem appealing in a “folksy” sort of way.
(This is the reason why the ending of Kentucky Route Zero was so bizarre to me, by the way. In the wake of a devastating natural disaster, a found family of hipsters decides to settle in an isolated farming town. Unlike what happened in New Orleans, this is a good thing, because fuck capitalism, amirite. There’s a lovely funeral for a horse in which a white urban transplant from Chicago sings a gospel song while a mixed-race gay couple stands off to the side appreciatively, which is totally what rural Kentucky is like, definitely for sure.)
I mean, this is a documentary about white trash in rural areas. I’m familiar with the Florida accent, and I’m familiar with the Oklahoma accent. I know how white people with those accents actually talk, and I would be very surprised if they weren’t making casual racial slurs without thinking twice. Not because they’re racist, per se, but because that’s just the linguistic culture of “the South.”
And there would be no reason for the people being interviewed not to feel comfortable using racial slurs in casual conversation. The three big cat owners profiled by the documentary – Joe Exotic, Doc Antle, and Carole Baskin – are only seen in the company of other white people. With one (charming and perfect nonbinary hero of my heart) exception, they only work with other white people, and all of their business contacts and associates are white as well. When you look at shots of the diverse crowds who come to their zoos, as well as the diverse crowds of people who showed up to Joe Exotic’s various publicity events while he was running for public office, you can clearly see that these are not “white parts of the world” engaging in “white culture.” Still, these three zoo owners are the sort of white people who only surround themselves with other white people.
Joe Exotic is a creepy and abusive asshole, Doc Antle is a creepy and abusive sex pest, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why Twitter is so in love with Carole Baskin, who is not an asshole or a sex pest or abusive but still manages to creep me out.
(I should say that my take on Carole Baskin has nothing to do with the allegations that she murdered her disgusting millionaire ex-husband and fed him to her tigers. If she did, good for her.)
Regardless, I think the documentary is trying to portray Joe Exotic as some sort of contemporary folk hero (which he MOST DEFINITELY is not), and showing him and the people he worked with actually use the racial slurs common to their vernacular would have flown directly in the face of that message.
It’s been so surprising to me to see a surge of interest in the South during the past three or four years, with people from places like Brooklyn and Boston and Chicago and Seattle saying that they love sweet tea and that they’re fans of country music. NPR’s Radiolab just did a special on Dolly Parton, and even Steven Universe is saying “y’all” now. And I guess, if Southern culture and vernacular are scrubbed and sanitized in such as way that Joe Exotic never says the n-word and Carol Baskin doesn’t have to answer any questions about why all her volunteers are white, then Southern culture might seem appealing in a “folksy” sort of way.
(This is the reason why the ending of Kentucky Route Zero was so bizarre to me, by the way. In the wake of a devastating natural disaster, a found family of hipsters decides to settle in an isolated farming town. Unlike what happened in New Orleans, this is a good thing, because fuck capitalism, amirite. There’s a lovely funeral for a horse in which a white urban transplant from Chicago sings a gospel song while a mixed-race gay couple stands off to the side appreciatively, which is totally what rural Kentucky is like, definitely for sure.)