History YMMV / TigerKing

* TheScrappy: ''Tiger King'' features a very diverse cast of characters, many of whom are extremely morally ambiguous. But while we have controversial figures like Joe Exotic, Carole Baskin, and Doc Antle, these three are generally [[RootingForTheEmpire charismatic enough to attract some defenders in spite of their wrongdoings]]. However, there are a few who are almost universally loathed within the fandom:
** Jeff Lowe is unanimously seen as a sleazy DirtyOldMan and a {{Slimeball}} extraordinaire who [[ItsAllAboutMe cares only about himself]] and [[{{greed}} lining his pockets]]. Not helping matters is that [[spoiler:after Joe went to jail, he succeeds in completely taking over the park and begins work on recreating it in his own image]]. To illustrate this, Lowe decided to [[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/g1vhw6/hi_reddit_my_name_is_jeff_lowe_im_the_ceo_and/ host a Reddit AMA]] which ended up being a complete disaster due to users who had actual questions for him getting massively overshadowed by the ones who took the opportunity to either ruthlessly mock him, or deliver a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech.
--->'''u/Kuzaya:''' Hey Jeff, big fan. I’m just curious that in a show featuring a woman who fed her husband to tigers, a sociopathic abuser who tried to have her killed, a walking ponytail with a tiger sex harem, and a murderous drug kingpin, how do you manage to come off as the biggest asshole?
** James Garretson is regarded as a FatBastard who is just as slimy as Jeff Lowe, if not more so. Evidently possessing no self awareness, he apparently [[SmugSnake believes himself to always be one step ahead of everyone else]], even though he [[StupidCrooks stupidly]] tried to sell the Baskins dirt on Joe ''from his own registered phone number'', which only resulted in them doing what anyone else would do and passing it along to the authorities. He is viewed as a DirtyCoward willing to throw anyone under the bus to try and save himself from prison. Then there’s the infamous scene where we see him riding his jet ski while "Eye of the Tiger" plays in the background. This scene [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment has nothing to do with anything]], and is widely believed to have been inserted at his request in an attempt to make him look cool.

* SeasonalRot: Critics felt that the show appeared to have ran out of ideas by Season 2, resulting in a Rotten Tomatoes score of 18% compared to Season 1's 85%. This was probably to be expected, since the first season documents nearly 20 years of bizarre events in the private zoo world, while the second season is basically a WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue.

* SeasonalRot: Critics felt that the show appeared to have ran out of ideas by Season 2, resulting in a Rotten Tomatoes score of 18% compared to Season 1's 85%.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: A minor, but still prominent complaint about the series was that it never showed John Findlay's teeth implants. The retrospective eighth episode shows him with his new fully-toothed mouth. The episode also makes a point of using Saff's preferred pronouns, and the closed captions were updated to better reflect them (sans when the characters misgender him within the documentary itself).

* SweetnessAversion: Big Cat Rescue's "Beautiful, Wild and Free" music video consisting of a goofy woman staring adoringly at the tigers while singing how [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin beautiful, wild and free]] they are.

* SophomoreSlump: Critics felt that the show appeared to have ran out of ideas by Season 2, resulting in a Rotten Tomatoes score of 18% compared to Season 1's 85%.

* TastesLikeDiabetes: Big Cat Rescue's "Beautiful, Wild and Free" music video consisting of a goofy woman staring adoringly at the tigers while singing how [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin beautiful, wild and free]] they are.

* UnfortunateImplications: [[https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a32017473/saff-tiger-king-trans/ Some have argued]] that the show occasionally goes out of its way to misgender Saff, and the way his name is written suggests he goes by Kelci and "Saff" is just a nickname. However, the show itself never refers to Saff by any pronouns (beyond the subtitles that say "woman's voice"), though many of the interviewees do use “her”. It should be noted that in an interview after the show aired, Saff said that [[OpinionOverride he didn't care that much about it]]. In the retrospective eighth episode of the series, Joel [=McHale=] uses male pronouns when interviewing Saff.%%** [[https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/tiger-king-carole-baskin-joe-exotic-netflix-sexist-misogyny-don-lewis-a9438451.html Some have argued]] that misogynistic undertones are present in how the Joe vs Carole narrative is depicted. The claims against Carole are largely based on hearsay, yet many still paint her as the villain. Meanwhile Joe ''actually'' attempted to have Carole murdered and committed numerous counts of animal abuse (several of which are shown onscreen), but gets glorified with memes and has many demanding he be “freed” from prison. It’s very telling that a slow-motion clip of Carole riding a bike is treated with more horror than Joe ripping newborn tigers cubs from their mothers.

* AwardSnub: Despite high praise and large publicity, the series was completely shut out from that year's Emmys in favor of Creator/{{ESPN}}'s ''The Last Dance'', which ultimately won Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series. In hindsight, though, this seems completely justified, a the general public and critcs view Tiger King as little more than a dumb fad a year later.

* AwardSnub: Despite high praise and large publicity, the series was completely shut out from that year's Emmys in favor of Creator/{{ESPN}}'s ''The Last Dance'', which ultimately won Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series. In hindsight, though, this seems completely justified, with Tiger King beind seen as little more than a dumb fad in a little less than a year.

* AwardSnub: Despite high praise and large publicity, the series was completely shut out from that year's Emmys in favor of Creator/{{ESPN}}'s ''The Last Dance'', which ultimately won Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series.

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* CommonKnowledge: One of the show's most memorable moments was when Saff got his arm ripped off by a tiger. But that's not exactly what happened; in reality, the arm was so badly mauled that Saff opted to have it amputated instead of getting reconstructive surgery. To be fair, however, even Joe (who was there when it happened) seemed to have initially believed the tiger ripped his arm off.

* WhatAnIdiot: Joe's overtly threatening comments to Carole Baskin in his ''public videos'' go a long way in making him look guilty during his trial.

* NightmareFuel: One of the later episodes shows security camera footage of [[spoiler: Travis ''shooting himself in the head'']]. While there is thankfully no footage of [[spoiler: the body]] shown, the sheer surprise and horror factors of the footage are enough to shake even the most iron-willed of viewers. It's made even worse with Joshua Dial's [[OhCrap shocked]] [[StunnedSilence reaction]], also caught on camera.

** Doc Antle is living nightmare fuel. Despite portraying himself as a conservationist, he is incredibly cruel and petty towards both his animals and staff, to the point where many of his followers are afraid that he will kill them if they turn on him. In one scene, Steven recounts how Doc threatened to kill him for walking in on something he shouldn’t have (Doc doing something with a big bag of money), even going as far as to stick a screwdriver against his throat.

* CatharsisFactor: In season 2, it's very rewarding to see Jeff Lowe losing all the animals he mistreated and getting arrested for drunk driving after DrowningHisSorrows, considering what a massive HateSink and KarmaHoudini the guy was.

* CatharsisFactor: In season 2, it's very rewarding to see Jeff Lowe losing all the animals he mistreated and getting arrested for drunk driving after DrowningHisSorrows considering what a massive HateSink and KarmaHoudini the guy was.

** Did Jeff Lowe intend to [[spoiler:force Joe Exotic out of his own zoo from the start? Was he simply fed up with Joe's antics and criminal behavior? Or did he feel he had to get rid of Joe to protect his own parole? And just how involved were he and Allen in the murder-for-hire scheme?]]

* UnfortunateImplications: [[https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a32017473/saff-tiger-king-trans/ Some have argued]] that the show occasionally goes out of its way to misgender Saff, and the way his name is written suggests he goes by Kelci and "Saff" is just a nickname. However, the show itself never refers to Saff by any pronouns (beyond the subtitles that say "woman's voice"), though many of the interviewees do use “her”. It should be noted that in an interview after the show aired, Saff said that he didn't care that much about it. In the retrospective eighth episode of the series, Joel [=McHale=] uses male pronouns when interviewing Saff.%%** [[https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/tiger-king-carole-baskin-joe-exotic-netflix-sexist-misogyny-don-lewis-a9438451.html Some have argued]] that misogynistic undertones are present in how the Joe vs Carole narrative is depicted. The claims against Carole are largely based on hearsay, yet many still paint her as the villain. Meanwhile Joe ''actually'' attempted to have Carole murdered and committed numerous counts of animal abuse (several of which are shown onscreen), but gets glorified with memes and has many demanding he be “freed” from prison. It’s very telling that a slow-motion clip of Carole riding a bike is treated with more horror than Joe ripping newborn tigers cubs from their mothers.

* InformedWrongness: The documentary frames its footage to imply that Carol takes issue mainly with the fact that Joe is breeding big cats and letting visitors pet the cubs. The footage used does not explain what the problem with that is.