‘Tiger King’ puts small city on big pop culture map

There’s a three-story museum in downtown Wynnewood, Oklahoma, that depicts life within the metropolis of two,300 folks a century in the past. Rooms show a common retailer, put up workplace, funeral parlor and different interval artifacts.

Managed by the native historic society, the low-key repository attracts largely locals and faculty kids.

Just three ½ miles southwest on the sting of city sits one other museum of kinds – a sprawling roadside huge cat zoo. It was the setting for a weird documentary collection that is exploded in reputation on Netflix because the coronavirus pandemic arrived.

“Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness” does not replicate life in Wynnewood or wherever else in a civil society. Nor does the documentary’s central character, Joseph Maldonado-Passage, higher referred to as Joe Exotic, proprietor of the zoo that featured 200 tigers and different huge cats.

But collectively they’ve captured the fascination of tens of millions of viewers sheltered at house because the six-part collection started March 20. Their feedback gentle up on-line speak, procreate popular culture podcasts and generate incessant memes. The topic even got here up at President Donald Trump’s press convention Wednesday.

The bigger-than-life drama facilities on a feud between Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin, a giant cat sanctuary proprietor in Florida.

Their struggle concerned accusations of abusing captive tigers for industrial acquire at Exotic’s zoo versus defending them from exploitation at Baskin’s sanctuary. It acquired bitterly out of hand, resulting in Exotic’s conviction for making an attempt to rent successful man to whack Baskin, a criminal offense for which he is serving 22 years in jail. He was additionally convicted of untamed life violations.

Wynnewood residents, who’re used to ducking tornadoes, do not thoughts their tie to the “Tiger King” and his madman antics. They noticed his outlier habits nicely earlier than Netflix streamed the docuseries.

Mayor Harold Gregory, who tangled with Exotic over complaints filed by the zoo’s neighbors, checked out it this fashion: “Didn’t P.T. Barnum say there was no such thing as bad publicity? So we have got that going for us.”

He added that his neighborhood 70 miles south of Oklahoma City “just happen to be the place where he chose to buy the property and put his zoo. I thought it was kind of cool that the city of Wynnewood was getting all this international publicity.”

Zach Butler, enterprise improvement director for an area auto vendor, does not thoughts as nicely. Exotic usually wore a black baseball cap bearing the Seth Wadley Auto Group title and emblem within the Netflix collection. Now requests for the caps are worldwide.

“We had website traffic from 107 countries,” mentioned Butler. “I want to say we sold coming up on 800 hats. We have sold out of two different styles of black. We have actually sold a lot of other hats also. People have just taken to our logo.”

A reproduction of the Joe Exotic cap sells for $40 on the auto vendor’s aspect enterprise web site. Butler mentioned this month’s proceeds will likely be donated to nation singer Toby Keith’s OK Kids Korral in Oklahoma City.

Jessica Martin is a hair stylist at Valley Gal’s in neighboring Pauls Valley,Oklahoma. She did Exotic’s signature blonde mullet. When the documentary first steamed, she did not need anybody to know that truth however has since come to embrace her affiliation.

Martin mentioned Exotic was a giant tipper, talked vulgar when no different clients round however “always really nice to me.” She recalled he informed her about getting a movie made about him. She did not consider it. Then the Netflix collection grew to become successful.

“I thought, ‘Oh crap! He wasn’t really playing. It happened,'” mentioned Martin.

Jordyn Dudley works at Mettry’s Department Store in Wynnewood, the place Exotic did his dry cleansing and acquired shirts.

“Was he the most rational in his approach? Probably not,” mentioned Dudley. “I think at the end of the day, people supporting him and wanting justice for Joe really aren’t too off.”

Mayor Gregory summed up Joe Exotic’s presence in Wynnewood and the way he operated his roadside huge cat zoo as portrayed within the Netflix collection.

“I guess we just kind of got numb to whatever he was doing,” mentioned Gregory. “It didn’t really register to us, but when you put it all together in one documentary like they did, it is quite a compilation.”