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At least it feels that way.
Lets call them WTF docs.
at least once, and usually multiple times.
A lot of true-crime shows fit into this category.
Certain revisitations of historical events or scandals Wild Wild Country,Leaving Neverland do, too.
Youve gotta see this, we tell our friends after watching one of these documentaries.
Tiger Kingis definitely a WTF doc.
Its got lions, and tigers, and bears already an oh my!
Joe Exotic is basically what the acronym WTF would look like if it were turned into a person.
Its a wild, wild story, and the filmmakers embraced that.
So we knew that there would be an appetite for it.
The WTF-ery becameTiger Kings entire reason for being.
Its WTF-ness provides its oxygen.
Joe is a volatile, flamboyant narcissist who does things that are patently ridiculous.
Its impossible to watch what he does and what some of the other interviewees do and say without laughing.
I laughed several times while watching it.
The figures who appear on-camera provide plenty of laughs simply by being themselves.
But the filmmakers sometimes give in to the urge to push things further toward mockery.
The lengthy clips fromExotics music videosare overused.
Which, of course,totally worked.
She didnt, or at least doesnt on film.
McFarland is often described in snarky terms by former colleagues and journalists who covered the fiasco.
There is also a lack of depth toTiger Kingthat turns it into an increasingly empty exercise.
The point ofTiger King, at its core, is look at all this weird shit that happened.
Its possible to mix surprising twists that will become Twitter fodder with that kind of purpose.
ButTiger Kingcant figure out how.
The reality is much more nuanced than that.
The series can certainly be exciting.
WTF docs are always exciting.
But the really good ones are more than that.
A train wreck you cant help but look at nothing more, nothing less.
Maybe thats why Americans are responding to it with such enthusiasm.
