How ‘Tiger King’ manipulates you

Nobody makes documentaries like them Americans.

Even for a person who grew up on David Attenborough’s brand of sober glorification of the world, I have to give it to the Americans. The age of neutral, balanced documentaries is long gone. Today, we need our documentaries to look and feel like thrillers with cliffhangers.

Tiger King – the documentary on Netflix is classic Americana. Crazy people with crazy pursuits, everybody believing they are on the right path. A fascination for the East, while being deeply entrenched in the beliefs of the West.

But that’s the thing about documentaries. On the surface, you are watching real facts. Real people, real places, real events. But the truth is merely an illusion. Sprinkle some editing and background music, and it is possible to depict Hitler as an unassuming painter. Americans make their documentaries like films. And Joe Exotic is the hero. A second generation immigrant fighting the odds against a reputed large corporation (PeTA). An underdog punching above his weight.

But for a protagonist to work, one needs an antagonist. And that is the reason the show props up Carole Baskin as his nemesis. In fact, the show spends an entire episode – Episode 3 – in convincing you that she is the embodiment of all that’s evil in the world.

Just from the point of view of the craft of documentary filmmaking, the episode is wonderful. To claim that a person killed her husband and fed him to tigers sounds like the story narrated by a grandmother on LSD. And yet, the documentary does it successfully. It shores up a number of people to buttress its claim. The ex-husband’s secretary, his former family, competitors like Doc Antle, and Joe Exotic himself. And yet, the only person whose opinion should matter – the police officer in charge of the area at the time of the crime – is slipped in innocuously, and as it turns out, without much significance. In fact, by the end of the episode, you won’t be blamed for firmly believing that Carole Baskin killer her husband and fed him to the tigers. And that is one of the documentary’s great strengths.

By the fourth episode, you are already sympathising with Joe Exotic. He is portrayed as the simple-minded buffoon. A bumbling, emotional idiot who lives in such a make-believe world that facts and repercussions are but mere clouds that can vanish on a good day.

But look closely at the things that Joe Exotic is shown to have done through the documentary. He manipulated three men into falling in love with him. One of them was admittedly straight and was driven to commit suicide on camera. He shot and killed animals and buried them in his backyard. He committed arson on his own premises and ruined the career of his producer. And paid a man to commit murder. And yet, the show’s great victory is in the sympathy it stirs up in the eyes of viewers.

Which then brings us to the topic of the tigers on the show. Here’s the thing – the show doesn’t really give a fuck about the tigers. Except for the cursory text at the end of every documentary, it really does nothing to help their cause. The show does exactly what Jeff Lowe does through the series – pimps the tigers out for attention and drama.

As we speak, there is a wave of hatred spewing against Carole Baskin. People are petitioning for him to be forgiven and the POTUS -himself the host and producer of a reality TV show and subject of a number of documentaries – has promised to ‘look into it’.

And that is how Tiger King manipulates your mind!

Fuck the Left, Fuck the Right!

I stopped blogging about politics in 2016.

As a frantic consumer of news and a student of journalism, I was disheartened by the clear political slants in news organisations. It seemed unfair and unethical to my younger self. I felt cheated; like someone had taken my deepest beliefs and turned them into a David Dhawanian farce.

But five years down the line, I have reconciled to the future of mainstream news. I understand that news organisations will no more position themselves as beacons of neutrality. It took me some time, but I have made my peace with it. Over the last few years, I steered clear of journalism and politics, choosing instead to pursue a career in comedy, satire and stand-up – a field that is more honest and neutral than actual news portals of today.

The last few years have also taught me something else. That both the Left and the Right in India are run by myopic nutjobs.

To get a better idea of my context, you need to know a little more about my life. I spent the first 15 years of my life growing up in a conservative, god-fearing environment. My school was a gurukul-ashram masquerading as a modern educational institute. Our uniform comprised of a white shirt and white trouser; no footwear or ties. The day began and ended by chanting prayers, shlokas and vedas. My childhood aims (and I am not exaggerating here) were: 

1. Becoming a Bhajan singer 
2. Doing an MBA and then a PhD in Mahabharata!
3. Joining the university band and spending my entire life spreading the message of god. 

While it might seem laughable today, these were the only things I could imagine back then. My parents trusted God more than common sense, and when I was kicked out of my school, my mother left me in Whitefield, Bangalore to ‘fend for myself’. I was 15, and brought back home by a kind Odiya couple who took pity on me. That was my upbringing. One in which there was no space for logic or debate. 

It was the kind of upbringing in which watching cricket was frowned upon. My Sportstar and Cricket Talk magazines – a treasure trove worthy of documentation today – were thrown away or burnt in front of my eyes. Novels (even harmless ones like Sherlock Holmes and Hardy Boys) were frowned upon. Watching cricket was considered a waste of time. 

I hadn’t entered a cinema till 2002. 

It is perhaps an act of rebellion that I am involved in all of the above fields today. I am an aspiring novelist, a humour column writer for The New Indian Express, a standup comedian, and a film critic. Perhaps in my own way, I’m living my life defying the rules that were imposed on me as a child. But that was my upbringing till I said ‘Fuck it!’ and cut off my connection with my parents. 

I spent the next ten years in a Leftist environment. I had been working as a copywriter in an ad agency for nearly three years, and I saw no future for myself in that field. You know how you sometimes know that you’re terrible at a job, and yet can do nothing about it? 

I had gotten into Advertising because I was smitten by the glossy papers of Brand Equity in The Economic Times. I liked reading articles by Santhosh Desai, and was fascinated by the ad campaigns initiated by Prasoon Joshi. My boss at the agency – the greatest boss I’ve worked under – remains a friend to this day, and continues to advise me on matters of life. 

But it took me a year to realise that I was miserable at the job. I realised I could come up with witty lines when there was no demand (or need) for them. But when it came to actual brands and real targets, my mind froze! I spoke to a friend of mine and he offered me his place to stay for a few days. One thing led to the other, and I joined the Journalism course in a Central University. 

In the beginning, it was Utopia. Suddenly, all the skills I’d considered to be of no value actually turned out to be productive. My ability to write, to convey my deepest feelings, to speak freely on topics, to take a stance on things that felt unfair – these were all credit points in my course. 

It took me but a few months to develop a God Complex. I graduated from the course with a specialisation in Print Journalism and New Media. Around that time, my blog took off in a big way, and I gained the confidence to pursue a career in writing. I spent a year and a half working as a teacher in Kurnool, and then joined the University again to pursue an MPhil. 

Unbeknownst to me, I was getting sucked into a Leftist environment. 

It is easy to notice the telltale signs of a Right-wing environment. There is brazen devotion to the country, to God, and an overt pride in one’s beliefs and practices. It is much harder to discern recognise the signs of being drowned in a Leftist environment. 

For one, there is more self-awareness. On the surface, you’re doing it under the garb of enlightenment. Look at the posts of any Leftist, and the first thing that strikes you is the sanctimonious tone. Every post, every message is coated in humility, a sense of humour, a self-aware recognition of one’s privilege. 

But scratch the surface, and you’ll find it is the same shit. A myopic view of the world. A hatred that has seeped so deep into their soul that anything pertaining to the nation, or religion has to be met with stiff opposition. 

Dig deeper, and you’ll find a deep-rooted bias towards Islam. A patronising bias that stems from the need to protect the seemingly ‘voiceless’ and ‘downtrodden’. A bias that has shut them up to any criticism. You’ll also find a condescending outlook towards anybody that practices religion. A seemingly neutral, polite voice that is too blind to see its own bias. 

I spent 10 years amidst University folks, pandering to their world-view. Agreeing to their opinions because I wanted to fit in. It was then that I noticed a few cracks in this seemingly perfect marble palace. 

When I would crack a joke at the Right-wingers, I was met with applause. But when I cracked a joke on left-wingers, I was met with a frozen silence. A jab at Hindutva would get me action on the top of a terrace. But a joke on Islam would get me blocked across all platforms by the same girl. 

Thankfully, Stand-up Comedy entered my life to rescue me from this condition. Around 2016, I began to perform professionally. Standup comedy was a much more democratic field. It consisted of engineers, journalists, poets, social outcasts, retired professionals, NRIs, teenagers who refused to fit in at their schools – in spite of a small number, the diversity in stand-up was fascinating. 

Stand-up Comedy is democratic in another way. There is no clear political slant. The emphasis is on making a point, on delivering a laugh. In the beginning, I was shocked to find comedians have a Right-Wing slant one day, and a Left-wing slant the next day. Indoctrinated as I was in steel-cage ideologies, my mind’s first response was ‘Ha! Hypocrite!!’. It took me a while to understand that Standup Comedy was more journalistic than the journalism followed in our country. There was an emphasis on facts, and an audience that could laugh at themselves. 

The last few years have also taught me something more important. 

That the Left-wing and Right-wing actually have more in common than you think. While they may seem to occupy opposite ends of the spectrum, they share more in common than they differ. 

They both depend on 100% loyalty to their ideology. You cannot flirt with the other side, for you stand to lose your friends and peers on this side. While the tone, grammar and subtlety might differ, they are both toxic schools of thought that thrive on trolling – the cheapest of all human behaviour in the modern, digital world. 

Take recent instances for example. Right Wingers bay for the blood of Muslims on Twitter on a daily basis. And if you thought the Left was more graceful, you should check out how they celebrated Boris Johnson contracted the Coronavirus. Hundreds of tweets wished he’d die of the disease that is killing thousands of people around the world. 

And you know what’s the fucked up part? There really isn’t any Right or Left wing in the truest sense. The most common perception of the difference between the two is on ideological grounds. But in India, every party doles out subsidies and benefits to people. If you go purely by economic policies over the last 20 years, it’ll be hard to tell the UPA governments from the NDA governments. 

Which means that in India, the only line of difference is Religion. In their own way, the two sides have legitimised Religion in our everyday consciousness. And yet they are both too stupid to recognise that they’re both idiots. 

This is something that has rankled me for long. How come there hasn’t been a truly Centrist voice in India? And by Centrist, I don’t mean the hollow, spineless political model of the Indian National Congress. I mean an ideology that gives you the freedom to choose what you want from either the Right or the Left. 

An ideology that allows you to appreciate the other side, and criticise your own side. Is it too Utopian an idea to imagine in 2020? I think not. 

And that, Dear Reader, shall be the pursuit of this blog going forward. And my rally cry shall remain the headline of this article. One that needs to be ingrained into your consciousness if you wish to remain sane in the world of social media and 24/7 news channels – Fuck the Left, Fuck the Right!