Just so we’re all immediately on the same page: We can totally assume what Tiger King’s Carole Baskin was attempting to accomplish when she weirdly weighed in on Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s video for “WAP” earlier this week. If our juggernaut of a Netflix docuseries managed to earn us more attention then we could ever fathom, we too would probably consider riding today’s biggest social media wave to reclaim some of that fervent attention for ourselves. But Baskin’s claims that the duo’s appearance alongside various leopards and tigers “glamorized” the ownership of big cats and that “they probably dealt with one of the big cat pimps” were so rife with conjecture that we moved right past them.
And we were perfectly fine with ignoring Baskin’s commentary for the rest of our days—that is, until Cardi B was asked to address the comments herself. In an interview with Vice’s Roisin Lanigan, the rapper remained appropriately unbothered by the emphatically negative criticisms from conservatives. “It doesn’t make me angry,”Cardi told Lanigan. “It makes me happy. They keep talking and the numbers keep going up. At the end of the day, whatever they’re saying, the numbers speak for themselves.” When she was eventually asked about her thoughts on Baskin’s critique, Cardi gave a rather finite response: “I’m not gonna engage with Carole Baskin on that. Like, that’s just ridiculous you know? Oh, Lord. Like, girl you killed your goddamn husband.”
For clarity’s sake, Baskin was not formally charged for the disappearance of millionaire Don Lewis, nor is she currently being investigated for it despite the Hillsborough County sheriff’s apparent interest in new leads. But Cardi’s response does succinctly touch on Baskin’s arguably biggest claim to fame, which makes any public pearl-clutching on her part a little laughable for a while, at least. Hopefully everyone will soon learn that it’s perfectly fine to simply not like— and even critique!—the song without accusing the women behind it of harm.
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Next up: Baskin sues Cardi B for defamation. Jury asks “Why are you famous, anyway?”
Why is Carole Baskin famous? For killing her husband and hit documentary Tiger King, obviously.
“If killing your husband is a crime, well then, lock me up! Wait, it is?”
For clarity’s sake, Baskin was not formally charged for the disappearance of millionaire Don Lewis, nor is she currently being investigated for it despite the Hillsborough County sheriff’s interest in new leads.Keep in mind, Don did not have a pilot’s license, he was flying illegally for years, and he was really bad at it. Also, he was lending money to the Costa Rican mob. Either he crashed his plane into the ocean or he was killed in a mob hit. She certainly had a motive to want him dead but there was really no means for her to do it.
Sure thing, Carole.
Who tries to fly a real plane without a license? Was he the plane thief in the movie Blow?
Maybe, or…
He probably had a license but didn’t keep it up but didn’t let that stop him because there aren’t sky cops asking you to pull over. In a small enough town on a small enough airstrip, a “donation” to the local authority’s charity wallet would go a long way.
IIRC, he had his license revoked. But the rest of it makes sense.
Americans. We hate being told that you have to do this before you can do that. I know you can hear it right now can’t you? “I don’t need to take no stinkin’ class/fill out no stupid form/wear no darn helmet/wear that dumb mask/etc.” If you’ve ever started a walk-behind lawnmower, you can figure out how to do literally anything and to hell with anyone who dares tell you different – they’re likely a commie.
I landed on ‘she knows who killed him and possibly could have prevented it from happening, but didn’t bother.’
He also apparently had dementia.
I like to imagine some mob hitmen were racing to take him out, but arrived just in time to see his plane flying away. As they’re watching it and figuring out their next move, they see the plane veer to the side and slowly crash in a fiery explosion. Then they shrug their shoulders and go get donuts.
A bit like the Bolivians in Barry?
Ya’lls defense of carole baskins is really fucking weird. She more than likely killed her husband. And even if she didn’t, she falsified his will to fuck his family over.She’s not some left wing saviour, stop circling the fucking wagons.
the duo’s appearance alongside various leopards and tigers “glamorized” the ownership of big cats and that “they probably dealt with one of the big cat pimps” Yeah, uh, isn’t this like LEGITIMATE criticism, as opposed to conservative pearl clutching? If we learned anything from Tiger King, it’s that meth heads and exotic animals don’t mix. But if we learned two things, it’s that there are people and businesses wrongfully breeding, selling, and abusing big cats, and that this is bad and needs to stop. And music videos glamorizing and supporting that is…you know, maybe part of the problem?And who knows, maybe they did everything right for this video, but shit, we don’t know that, and isn’t it a pretty fucking fair question to ask?That said, she almost certainly definitely killed her husband yo.
But Cardi’s response does succinctly touch on Baskin’s
arguably biggest claim to fame, which makes any public pearl-clutching
on her part a little laughable for a while, at least. Hopefully everyone
will soon learn that it’s perfectly fine to simply not like— and even
critique!—the song without accusing the women behind it of harm.
What the fuck are you even talking about? THIS is the take you landed on?1 – whether or not Baskin killed her husband, her life’s work has been advocating for people not to take big cats out of their habitat and subject them to lives in confinement. And anybody putting big cats in a music video is almost certainly working with people who do that. So maybe speak to that a little bit instead of acting like her criticism is born from “not liking the song.”2 – She probably didn’t kill her husband. Strong emphasis on “probably,” but come on, did you watch the documentary? The people who keep accusing her of it are a bunch of fucking fame-fixated whackjobs and her husband who “mysteriously disappeared” was flying himself illegally to South America to work with drug dealers. Yeah, he definitely got fed to tigers and didn’t just plummet into the ocean or get killed by his shady associates. C’mon.I am not particularly interested in her or big cat welfare, either. I really don’t give a shit. But this feels like a particularly deformed product of the AV Club Hot Take Machine.
But Baskin more than likely DID steal the money to fund this sanctuary from the children of her first husband by filing a falsified will. So it still stands that she sucks terribly.
She might suck terribly and still not be wrong about the treatment of big cats, here or elsewhere.I mean, I know this is the Kinja-era AV Club, where we’re only allowed one take at a time, and people are either untouchable saints or the worst human being ever, but still — it used to be that things could be two things.
Nobody’s calling her the worst human ever. Hyperbolic takes aren’t good anywhere, so don’t do ‘em.
since i have never seen this Carol Baskin show or listened to Cardi B, nor do i ever care to, can that be my two things?
Yes, it’s almost certain that Carole Baskin committed crimes at some point in the past. But the comments from you and others above are a logical fail — you’re trying to debunk the message by insulting the messenger. Her message stands on its own. This music video almost certainly abused animals and paid money to people who abuse animals.
AV Club is just jealous they’re not The Root at the moment and can’t exactly milk the whole WAP craze from the same angle.
AVClub where we regulate the GWP (good white progressives) to let them talk about the latest trendy tv shows and think pieces about their favorite childhood cartoons.
I guess you can call anything “a little laughable” when you are as full of mean-spirited faux-woke contempt as this newest batch of AVClub writers.
Why are you whiny bitches reading it then? When you obviously hate it? Seems odd. Do you think you just like being outraged?
But this feels like a particularly deformed product of the AV Club Hot Take Machine.
Well yeah, of course it’s deformed, it didn’t come out of the oven quite right… by which I mean the hot takes are coming out so fast they can’t read over the very obvious mistakes in the writing like Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s video for “WAP earlier this week.” The song’s not called WAP earlier this week, dumdums.
I think “WAP earlier this week” is George Stephanopoulos’ new show.
Definitely not Ben Shapiro’s show, he of the apparently dusty dry pussy.
Have you heard Oswalt’s latest bon mot? It’s all the rage in the salons.
Battered. Chapped. Pussy.
(Fetch me a cucumber sandwich, crust REMOVED)
Isn’t that Cuomo’s show?Oh, WAP. Nevermind.
The Kinja/AV Club writers in a nutshell:
I do think she has a point about the big cats, and she has the cat’s welfare in mind. I’m not sure about anything else– she could be an asshole in every other sense, I don’t know her.
This is the classic person isn’t likable therefore guilty. Its like the Ramsays, lord knows I don’t like them or Baskins but neither are murderers. God I hate true crime fans, they just love ruining people’s lives, whether its the family of victims or people they assume are guilty.
Maybe other Ramsays are fine, but I think Ramsay Bolton has been up to something.
Well I guess we need to wait for Winterfell Unsolved to finally find out!
Roose Bolton would appreciate that.
I actually listened to a podcast recently about the Ramsey thing. There’s pretty much no way he did it, and a not insignificant amount of evidence that points to one of two other people (but not enough to compel DNA).
Yeah pretty much this. It wasn’t the parents and it certainly wasn’t the brother. I don’t know who did it, but its not the family and everyone keeps thinking its them purely by statistics and because they aren’t likable. Which yeah, Patricia Ramsay was not at all likable and her husband was quite the rich prick. But being an asshole isn’t a sign of guilt.
You said it, Unspeakable! There’s definitely no room around here for developing a flimsy, multi-paragraph Hot Take on a topic upon which you have zero vested interest in the outcome. That’s your goddamn job, and don’t you let anyone take it away from you!
I thought Carole Baskin’s biggest claim to fame was, “Hey all you cool cats and kittens!” But yeah, I don’t see Baskin’s criticism as particularly malicious or a desperate grab for attention. She can have a valid point about the video potentially glamorizing tigers as a cool pet to look at and furthering the trade for them while being questionable in other ways. I stopped watching Tiger King after the first two episodes, but I rarely see her concern for big cats ever thrown into question, it’s more what happened to her second husband and exploiting volunteers, so I don’t see this as hypocritical. There’s definitely a lot over the top criticism of “WAP” because of sexism/racism so I get why people are defensive, but this isn’t that unreasonable.
No- honestly I see Cardi’s reply as further evidence she just sees big cats as props or toys and not living beings with rights. Cardi’s such a trash person
One thing I’ve learned from the Trump era is how easily people fall for the ad hominem and whataboutism fallacies.
I find it incredibly frustrating that people seem to just believe she murdered her husband basically because Joe Exotic said so. Nobody came away from that documentary talking about how creepy he was, they prefer to treat him like an amusing scamp and join him in wishing her dead.
Uhhh. Everyone I’ve ever talked to about it thinks Joe Exotic is an awful, awful piece of shit
Carole Baskin owns a zoo and profits off her cats.
Also, Baskin has been extremely vocal about how she only participated in the documentary because she was told it would be about the mistreatment of big cats, and that she’s extremely disillusioned with the final product. Most of the attention focused on her from the documentary has been extremely negative (as the speculation that she killed her husband in this very article demonstrates) and she’s said she’s unsure if she’ll ever be able to be open to the public again because of it.As such, the suggestion that she’s making these criticisms because she enjoyed the attention and wants more time in the spotlight is not even remotely supported by the evidence – it’s just baseless speculation meant to dismiss her criticisms as being insincere.
I’ve got to say I’m a little bit in shock, I presumed an article this bad would have been written by Sam Barsanti, but amazingly that’s not the case.
A lot of these other writers are trying, but no one is taking that gold away from Barsanti.
I will add that facilities like Carole’s are important, as long as the Joe Exotic’s and Doc Andal’s keep breeding mongrel cats that cannot be used in conservation breeding. I’ve heard the argument that only conservation zoologists should be able to own & breed big cats – something that is true and Carole agrees with – but those facilities only deal with cats that can be used in conservation breeding. Carole takes in the mongrels created for profit, that would likely be euthanized or used as pets otherwise. Carole is an imperfect person, but Tiger King did her dirty and that’s the truth. It made all American rebels out of criminals, sexual predators and animal abusers and a villain out of a woman fighting against them. And, no, you should not have big cats in your videos. Use CGI. That’s all Carole wants.
Carole is an imperfect person, but Tiger King did her dirty and that’s the truth. It made all American rebels out of criminals, sexual predators and animal abusers and a villain out of a woman fighting against them.
This is interesting to me. I actually left the documentary feeling like 1) Carole seemed like a fairly nice, albeit kind of nutty, person who probably didn’t kill anyone, and 2) Joe and Doc were both assholes and criminals. The self-mythologizing of both of the latter is presented with a straight face, but I never felt like the documentary was asking me to buy it; instead it seemed like (through editing, juxtaposition, and the series’ general content) that I was supposed to learn really quickly that both of them were dirtbags, and Joe was an especially pitiful dirtbag. And his grudge against Baskin was made to seem outlandish and insane.The only part I did feel did her dirty was the episode focused on her ex-husband’s death. They clearly felt the lure of the salacious mystery, and were too chickenshit to just editorialize and say, “Clearly it’s far more likely that he and his plane are at the bottom of the ocean, or moldering in a South American jungle somewhere.”Anyway, I was surprised afterward when I read a lot of social media comments to the effect of “Fuck Carole Baskin! She’s evil!” That was not my takeaway. Hell, even if she DID kill her ex (who seemed like a huge scumbag), I’d still think she was probably a much better person than Joe and Doc, and from what we were told of her ex, he seemed like very much not a good dude at all. He picked her up off the side of the road when she was a teenager fleeing an abusive marriage and he was a married, much older adult, for fuck’s sake. If he got got by her, I’m not going to cry over it.
Certainly, bit with the power of attorney was terrible, especially since multiple lawyers came out and said the “disappearance” phrasing is totally commonplace if you are dealing with a person who has a “hobby” like flying small planes. Presenting that as unusual and suspicious was plainly incorrect. The documentary also took the husband’s first family, whom he undoubtedly screwed over, as gospel on the nature of the estate and what Carole did, which is unfair.But as far as your reaction goes, misogyny is a hell of a drug. You may not buy the veiled misogynistic implications, but it’s clear that a large chunk of viewers did and I have a hard time believing the filmmakers didn’t know that would be the case. They were alive in 2016, after all. Your mileage may vary, but that’s because you aren’t as terrible as most people and that’s a good thing!
Ehhh, I think there was a lot of shit that was specifically meant to make us dislike her. For example, the only word we get on the conditions of her animals comes from Joe Exotic’s unchallenged claims, which is seemingly backed up by out-of-context shots of the cats in the feeding lockouts without explaining their purpose (to feed the cats safely and assist with medical treatment or transportation if necessary) or that the cats aren’t actually living in those things.
Or how they went straight from descriptions of the horrific working conditions at both Joe Exotic and Doc Antle’s places to the explanation of how Big Cat Rescue uses *gasp* volunteers! And the volunteers wear coloured t-shirts!
Anyone who thinks about it for half a second can see that there’s a substantial difference between a charity relying on volunteers and donations (or even using full-time interns, though I do think that edges into genuine exploitation) and a for-profit business finding vulnerable people and offering them terrible housing, expired food, and below minimum wage. Or sexually exploiting them. Buuuuut the way that sequence was edited was clearly meant to equate the three places in terms of worker abuse.Similarly, they made it look as though the Baskins going after Exotic in court was purely over a petty grudge, and was partially responsible for the reprehensible things he did trying to pay his court fees or wriggle out of a judgement. Again, thinking about it logically, I’d say it makes perfect sense for an animal sanctuary that takes in abused pet tigers to try and shut down the fuckers that are breeding and selling said tigers in the first place. Otherwise, they’re just treating the symptoms and not the disease. But that wasn’t how the documentary presented it.
The director has outright said that the message of the show was to give to wildlife conservationists (side note – he is a wildlife conservationist) instead of animal sanctuaries, and that Big Cat Rescue should just kill all their animals and give the money that was going to their care to wildlife conservationists instead. So the portrayal of Big Cat Rescue kind of seems like a hit piece against a charitable cause he views as competing with his own.
I in no way ever thought that doc was trying to present the image that Joe Exotic or any of those other creeps were cool USA rebels. The series paints them all with a real ugly brush. Anyone that came away from watching that thinking Joe Exotic was not an evil piece of shit that deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison is seriously fucked up.
You underestimate how fucked up many, many people are.
I don’t at all. My point was that to me, the documentary wasn’t painting him as a cool rebel at all.
If it didn’t intend to do that, it sure managed to anyway. At least everything I’ve seen in public about it is about how hilarious Joe Exotic is and how Carole is a murderer. That is exactly what this very article is all about.
I can’t really fault filmmakers for a bunch of people that think a dude that burned his own pets to death to save his ass is cool
Considering their job involves conveying a message and guiding their viewers’ feelings, I definitely can. That’s basically how propaganda works, right?
But 100% of everything they showed of Joe Exotic was awful. If he wasn’t doing or saying anything horrifying, he was being a pathetic, whiny baby about the consequences he reaped from his own disgusting actions.. Genuinely curious, what were some specific choices they made to make him look like a hero? I don’t think making Baskin look like an asshole means they intended to paint Joe Exotic in a positive light.
They didn’t make him a “hero” – they made him a hilarious, comical caricature for everyone to fondly mock. Also, presenting his version of the events related to Carole as “true,” they immediately framed him as on the side of honesty and her as the coniving murderer.
Okay, so they intentionally made a mockery of him and lots of people twisted that into a celebration of him?
Yes. As people have been doing with reality tv stars for years. This kind of tv turns vile monsters into objects of fond mockery. It’s not “respect,” but the result is to minimize how awful they actually are.
Genuine question: What’s the difference between “mongrel” cats and and conservation stock?
Conservation Breeders need pure bred cats, because there’s a difference in where you can release a Bengal Tiger versus a Siberian Tiger because they have evolved to live in different environments. A cross-breed can’t survive in either environment and would bring the wrong genes to a geographic area even if it could. On top of that white Tigers have an albinism mutation, and they can’t survive in the wild at all. For profit pet/petting breeders breed crossbreeds for cuteness that can never be released in the wild and are often inbred on top of that.
Makes sense. Thanks.
This. I don’t get the AV Club’s dedication to defending Cardi and this song.
Bruh, THIS is the take you chose to make?Really?
Carole Baskin is a monster, stop deflecting from her general horribleness because it makes you sound like Laura Ingraham
Thanks for your reply, Joe Exotic.
You wish
Yes, that’s right. I wish that you were Joe Exotic.
This is Kinja town and Cardi B is an untouchable, perfect being here. Cardi B could have been cutting up tiger cubs with a chainsaw and every Kinja site would be yelling SLAY QUEEN!
Hopefully everyone will soon learn that it’s perfectly fine to simply
not like— and even critique!—the song without accusing the women behind
it of harm.
She’s talking about the fucking tigers you numbskulls, not about the song or the lyrics, it’s the video with the damn cats! Christ, this site sometimes…
And in her last video with a big cat she ‘borrowed’ it from some sketchy oil shiek! It seems pretty reasonable to question the treatment of the cats in this video given her sketchy history
It’s okay. She drugged the shiek and stole his money, so it was really an empowering moment for women.
I drove the Pennsylvania turnpike last week and I saw billboards for not one, but two different animal “parks” with tigers. How the fuck is it legal for random nobodies to own animals that are both incredibly dangerous and highly endangered?
Because without them, you dipshit, there would be no more tigers.Private ownership of tigers accounts for like half the population of tigers in the world, maybe more.Learn some things.
Mr. Exotic, is this really how you want to spend the 10 minutes you’re allowed on the computer?
You tried.
You failed.
learn not to call strangers “dipshit”, friend. Are you twelve?
Welcome to the internet, are you twelve?Shit takes are shit takes.
otherwise, how was the turnpike?
I drove the Pennsylvania turnpike last week and I saw billboards for not one, but two different animal “parks” with tigers. How the fuck is it legal for random nobodies to own animals that are both incredibly dangerous and highly endangered?
Because old Cardi just drugged people to steal from them rather than kill , so that’s ok I guess.
And gets her friends to help her attack a woman who slept with her husband! I think that trial is still going on- I can’t find whether she was found guilty or not- she was indicted by a grand jury on 18 charges including 2 felonies. I can’t believe she of all people would jump to “well you’re a criminal”
Baskin should sue that rapping stripper for slander and bankrupt her.
I’m curious why you wrote this instead of simply “Baskin should sue her for slander and bankrupt her.” Care to elaborate?
Because they’re a misogynistic garbage person
Jesus christ, this is what black culture has come down to? What’s that quote about soft bigotry?
And I said black not Black, cos that doesn’t make any damn sense.
Black culture is also that Harvard-educated, muscular, gay birder in Central Park. Black culture is also running for vice president and winning the presidency.
“only what she had to do to survive”. Utterly fucking classless.
I heard some careless crew member spilled ice-cold water all over the back of one of those poor tigers. They had to get a bucket and a mop for that wet ass pussy.
A for effort. You tried.
you don’t understand; she succeeded. That is what success looks like now.
In fact, let me check— yes, now we’re all winners.
Libel suit! Libel suit! Libel suit!
Isn’t there a word for this? Like this is dry snitching. On all levels.
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I know you ignorant (and oddly quick to defend anyone that avclub/gizmodo/theroot/jezebel/kotaku call out for racism, sexism or other forms of bigotry) commenters enjoy the self congratulating/sniffing each other’s farts for pointing out any and all flaws you find in these articles, as if they some how invalidate the words or actions of who they’re about… but…
It’s the line “they probably dealt with one of the big cat pimps” that seems out of place in that bitch Carol Baskin’s critique. That’s implying, (not at all subtly) that these women fucked a man in order to have cats in their video. She used this terminology explicitly to refer to these scantily clad women that are singing about fucking, whores in a coded way.
Look, I get it, you people are obviously dumb as all fucking hell, but that’s not really a good excuse.
AV Club has landed on some stupid takes before but this may be the stupidest ever. Exploiting big cats for entertainment is wrong and straight-up immoral, which Baskin points out, and you somehow land on the exploiters side? Ridiculous.
You can think Joe Exotic and Carol Baskin are terrible at the same time. Crazy, I know
Once they’ve defined something as sociopolitically virtuous, as they have with this song, then reasserting that position is going to be the main point of every single mention of it.
“But Baskin’s claims that the duo’s appearance alongside various leopards and tigers ‘glamorized’ the ownership of big cats and that ‘they probably dealt with one of the big cat pimps’ were so rife with conjecture that we moved right past them.”Uh… I mean, isn’t that likely true, regardless of anything else going on here?
Shit take, this isn’t about who you like more, it’s about whether it was ethical to use big cats in her video.
I don’t really like Carbi or the song and I don’t really think Carole Baskin killed her husband, but I gotta say it’s a pretty good clapback.
Yeah, slander is always a “pretty good clapback”.
IANAL but I doubt that statement meets the legal definition of slander.
I, ANAL
Me, a nobody, to Cardi B, based on internet gossip sites: Girl, you do too much cocaine!