2020 will go down as a coronavirus-disrupted year, but TV content somehow been nothing short of remarkable and most of that is thanks to the popularity of Tiger King and The Last Dance. We don’t need to talk about why both of these shows are entertaining as hell, but we do need to discuss how our enjoyment of Tiger King and The Last Dance doesn’t excuse them from criticism over the fact that they’re both pretty bad documentaries.
Speaking of ‘Tiger King’, the GOAT team talk all about it on ‘It’s Been A Big Day For…’ below:
Tiger King was dropped upon us out of nowhere and completely redefined the word “wild.” There’s no denying that the series is enthralling and the subsequent reaction from the internet was equally as entertaining, but lost under all the footage of big cats and Joe Exotic’s mullet is how the documentary is a bad piece of journalism.
Rather than focus on bigger issues, such as the mistreatment of big cats and the horrific working conditions of those big cat zoos, Tiger King instead chooses to shine the spotlight on Joe Exotic and his supporting cast of characters while also periodically reminding people of the animal abuse stuff. The result is a jarring plotline that makes little tonal sense.
But the worst aspect of Tiger King is the decision to portray these clearly horrible people as misunderstood folk rather than the gun-toting maniacs they actually are. Not only does this undercut their moral repulsiveness, it’s giving depraved people like Joe Exotic sympathy and attention that they don’t deserves while obscuring the truth from audiences (which goes against what a documentary is supposed to do).
At the end of the day, Tiger King is nothing more than a messy series of tabloid-esque snapshots of some bad people who have done some horrendous things and it’s all dressed up under guise of a “documentary” that attempts to be smarter than what it actually is.
The Last Dance doesn’t have the same level of “bad documentary-itis” as Tiger King, but the way it portrays its subjects doesn’t excuse it from criticism.
A deal was struck between the NBA and Michael Jordan which stipulated that the filmed footage of the Chicago Bulls’ 1997-98 season can only be used when both parties agreed to it. The only reason we’re all even seeing this footage now is because MJ finally said yes but only if he is able to have a considerable amount of creative input.
While we may not see MJ or his own production team in the credits of The Last Dance, his fingerprints are all over the final product and the result is a compelling yet biased view of the man in which the subject has control over how they’re portrayed.
We get fascinating looks into Michael Jordan’s almost-vindictive competitiveness and the ways he behaved like an abusive arsehole to everyone – including his own team – just to be the very best, but it’s all portrayed as a positive part of his brand rather than the problematic issue it really is.
Some of the shadier parts of MJ’s legend – like his gambling, the death of his father and his first retirement – aren’t quite glossed over, but they’re told entirely on his terms rather than the unbiased truth. Even when The Last Dance focuses on the Chicago Bulls, only a few members from the original team are featured in the series and it feels like there’s an extra level of perspective missing because of it.
Finally hearing MJ’s perspective and opinions on widely-covered famous incidents throughout his career is a brilliant hook, but one can’t help but feel like The Last Dance is a highly-produced puff piece at times.
All this isn’t to say that Tiger King and The Last Dance aren’t entertaining. On the contrary, both are perhaps two of the best shows we’ll see this year in terms of pure enjoyment.
Tiger King was engrossing for how stupidly bonkers everything is, The Last Dance somehow straddles that difficult line of appealing to long-time NBA fans while appealing to newcomers, all while telling compelling stories about the Chicago and getting Michael Jordan to finally break his silence on a heap of interesting topics. If the choice were between an MJ-controlled “doco” series or nothing, the obvious answer will always be the former.
Viewing these shows as documentaries though, Tiger King and The Last Dance don’t quite measure up on that front. But hey, that’s not really that big of a deal when both shows are as good as they are. Just don’t take them as shining examples of investigative journalism as they’re seemingly advertised as.
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