Tiger King - The Addiction to Spectacle
If someone wrote a novel with the same plot as Tiger King, you would consider the novelist stupid and the novel implausible. But Netflix's Docuseries Tiger King would prove you wrong because it is one where truth stranger than fiction. If someone had written a novel with the same story line as Tiger king we would have found it implausible. I want to do a quick video reflecting on Tiger King from a theological perspective.
Tiger King primarily profiles a man who calls himself Joe Exotic who is a polygamist, gay, zoo owner who ran for office in the 2016 Presidential election.
How did a rather crazy zoo owner get to run for office?
Answer, Spectacle!
The French political theorist called Guy Debord wrote this book called the Society of Spectacle. His point is that when a society get more and more visually focused gets obsessed with images and appearances over reality and truth. We live in a society were people are constantly bored and want to see spectacles to entertain them. People like Joe Exotic fulfill this need to escape boredom.
Joe is a master showman. Joe is the star of his show. He created the persona of the Tiger King as a spectacle to entertain people. This landed him a spot on John Oliver's show during the 2016 Presidential election.
What did Joe Exotic do with all this new found celebrity?
He ended up in jail with a 22 year sentence!!!
How did that happen?
Here is the insidious thing about the spectacle. You are tempted to think that the spectacle you create is real. When you start to believe your own spectacle, then you lose bearing with the truth. One of his friends say that when he crowned himself as the Tiger King, he let that go to his head. He focused on the spectacle, but lost the zoo. Then to get revenge on his nemesis, he conspired to kill the person and got slammed with an attempted murder charge, leading him to Jail.
After Joe's imprisonment one of Joe's loyal zoo worker reflects, "Joe was trying to bigger than he was." His being a gay polygamist, running for office, calling himself the "Tiger king," was all an attempt at Joe trying to be bigger than he was.
The Psychologist from Princeton the Late Donald Capps says that people's drive to seek constant attention from other people and to want to keep self-aggrandizing oneself comes from their self being depleted. When people do not feel loved in the deepest part of their self, they feel depleted, then they crave for attention from the world outside to fill in the inner depletion.
Let us put a theological lens here...
St. Bernard of Clairvaux from 12th century had a saying, "love to be unknown." This was a favorite quote in many monasteries. You see this is the opposite of of Joe Exotic. It is easy to demonize Joe Exotic for his attention seeking, self-aggrandizing spectacle addiction. But in one sense, in the age of Facebook and Instagram, we all are trying to create our own Spectacle. That is why have to be careful. When I write, if I place my identity in the spectacle and the approval I get from people, then I would be committing the same blunder as Joe Exotic, believing in my own spectacle. If I were to believe that my self worth is dependent upon how many likes or comments or subscribers I get then I would be committing the same blunder as Joe Exotic, although at a smaller level.
So here is the question... How can we not give into the Joe Exotic temptation of the spectacle and instead live the way of saying, "love to be unknown?"
From a Christian perspective, there are 2 ways to do it.
1.Perform for the audience of one. Whatever you do, it for the glory of God as Paul says in 1 Cor 10:37. God is the only audience that matters.
2.Remember that you are the beloved of God. When you are the beloved of God it does not matter what others think about you or say about you. God loves you that is all that matters.
If we are craving attention, seeking self-aggrandizement, becoming addicted to our spectacles the way Joe Exotic is, then we will self-destruct like Joe Exotic. We will be crushed under the weight of our own spectacle. The way to freedom is to away from the addiction to the self-aggrandizing spectacle is to, one, always perform for the audience of one no matter what. Two, remember that we are the beloved of God no matter what others may think about us or say about us. This is the good news, that we are the beloved of God, in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.