Do Not Neglect Her

‘DO NOT NEGLECT HER’

By Hongzeng Jiang, Zeyu Zeng, Lanfang Zhang, and Yuning Song

ON ‘DO NOT NEGLECT HER’

In March 2020, Netflix released the documentary Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness by Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin. It followed traditions of previous conservation-themed documentaries with a specific focus on exposing the problem of private big cat ownership in the USA.

The documentary uses exotic animals to feed into the voyeurism of the consumer audience. It also pays unproportionate attention to the drama between the animal’s private owners and wildlife conservationists, where sexist, classist, and capitalist messages are embedded. 

We highlighted significant themes entailing sexism, capitalism, and classism to visualise our interpretation of this documentary. The poster frames are unified in a black and white style, integrated with representative characters and elements in Tiger King. The upper-half section, in light, represents the seemingly positive information conveyed directly in the documentary, while the half bottom in shadow reveals embedded systemic oppressions. 

The female wild animal trainers employed by the private zoo have pretty faces and curvy figures, and are represented as possessors of exotic beauty and power that can control the dangerous felines. However, the way they are hyper-sexualised - which is encouraged by zoo owners to attract prying visitors and further amplified by the documentary production team - only implies that these women are essentially positioned at the similar status as big cats in the cages, being viewed and consumed by men.