I recently watched the limited series, Joe v. Carole, about the vendetta waged against an animal rights activist in Tampa, FL by the infamous “Tiger King” of Oklahoma. It was fascinating in the same way a car wreck is fascinating. I do not necessarily recommend the series currently available on Peacock, except as a case study in narcissism and enablers.
Let me start off by saying both parties are wounded souls and flawed people, both of whom built their businesses from the ground up. Carole Baskin, the activist, had a past marked by a traumatic childhood and two abusive marriages. The flamboyant homosexual tiger cub breeder, Joe Exotic, craved love and showed generosity to his close-knit family of zoo-keepers, albeit tempered with emotional outbursts and overt manipulation. Joe and Carole were very different people who had a lot in common, not least of which was tenacity. Carole was committed to destroying Joe’s business in order to protect the cats, and Joe was willing to destroy Carole in order to save his zoo, hiring a hit-man to kill her. Theirs was a very odd trauma-bond, indeed.
Ultimately, Joe lost everything and went to jail, while Carole tirelessly continued her never-ending advocacy for the Big Cats. It wasn’t that predictable outcome that grabbed me. It was the epilogue to the story. A three season Netflix documentary sympathetic to Joe Exotic gained him many adoring fans who flooded his prison email account with fan mail, while Carole Baskin became the target of social media attacks and unkind memes.
Really? Yes, really.
I don’t know if anyone can come up with a rational explanation for why some people lionize (forgive the pun, I couldn’t resist) bad people and bully victims of abuse, but it is a real phenomena. Celebrating the clearly more abusive party seems to happen most often when it’s a male-female conflict with the woman being the victim, but not always. Another limited TV series with similar themes of narcissism and the enabling behavior of “flying monkeys"1 is The Thing About Pam, a true crime drama starring Renée Zellweger currently airing on NBC.
The best I can come up with is the person who tells the best story wins the hearts of the public. Joe was an entertainer. His over-the-top behavior gave people a laugh and a thrill, while Carol hung her hat on her diligence. We saw insecurity in both, but we enjoyed Joe’s story, more. The same thing happened with the killer Pam Huppa who framed Russ Faria, husband of murder victim Betsy Faria.
Betsy was Pam’s “friend.” Betsy was fighting cancer and had recently changed the beneficiary of her life insurance policy from Russ to Pam. Pam claimed that was because Betsy trusted Pam to watch over her daughters more than she trusted her husband, the girls’ step-dad. The police, like the public, chose to believe the story of the bad husband and the kind-hearted friend while ignoring the evidence that didn’t fit- evidence like the husband had five witnesses and a time stamped receipt as an alibi, while Pam’s story kept changing and was not supported by phone records. But, Pam told a more engaging story that made the police and other parties want to help her which included jailing Russ who Pam characterized as a bad man.
MORAL:
Pay attention to the facts, not the story. We can feel compassion for people, but their pain does not excuse their behavior. Similarly, we don’t have to like the innocent party, but we do need to recognize that their quirks do not mean they deserve to be demonized.
Our minds are programmed to look for the story and chose a side. But we need to resist obstinate loyalty to a point of view. In order to make good choices, thoughtful people must give appropriate attention to the pieces that fit and the pieces that don’t fit regardless of our preferences. It means we should not act with confidence when there is doubt. People’s lives depend on it.
Flying monkeys are third parties who justify abuse and/or assist the abuser in the persecuting and gaslighting the targeted victim. It’s tribal abuse by proxy, and is a reference to the scene in The Wizard of Oz when the Wicked Witch sends an army of flying monkeys after Dorothy and her friends. The enabling behaviors of the flying monkeys don’t just harm the victim, it feeds the insatiable ego of the narcissist who is controlling that behavior.
Another "story" is the recent Johnny Depp / Amber Heard trial.
IMO: The two of them are both narcissists who are guilty of violence and abuse. He's the better actor, and she should have honored their divorce decree by keeping her mouth shut. Otherwise, I don't see any daylight between them.
For more information on the reality of dealing with narcissists, see "Dance with the Devil: Love in the Age of Covid" https://atmospherepress.com/books/dance-with-the-devil-love-in-the-age-of-covid-by-maggie-russo/