There's a Tiger King-shaped hole in this thread, I reckon. Anyone else into it? I feel it's one of those 'believe the hype' phenomena. Every major character is one or more things out of: a psychopath, a conman, a gangster, a cult leader, a reformed meth addict or a decidedly unreformed sex addict. One of the less interesting, controversial or repugnant people whom the story involves is Mario Tabraue, the Cuban cocaine kingpin who was supposedly the real-life prototype for Tony Montana in Scarface. And everyone is a relentlessly zealous self-promoter in that way that only Americans really can be. The title character, Joe Exotic, comes across relatively sympathetically (despite being obviously an unstable fruitloop and a horrible exploiter of animals) compared to his nemesis, Carole Baskin, who styles herself a big cat 'rescuer', despite pretty clearly running a petting zoo that is fundamentally the same sort of business as Joe's, even if the conditions for the animals are perhaps somewhat better. Then there's "Doc" Antle - his doctorate is in "mystical science" - who runs his operation with the help of a whole harem of concubine-slaves, who in addition to working from dusk till dawn also have to sleep with him, and for the wage of $100 a week, plus cockcroach-infested board. (Joe pays his band of misfits the princely sum of $150 a week, but at least they don't have to shag him - he presumably gets all the action he needs from his two husbands, one of whom has a tattoos:teeth ratio that makes him look like a Russian mobster, while the other arrived to work at the zoo as a fresh-faced and notionally heterosexual 19-year-old. Carole, meanwhile, wouldn't do anything as exploitative as pay starvation wages to her staff: her operation is entirely run by volunteers!)
The whole thing is violently American and totally compelling, if you can cope with the animal cruelty - watching a minutes-old tiger cub being dragged away from its mother by some lackey with a metal pole is genuinely heartbreaking. Highly recommended nonetheless.