Tiger King star Carole Baskin’s crusade for the rights of big cats isn’t limited to her neck of the woods.
Like everyone else, she’s talking about Cardi B’s WAP video … and argues that it could be harmful.
Speaking to EW, Tiger King star Carole Baskin is weighing in on the music video everyone is talking about — WAP.
“My guess is that most people won’t even see the photoshopped cats in the scenes,” Carole speculates.
She notes that most people likely miss the big cats featured “because the rest of it is so sexually explicit.”
“I was happy to see that it does appear to all be photoshopped,” she observes.
Carole explains her relief: “It didn’t look like the cats were really in the rooms with the singers.”
Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion walked through a mansion that was mostly virtual, but Carole notes that there were real big cats somewhere.
“That being said,” Carole expresses, “you have to pose a wildcat in front of a green screen to get that image.”
“And,” she points out, “that doesn’t happen in the wild.”
We’re no wildlife biologists but that sounds accurate and obvious.
“It can’t happen in sanctuaries like ours,” Carole notes with pride.
She notes that hers is a sanctuary “where cats have plenty of room to avoid a green screen.”
Carole adds: “(or would shred it if offered access and could die from ingesting it).”
“That tells me they probably dealt with one of the big cat pimps,” Carole laments.
She suggests that the images were sourced from “probably even one of the ones shown in Tiger King, Murder, Mayhem and Madness.”
Carole notes that these are men “who make a living from beating, shocking and starving cats to make them stand on cue in front of a green screen in a studio.”
“That’s never good for the cat,” Carole vastly understates.
Regardless of the big cats’ origins, Carole worries that the video “glamorizes the idea of rich people having tigers as pets.”
“That makes every follower of these artists, who doesn’t know better, want to imitate by doing the same,” she fears.
Carole explains that big cats, including tigers, far too often get passed on, even inexpensively.
“After tigers are too old for pay to play sessions by people like Joe Exotic, Bhagavan [Doc] Antle, Marc McCarthy, Mario Tabraue and others,” she explains.
Carole says that in the eyes of these awful men, “they become a liability instead of an asset.”
“While I think most are destroyed behind closed gates at that point,” Carole laments.
She notes that “some end up being given away to people who want to have a tiger to show off.”
“That never works out,” Carole understates.
“And the cats either die or end up dumped in sanctuaries,” Carole expresses sadly, “or worse yet, breeding mills.”
She adds: “There have been some accounts of tigers just being turned loose on communities when they no longer served as ego props,”
“No matter how you cut it,” Carole says in conclusion, “it’s always abusive to the cat and dangerous to the public.”
Big cats were not the only part of the WAP video that drew concern and even condemnation from people who were otherwise fans.
We’re not talking about whiny little incels who think that women should only express their sexuality when they have permission.
Instead, a number of viewers were annoyed or even driven to anger by the sight of Kylie Jenner’s brief cameo in the music video.
People called out the hype that Kylie received, particularly in contrast to Normani.
Normani danced up a storm in Cardi B’s video while Kylie walked down a hall and opened a door.
Many critics argued that this was symbolic of how hard Black women must work in relation to a white woman like Kylie.
Cardi understood the complaints, but tried to explain to critics that this was not “about race.”
“Why did I put Kylie on my music video?” Cardi tweeted. “She treated my sister and daughter so lovely at her kid bday party.”
There are a lot of fair gripes to be made in the world about the exploitation of Black talent by white money. This may not be the best example.
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