Tiger King’s “mayhem” and “madness” surely parallel and are entangled with the outrageousness of the toxic, topsy-turvy politics of early 21st-century American culture. Both journalistic and critical discourses about the series—including elsewhere in this Forum—have noted, for example, something Trumpian about Joe Exotic: his shamelessness, his self-deluded narcissism, his own 2016 presidential run. The production team arguably dialed up the series’ salaciousness by leaning in on this analogy. Here, however, I want to tease out a less obvious and more speculative layer of Tiger King’s appeal, which I identify as its “accidental allegory,” formed through its historical contingency with the outbreak of a global pandemic. Released on Netflix on 20 March 2020, Tiger King was the most heavily discussed and watched television program as various states in the United States and countries around the world were entering phases of lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19. It is thus instructive to consider the ways in which Tiger King coincides with the strange moment in which it, like COVID-19, went viral.

中文翻译：

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老虎王饰演偶然的寓言

老虎·金（Tiger King）的“混乱”和“疯狂”无疑是平行的，并且与21世纪初期美国文化中充满毒气，颠簸曲折的政治令人发指。有关该系列的新闻报道和批评性报道（包括该论坛的其他内容）都已经注意到，例如特朗普对乔·异国情调的某些看法：他的无耻，自欺欺人的自恋，2016年的总统竞选。可以肯定的是，制作团队依靠这个类比来调出该系列的性感。但是，在这里，我想讲一讲虎王的呼吁的一个不那么明显和投机性的层面，我将其称为“偶然的寓言”，这是由于其历史偶然性和全球大流行的爆发而形成的。老虎王（Tiger King）于2020年3月20日在Netflix上发布这是最受讨论和观看最多的电视节目，因为美国各州和世界各国正进入锁定阶段，以遏制COVID-19的传播。因此，考虑虎王与COVID-19等病毒传播的奇怪时刻相吻合的方式具有启发性。