HBO documentary by the director of “Tiger King” about animal husbandry

Honestly, I can just as well imagine why there were so many monkeys this summer, and since Planet of the Apes: Kingdom in May, and spans the second season of Hulu’s Punch Monkey and in the August rush of Apple TV+’s Evil MonkeyNetflix The secret life of orangutans and now HBO’s Chimpanzee crazy.

Do we feel like we’re on the brink of post-apocalyptic decay, preparing for new ape overlords? Have lingering fears from last summer’s entertainment industry strikes led to a general sense of dehumanization among creatives? Or is this less specific and more general? Are apes just too cute for words and do we just want to caress their sweet little, almost human faces, dress them in cute outfits, take them to the supermarket in a stroller and make them into an emotional support monkey, just like in the movies? Monkey shineswhich I’ve only seen 10 minutes of, so it seems like a good idea that can’t go wrong?

With the caveat that capuchin monkeys can indeed be trained to be assistance monkeys for the physically disabled and can provide a service as such, and if the rest of that last sentence sounds credible to you on any level—I’m afraid I’m guilty as charged—you might want to watch Eric Goode’s four-hour documentary. Chimpanzee crazy with trepidation. Or rather with the willingness to learn something.

Much more than in his outbreak Tiger KingGoode succeeds in putting forward a clearly formulated thesis in Chimpanzee crazy – namely, that privately keeping chimpanzees at home is a bad thing and should be regulated at the federal level, for the benefit of both chimpanzees and their owners, who are rarely prepared for the risks involved in assuming that one can domesticate animals that are often very large, very strong, and behaviorally far removed from humans.

To Tiger KingGoode probably got distracted because he found it too tempting to follow the wild exploits of Joe Exotic, Carole Baskin and the gang to focus on a clearly conveyed message. The wildness is, of course, the reason Tiger King became a huge hit – that and the whole “global pandemic” thing that put the world into lockdown right when the series launched. That (the mammoth thing, but hopefully not the pandemic) probably won’t happen with Chimpanzee crazy. Although there are a few odd characters who are treated with the same gawking condescension that Goode in Tiger Kingit lacks enough narrative drive to carry it even through those four hours, let alone spawn a sequel or a terribly staged retelling.

So Chimpanzee crazy is both better and worse than Tiger King. I was only sporadically captivated while watching, but after the experience I only felt slightly dirty, but not completely unclean.

Downtown Chimpanzee crazy is Tonia Haddix, a pet dealer in her fifties and, when we meet her, a full-time keeper of a chimpanzee menagerie in Missouri, the Wild West of exotic animal husbandry. The facility, which includes the prolific Hallmark model chimp Connor, has a wide variety of animals. Tonia is closest to Tonka, who has been featured as a species of ape in films such as Piglet Babe in the big city, George of the Jungle And Buddy.

“Tonka and I just found each other and Tonka loved me as much as I loved Tonka. It was so inevitable. It was completely natural. It’s like the love of God,” explains Tonia.

Oh.

This is how Tonia speaks when she can’t speak because she is getting lip fillers injected. Tonia loves chimpanzees, she loves pink things and she loves cosmetic procedures. Chimpanzee crazy loves to film Tonia while she’s in the middle of one of these procedures, or eating a pink frosted doughnut, or in front of some garish background. If you’re being generous, you’d say this is an example of the show wanting to capture Tonia in her natural habitat. If you’re not being generous, you’d say it’s because the filmmakers are hellbent on making Tonia look somewhere between cheesy and grotesque at every turn. I think it’s a little of the former and a lot of the latter.

I said “filmmaker” here and not Goode, because the authorship in Chimpanzee crazy is intentionally blurred. After Tiger King came out, Goode became something of a celebrity and a bit of a persona non grata in the exotic pet world—he films his subjects in a way that makes them the target of ridicule AND the police do it, too—so to get to Tonia, Goode hired Dwayne, a so-called “proxy director,” as his go-between. Dwayne, a trained circus clown by trade, is also the most sane person on the show.

Chimpanzee crazyis a documentary whose approach is based entirely on a lie, but it is also a documentary about the ethics of documentary filmmaking, particularly when witnessing crosses the line into the duty to intervene. There are really serious discussions about when it might be incumbent on a documentary filmmaker to inform law enforcement about his subjects – some filmmakers would say absolutely “never” – and an Eric Goode/Andrew Jarecki (The Jinx) conversation on this topic would be a treat. Goode feels bad about a lot of what he does here and lets his inner torment come out on camera in a way that, like much of the show, I think would be a bit more revealing.

PETA has its eye on the Missouri Refuge and on Tonia, and things get more and more tense as the series progresses, first in court and then with more forceful action. I’m not saying Carole Baskin was a lovable antagonistic character, but she was interesting television; in contrast, PETA’s public opponents are, for reasons of Chimpanzee crazyare two haughty lawyers. Goode looks down on them and they look down on Tonia, but in that special PETA way where you don’t like them easily even when you’re convinced they’re right. Fortunately, it’s easy to like them. traitor Presenter Alan Cumming, who was with Tonka in Buddy and he feels that a real bond has developed between them. That’s why he appears in the documentary as a PETA ally, even if his flowery affection sounds a lot like Tonia.

Unlike in Tiger Kingwhere there was barely a hint of empathy, Goode tries to understand Tonia a little. Her need to care for them is pathological, but sad and in some cases understandable. Tonia’s son Justin, who has come to terms with having a mother who has no hesitation in stating that her relationship with Tonka and other chimps is more important than her relationship with her own children, says of the creatures, “They’re like children who never grow up.” I mean… they’re not like that. Not at all, really. But that’s just how the chimp owners see all of their “humanzees” (not my portmanteau).

That’s a wild level of anthropomorphism, but it comes from a place that Goode can identify as human. And it’s not like either side attributes their own mortality and emotions to animals that can’t speak for themselves. One side just wants to feed chimps chicken nuggets and talk about watching them masturbate, and the other wants to let them roam in open-air enclosures.

Is what is being shown here actual empathy (for the people), is it condescending sympathy, or is it simple tourist pity? Each of the three points represents a great improvement over the lascivious derision on both sides. Tiger Kingbut there are still gradations, and the most positive thing – real compassion – is the hardest to achieve in these four hours.

The documentary tries to show where Tonia is shortsighted. Interspersed with the main plot are several recent chronicles of chimpanzee owners gone wrong, each starting somewhere else, seemingly innocuous, and all ending in – spoiler alert – bloodshed. So when Tonia says, “I’d give my life for him. And that’s exactly what I did, to be honest,” you’re aware that there’s the possibility of a more literal life donation that Tonia isn’t aware of.

The tragic subplots, where you know something terrible is going to happen but can’t necessarily predict what the terrible thing will be, are actually better presented than the main Tonia/Tonka/PETA/Alan Cumming story. They are less sensationalist, more balanced, and offer more compelling perspectives on the failings of chimpanzee keeping. You never feel the scales of a filmmaker in the same way, and you don’t need PETA’s moralizing. The point is made simple and not voyeuristic. It’s a hint of what Chimpanzee crazy could be.