Tiger King: The art of the tiger in American advertising

Words By Florence Chadwick

Joe Exotic, The Tiger King, has captured the attention of thousands if not millions through the eponymous Netflix series documenting the 'Murder, Mayhem and Madness' of his life - or so the tagline boldly declares. Shaping meme culture, preying on social media and making too many conversations between friends and family start with the phrase "what the...", Tiger King has captured our imagination - but why? With a protagonist that is as wild as his fashion sense, I highly doubt the series would have been nearly as popular if he had been The Gerbil King. Or the Tabby Cat King. The tiger with its exoticism, danger and rarity is an alluring premise for the docuseries, which in one episode gave viewers the terrifying fact that there are now more tigers captive in the US than there are in the wild today. So why has the tiger seized hold of American hearts? and how far does it go?

Tigers were originally native to Asia and were first introduced into the US in the 1800s and from that point onwards, American culture has become just a little bit obsessed. Diving into the entire history of the tiger in art or even covering over 300 years of tiger-mania would be slightly too intense for a simple blog post. With the rise of the Netflix series and so many captive tigers in the US, looking at modern day American advertising has illuminated values of the tiger that Americans hold near and dear and perhaps hold the key to its popularity. Throughout its history the tiger has been imbued with the values of courage, ferocity, good fortune and protection. It has been associated with major religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, the Chinese military, Japanese ceramics and the struggle between the Mughal Empire and British Colonial rule - but which of these are pertinent to the U. S. of A?

America is a sports-loving nation, with 16.5 million people tuning in to watch the National Football League (NFL) and 170 million people watching Major League Baseball (MLB) - not necessarily counting those who attend the games in person. In the current NFL team lineup, the Cincinnati Bengals have a direct link to tigers - so named as the city once had a zoo that held a rare white Bengal tiger. As a sports team, courage and ferocity are borrowed here - and they are not alone. Three other current NFL teams have links to big cats - the Jacksonville Jaguars, Carolina Panthers and the Detroit Lions. From 1920-1944, three more teams from Cleveland, Chicago and Brooklyn all were 'Tigers', making it one of the most popular team suffixes-slash-mascots. Filtering down further, there are four prominent US university sports teams which proudly own their tiger logo - Memphis, Auburn, Clemson and LSU. In short, the tiger icon and its symbolism has sunk its claws into the American sporting world, but when and where else has the tiger come into its own?

Patriots vs Bengals, 2019, Getty Images

The domestic and lifestyle sector also took a hit, with fuel, food and even clothing not remaining unaffected. Le Tigre, an American clothing brand was established in 1977 to rival the French brand Lacoste, with their polo shirts featuring a small logo of a leaping tiger. In the food aisle, who wouldn't recognise Tony the Tiger staring through you from the nearest pack of Kellogg's Frosties? What values is the placement of a tiger on a packet of sugar-coated corn flakes broadcasting? I am not sure. Maybe something along the lines of that old adage ‘what doesn't kill you makes you stronger…’ or the parental favourite 'eat up so you will grow big and strong'. In both the instances of clothing and of cereal, the tiger has been deemed an aspirational symbol by American companies and the same is true of the 1960s Esso (now ExxonMobil) fuel campaign. The tagline for the advertisement was 'Put a tiger in your tank' and became so popular that people started hanging small faux-tiger tails off their car gas caps. It was so successful that Time magazine dubbed 1964 'The Year of the Tiger' on Madison Avenue. All in all, the tiger was yet again at the forefront of American public attention.

Esso's 1964 fuel advert

There is also tiger symbolism being employed in the American artistic industries, notably film. For example, in the British-American Ancient Roman drama Gladiator, there is a scene between Maximus and Tigris of Gaul. Within the scene five tigers are in the background in the Colosseum-esque set and Tigris' helmet is carved into a silver rendering of a tiger's head, thus aligning historical gravitas and military prowess within the figurehead of the tiger. Films such as The Jungle Book and Aladdin, in both the originals and the live actions use the tiger characters of Shere Khan and Rajah to impart a sensationalist impression. Shere Khan as a villain weaves threads of danger into his portrayal while Rajah, although comparatively kitten-ish in the tiger's second Disney depiction is utilised to address themes of exoticism and romanticism. Overall, the tiger's starring role in film has been used to provide a complete form of escapism for the audience - removing them from their reality and allowing them to travel psychologically from the safety of their sofas.

Shere Khan, The Jungle Book, 2016

From Tony to Tigger, Joe Exotic to Esso and from Jacksonville to Cincinnati, Americans have adopted the tiger as their own. By branding everything from the clothes on their backs, the fuel in their cars and their sporting heroes with the tiger icon, they endeavour to be brave, skilled, successful and intimidating. However, no matter the instance, the brands all agree that a tiger and what it stands for is aspirational which maybe is why it is so popular. Joe Exotic may have been crowned the Tiger King, but America has declared the tiger King of American Values, well and truly conquering the art of the tiger in advertising.