Commentary: ‘Goat’ Lets Animals Be Animals

Creating stories for anthropomorphic animals can be tricky. It becomes a balancing act between making the characters relatable and human while also maintaining some of their more natural, animalistic qualities. These tales typically fall into one category or the other. In Zootopia, the animals are very human-like in nature. In fact, becoming too much of an animal was a major factor in the plot. This compares to something like The Lion King, which treats characters like animals completely. Goat manages to find a nice spot in the middle, presenting its characters as human while also letting them be animals when they so desire.

The story follows Will Harris (Caleb McLaughlin), a goat who dreams of playing in a sports league called roar ball. Unfortunately, he is considered a small animal and only big animals play in the league. But his hometown team, the Vineland Thorns, is struggling to win despite having superstar Jett Fillmore (Gabrielle Union) on their roster. After going viral with a video showing off his skills, Will is put on the team create buzz, despite Jett believing he will be a liability.

Because this is a film where animals conduct business and play sports, they obviously have a lot of human elements to them. That’s unavoidable. But there are times when their animal instincts emerge, more so than in other anthropomorphic stories. Jett is a very intense character. She takes roar ball very seriously. And as a panther, she can certainly be vicious and wild. In fact, she spends a good portion of the film on four legs rather than two. She can walk around upright, but has no problem going down on all fours and acting like an intimidating predator when it serves her needs. With so many stories turning anthropomorphic animals into nothing more than human stand-ins, it’s nice to see a film that lets animals be animals.

Goat is now in theaters.