In his new film, Goat, Director Andrew Neel looks deep into the testosterone-filled abyss that is the mind of the modern college man. What he found there was violence; terrifying and meaningless violence.
An adaptation of the Brad Land memoir of the same name, Goat details, in intimate neorealism, the experience of college fraternity hazing. Ben Schnetzer stars as Brad, who was randomly beaten the summer before his freshman year of college and plans to take the next year off. At the urging of his older brother Brett (Nick Jonas), Brad instead enrolls in the fall semester and pledges for the fraternity that Brett is in.
Written by Neel, Mike Roberts, and David Gordon Green, Goat refuses to placate its audiences. Neel’s film looks at the violence of fraternity hazing, and the young men who dole it out, and finds both to be simultaneously repelling and mesmerizing.
Goat leaves you wondering why any person would willingly subject himself to this kind of violence, and what that says about masculinity today. Luckily, I had the opportunity to ask Andrew Neel these very questions. Our conversation (lightly edited for clarity) is below.
Goat opens in select theaters on September 23.
Why did you want to make a movie about fraternity hazing?
One of my favorite books is Lord of the Flies. I’m interested in neotribalism. This film clearly is related to those interests.
Do you have any experience with Fraternities or this kind of hazing?
I knew the general cultural vibe. I went to boarding school. I played hockey and lacrosse. Those experiences are very congruent with a lot of the behavior that goes on in fraternities. I used some of that as a reference point. And I knew people in frats, went to a couple frat parties.
In boarding school, you know what it’s like to be packed into a small house with a bunch of guys. You know how that environment can feel. All that was material I used to enrich the movie.
For audience members, like myself, who have no experience with fraternities, or even sports beyond being a child, the movie looks like pure insanity. Why do you think people willing put themselves through this kind of experience?
I think, today, there’s a decreasing amount of opportunities to interact with the world in a visceral way; so we create environments in which we can do that, in which we can be tested, in which we can feel the world around us. Fraternities are just one substantiation of that need. Hopefully, we can fill that need with more healthy behavior.
But for me, as a filmmaker, [Goat] was about peering into part of the male psyche that is in all of us. It’s important to recognize that it exists in all of us, not just in frat boys. It may look like insanity to you, but it’s part of who you are. Of all people, but of men in particular. You see this kind of behavior in gangs, in sports teams, or mens club, or whatever it is. In every economic strata, in every culture around the world, and its been that way for thousands of years. We are programmable animals. We can be programmed very quickly to do horrible things to each other. The 20th Century is evidence of that.
To me, this movie shows modern masculinity at its ugliest. It’s exhibiting power over someone else for no reason at all. One of the characters even says this a few times, “none of this means anything.” Do you feel like this is a realistic portrait of masculinity?
I think its an entirely realistic portrayal of a part of the male psyche, and a part of the male experience. Not all men experience it at this intensity. But I’m looking at a particular part of the male mind that I think is present in all of us. And it’s responsible for a lot more than we may be aware of.
I have never seen Nick Jonas in a film, but he’s very good in this one. How did he end up on the project?
His agent was very passionate about getting him to read for it. I didn’t know anything about him as an actor at all. I watched him on Kingdom, which I liked. So we had him in to read, and he did a great job and we cast him. Obviously, he’s a very famous guy, and that’s a benefit for the movie and for all of us. Which is a great added bonus. But in the end you have to cast according to who you think will embody the role best.
There is a sense in which what happens in GOAT is nihilistic or purely self-indulgent. There’s a small window of life in which this is the most important thing. Lives will move on after college, but it’s still so difficult and so brutal. I’m curious what you think it says about the men who submit themselves to these rituals.
I think we’re all capable of this behavior. All of us men. I do. When you’re dealing with young men who are throbbing with testosterone, and other chemicals, that are making them aggressive and even violent, it’s all about how those inclinations are channeled. I think in the story of this fraternity-not all of them but in this one-you see it being channeled in the most unhealthy way possible.
You went with a neorealistic style that made the hazing scenes very visceral. Why did you want to shoot in that style, and what was that experience like on set? What was it like having young men in cages, for example?
I employed neorealism because I wanted people to experience this violence at close range. I wanted people’s experience of watching the movie to be very direct. So, the more quote unquote real I could make it feel, that made it better. It made shooting some of the hazing scenes traumatic for everybody, me included.
Basically most of the guys that were acting out these roles were theater nerds. They had never been in frats at all, and they certainly didn’t think they were capable of this kind of behavior. But a lot of the brothers, the actors, told me that what was so disturbing about doing the hazing sequences was that they quite quickly started living it. In some perverse way, enjoying it. If anything, that’s evidence that we are all capable of doing it. This is a bunch of gentle theater guys, becoming monsters for a moment.
One of the points that arises when you talk about movies like GOAT is, how do you portray violence like this without in some way glorifying it, or appealing to that part of our brain which wonders what it’s like to do this?
If you feel that way, that’s good, hopefully you will examine why you feel that way. Just like in a very violent movie. If someone finds themselves turned on by what they see on screen, is that a problem? I don’t know.
I was trying to describe and convey something that exists in the world that I thought was interesting and worthy of examination. By and large, the great majority of people who watch this movie are going to walk away horrified by what they’ve seen on screen. But I can’t control some individual who for one reason or another gets off on it. And if they do get off on it, that’s because it’s real.
What can you share from the other side of this movie about the world you portrayed? Do you have new opinions of fraternities, or masculinity?
Just, living through the hazing scenes, it was astounding to me how quickly the actors were able to fall into the role of these frat guys. These inclinations lie within all of us. We have to be cognizant and aware of these things in order to keep them check.
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