I am writing today to make you aware of a very serious issue that needs to be addressed in a most prudent fashion. At my own personal and financial risk I have decided to take the lead on this issue because I think, ultimately the world will be a better place if we can eliminate the rampant discrimination, elitism and stereotyping that currently exists in our society.
Let me begin by introducing you to my World-Famous Goats. This is Naughty and Heath.
The World Famous Goats, Naughty (L) and Heath (R). Naughty does actually have legs, he is just lying down next to a tree.
Now, most of you who are reading, being educated and worldly types, are probably aware that goats have historically held an extremely distinguished and respected stature, beginning with the ancient Greeks and the half goat/half man Greek God Pan.
The Greek God Pan. Not sure who the guy is next to him, but clearly they have hit it off as they both have their pants off.
As you can see in this statue Pan was a beautiful, mythological creature with stunning goat features such as a bearded face and horns, furry goats legs and a great penis, which is important when it comes to earning respect and reverence throughout the ages. For thousands of years since, goats and their ilk, such as the storied Greek Satyrs have lived and been represented with the esteem and honor deserved of such mythic and fabled creatures.
Totally Ripped Satyr Goat/Man with hairy chest and dual horns.
Totally HOT Satyr Goat/Woman. If my goats looked like this I might never leave the barn.
Now because my goats were adopted they didn’t come with any paperwork but I am entirely confident in the assumption that somewhere down the line they have some royal and mythological lineage. I’m here to make sure that they live in a world that respects that lineage.
My issue is this:
It has come to my attention that in the last forty to fifty years there has been a disturbing and sickening movement, whereas goats are being unfairly portrayed as some kind of banjo playing, ass-backwards, hayseed, hillbilly creatures. This is a travesty that needs to be brought to light before any more damage is done. After thoroughly studying this subject, I have discovered that this trend apparently was started by an iconic American cereal company, the Kellogg’s Corporation, with the release of a brand of cereal in the 1960s.
Would you feed this disgusting, atrocious, banjo-spewing filth to your kids?
This cereal, called Kellogg’s Stars, was represented by a mascot that was a hillbilly goat, wearing suspenders and some kind of vile, hobo style hat on his head. Yes, you are reading that correctly! Apparently, the marketing department at Kellogg’s believed it a good idea to utterly disrespect the Greek God Pan, with his great penis, by putting a hillbilly goat on a cereal box! Disgusting! Now I’m a big fan of Kellogg’s and I’d eat Frosted Flakes or Froot Loops all day long if I could, but I find this elitism and stereotypical portrayal reprehensible.
Since the release of this cereal, this tendency to stereotype goats as hillbillies has reached crisis levels. Please review the following examples:
Harmless Goat in Flannel Wife-Beater with Billy-Bob Teeth
1. This is an image of an innocent, harmless goat, wearing not only a flannel, wife-beater shirt, but a pair of Chinese-import, imitation Billy-Bob teeth in his mouth. Seriously… someone thought this was funny? I find it repugnant! Now this is surely a staged photograph but it is still horribly distressing to me that anyone would portray such a mythical creature in such an obscene way.
Hillbilly Goat Costume
2. This is a disgusting, reprehensible Halloween costume that you can buy if you want to continue to violate and disrespect honorable goats around the world and dress as a hillbilly goat for trick-or-treating. Seriously… someone thought this was a good idea? Well I find it offensive and shameful and I would suggest that a trick-or-treater would receive significantly more candy on Halloween dressed as the Greek God Pan with his great penis.
3. All of this was recently culminated in the film Hoodwinked, which has a singing, banjo-playing goat character named Japeth in it that sings “The Goat Song”. You can view snippets of this video on the internet, but there are all kinds of copyright violations involved and because this is a serious issue where my reputation is involved, I don’t want to risk damaging the progress and successes we have begun to reap.
Okay… so admittedly its pretty funny, but I still don’t think it’s right.
Japeth, the goat from Hoodwinked.
There are, of course, thousands of other examples, but as you can see, this unrestrained, wretched stereotyping of goats has become widespread and problematic. As a conscious citizen and goat-owner, I feel it my civic duty to take on this challenge and to attempt to correct the wrongs that have been cast on good, wholesome, mythological goats during this last half century.
As a start I have enlisted the assistance of a highly reputable organization that has experience in these issues.
This is the contact information if you’d like to make a donation to the cause. As payment they will accept cash, credit cards, moonshine and roadkill.
C.L.E.T.U.S.
Consortium for Legitamacy and Equity Towards Ungulate Species.
http://www.cletus.org
Thanks for your support. I hope you’ll join me in this fight!
The Brown Road Chronicles 
I have to say, that first silly goat picture does crack me up (just a teensy bit) I only think of Billy Goat’s Gruff…one of my favorite kids tales and my kindergartner just brought home stick figures with the various goats.
Hey don’t forget that Tom Hanks movie Dragnet with the Pagan scene
Sandi
http://www.ahhsome.wordpress.com
Lake Forest, CA
As long as its only a teensy bit I’ll forgive you. I’ll have to get a refresher on the “gruff” story. I forget what its about.
Please be kidding. (SWIDT? 😉
Perhaps some media exposure of sophisticated urban goats might help the cause. Maybe some goats blinged up and singing ‘I Like Big Butts..’ would go some way to making people realise that there are a variety of goats living in America. We have had an influx of emigrating goats arriving in the UK due to what they have expressed in the media as prejudicial stereotyping. Sadly they aren’t doing well here as our mountainous regions, such as they are, have populations of Stags and Deer and they’re a snobby aristocratic bunch at the best of time. Someone should have told the emigrant goats that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the Atlantic.
Well, the “I Like Big Butts” idea may not solve the issue but would make a hell of a youtube video. Sorry to hear about the conflicts arising between the emigrating goats and the Deer. Perhaps C.L.E.T.U.S. could help.
Seriously disappointed that you didn’t create a link to a real lil’ sumpin’ for that C.L.E.T.U.S. Tsk. Here is just one possibillyty you might have gone with.
Awesome! What a great link!!
Brilliant, Steve. I’m raising my kids to love and respect goats, by the way. Reading this post only confirmed that I’m doing the right thing. Thank you for that.
I appreciate the sentiments Jared. Perhaps someday you can adopt one of those Satyr/Goat woman.
I, sir, agree with you most vehemently!
That’s what we need… vehemence!
Steve- I dislike my goats immensely. They are quite a menace. I think I would prefer a cow. Lol. X
Really?!? Although they can get into stuff, mine are actually quite gentle. I don’t know much about cows… okay actually I don’t know anything about cows. Good luck if you get one!
I loved reading this, Steve. My re-orientation toward goats began when we visited a little town and saw one being leash-led, like a dog. That goat had a sparkly collar and was so proud to be on display. Then, once I began sporting a goatee, we went to the county fair and the pregnant goats came up to me like I was another billy and were so affectionate and inquisitive. I don’t meet them often here, but I know we get on well. I really like gaining a greater understanding of other mammals.
Ours wouldn’t stand for being on a leash, but I can see that happening. They are definitely people persons!
I didn’t realise people were giving them a Hillbilly characterization. I’d think it’s fairer to go with the version of Satan. Of all the animals we raised, goats were my least favorite. They’re all aholes, stinky & destructive. Everybody knows there’s already a proper four legged mammal: The bluetick hound.
Satan huh? Yeah, I guess I’ve seen that characterization too. That will be my next mission!
Ungulate? I must’ve been absent when that word showed up on the vocabulary list for the week.
Those would be “hooved” creatures which you have probably already figured out. But if you’d like to read up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ungulate
I ran over a squirrel yesterday, I’m sure it’s still on the highway. I’d be glad to go scrape it up and send it your way now that I see it could go a long way in helping to eliminate this most heinous discrimination. As a Ram since my day of birth under an April sky, I have long known the importance of curly horned sheep, and would like my cousin the goat to achieve his own acceptance as an important member of society.
Thanks for the offer of the squirrel, that is very generous. However you can find the contact information regarding where to send donations at http://www.cletus.org. Regarding curly horned sheep, can’t say I know anything about those, but if you say they are important, I’m going to have to believe you! Thanks for visiting!
Your usual standard Steve, sorry about the p0or goats 🙂
I wonder if i was the only fool to go to that site 😦
Harry, no one else mentioned going to the website. I guess you were the only one. Hopefully you didn’t actually get to a site!
Steve: I shall join you in this fight.
Because that Satyr was ripped.
Also because goats are really smart.
And that Satyr was ripped. 😉
Thanks for the support. He is definitely ripped! That’s what I’d look like, you know, if I had goat legs and horns.
Your picture captions sent my coffee flying…damn funny post today! Good luck with the cause, I support you in this venture. I however, am thankful I am a city girl and do not have the need to worry about goats….now if there was a diamond mine that needs support…I’m IN!
Thanks for the support! I’ll let you know if any diamond mine issues come on the radar.
It’s especially odd that Kelloggs would have used a goat, or any mammal, as a media tool; The Kellogg brothers were Vegetarians. In the late 1800’s, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, a 7th Day Adventist, ran the worlds most ‘advanced’ holistic health spa/sanitorium (in Battle Creek Michigan) frequented by the rich, famous, and even Olympic Athletes. Here they promoted exercise, water therapy, enemas and vegtarianism. Their first cereal, CornFlakes, was a major accomplishment in the cereal world, and Battle Creek became the cereal capitol of the USA. (the Biography series did a show, seen on Netflix)
Using a goat, be he a cartoon or not, was against their meat-free philosphy. This was clearly a Mad Men-era invention by advertising geniuses, who somehow found a correlation between beardy goats and corny cereal eating.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harvey_Kellogg
I did not know all of that about Kelloggs, and they are pretty close to us. Thanks for the bio!
The interesting thing here is, Steve, that the night before you posted this, I had just watched the bio pic on the Kellog brothers on Netflix!
(cue crazy-scary music here…)
The Kelloggs and goats did have one thing in common besides the beard on one: Weren’t the former followers of Fletcherism: Many chews before each swallow deemed healthy, healthy, and isn’t that the stereotype for goats? Perhaps that is why goats seem so spry 😉
Haha, Be Prepared. I love Japeth! ♫♪ I’ve got horns to hang my other horns ♫♪
I actually love it too. I made my kids play it over and over again first time we watched the movie.
The ” wretched stereotyping of goats” is becoming pandemic. hee hee!
Pandemic! Excellent word choice. How did I make it all the way through this post without thinking of the word Pandemic???
Goat meat is very popular in Nigeria, in fact in many other countries. We certainly respect goats as a good source of nutrition. You don’t see advertisers doing that sort of thing to cattle or sheep, do you?
I’ve eaten goat meat before and it doesn’t taste bad. I have not seen this with sheep and cattle… but you never know!
I LOVE goats milk and yogurt. Luckily we have a goat farm (organic) eleven miles from my doorstep and I can buy what I need every week. I think very highly of goats and appreciate you standing up for them. Come to think of it, there is a species of goats that eats Kudzu and my parents could really use one up in North Carolina where Kudzu runs rampant. Goats are useful. Thank you for posting this. Wink wink.
I’ve heard that about Kudzu, never seen it, but I understand that it is horribly invasive and tough to control. A few goats could probably keep it in line!
Oh my… best of luck to you and your cause! 🙂 I had to skip over some of those pictures — quite the lurid history and disturbing photos. I think Pan is the only one I’d heard of — you really did your research!
Goats do certainly get a bad rap, but in the public’s defense, it is hard to get past the constant pooping.
Yes, that can become a problem!
I feel your outrage (I do love goat cheese), but unfortunately I don’t think the CLETUS organization will help because IMHO the name itself resonates a certain hillbilly connotation. Might I suggest LARU (Love And Respect the Ungulates).
The title cracked me up..”Rampant Stereotyping…” Funny, funny post!! Very creative…lol
You’re right! The American cowboy is responsible for making the cow our most venerated animal. But that’s only because the goat is not stupid enough to walk all the way from Texas to Omaha.
I didn’t really know that cows were held in such high esteem.
Upvote!
What’s up with Kellogg’s Stars cereal?? That’s hilarious!
Very funny post! 🙂
Steve see her about the protest.
http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/join-our-censorship-protest/
THis was hysterical, Steve. The pictures killed me. My brother has two goats because he didn’t want to have to mow the lawn anymore. They ate the grass all right…along with all the xmas decorations.
I am very behind in my reading…this is awesome! i love your goats and will actively participate in spreading news of your cause. I shall get all of NYC involved in a Benefit to raise money! Where shall I send the millions?
Millions, huh? Ummm… I guess just send that directly to me.
Pingback: Sunday Search Term Limericks | The Brown Road Chronicles
Pingback: An Ode from Naughty to Heath | The Brown Road Chronicles
D#mmit. This was funny, too. Where is your regular Follow button? I don’t WANNA be an “email” follower. Trip-trap, trip-trap, off to the Reader…
Should be a follow button up at top border of the screen?
Duh. What I get for staying up all night to finish the stupid post, Or, possibly, for being stupid. Either way : )