Teaching kids about the evils of racism in a clear, culturally-sensitive manner is a difficult task. Fortunately for us, it’s something the makers of educational shorts from decades past were woefully inept at! Are People All the Same? takes an interesting approach. In order to illustrate that people are all fundamentally the same, they go to great lengths to help you differentiate people based on race. This includes side-by-side comparisons of Japanese and Chinese children (no, really!) presumably so that kids can sort people out, and be sure to only use “pee pee in your Coke” based insults at the appropriate time.
It’s a methodology that noted sensitivity expert Mel Gibson would support, saying “It’s [expletive deleted]-filled [expletive deleted] [expletive deleted], oh hey there sweetheart.” After building its argument, the film comes to a logical conclusion: a bunch of kids gather for a scream-filled, parent-free birthday party in an abandoned hovel. Proving that, ultimately, it doesn’t matter if people are all the same, because life is a chaos-filled nightmare with no one in charge.
Are People All the Same? Mike, Kevin, and Bill sure hope not, because that would mean that we are all roughly equivalent to Kevin Federline.
