♪ (ragtime music) ♪
- (narrator) It's easy to put people in boxes.
♪ (somber music) ♪
There's us. And there's them.
- What's this?
- (narrator) The high earners and those just getting by.
Those we trust... - I think I've seen this.
- ...and those we try to avoid.
- Oh, I wonder if this is kind of a political ad.
- (narrator) The people from the countryside
and those who'd never seen a cow.
- Oh, this is interesting.
- (narrator) The religious and the self-confident.
- Yes.
- (narrator) There are those we share something with
and those we don't share anything with.
- That's our society.
- (host) Welcome.
(host speaking Danish)
- Danish, I think.
(host speaking Danish)
- It seems like this is going to be something
relating to today's issues.
(host speaking Danish)
- Me. I was a class clown before.
♪ (touching music) ♪
- Oh, that's kind of clever.
- I guess it's sort of showing people that they're all connected.
- All different nationalities, religion.
(host speaking Danish)
- I was a stepparent too.
- Interesting. Interesting divisions.
- Wow! That guy's built.
- (narrator) And then, suddenly, there's us.
- It looks like a study.
Um, this is very timely because of what's going on right now.
- (narrator) We have seen UFOs,
and all of us who love to dance.
- That's my peeps! (laughing)
- (narrator) We who have been bullied.
- You know, that's a real problem today.
Even on social media, there's a lot of bullying going on.
- (narrator) And we who've bullied others.
- I never bullied anybody.
- Why can't we all get along?
- (narrator) And then there's us,
the lucky ones who have sex this past week.
- (laughing)
- (narrator) The lucky ones who have sex this past week.
- (cracking up)
- I'm not in that category.
- (narrator) We who are broken-hearted.
We who are madly in love.
- That's cute.
- (narrator) We who feel lonely.
- Yeah, I'm with that group.
- Hmmm.
This is all about emotion.
- (narrator) We who are bisexual.
- It's all about the human soul.
- (narrator) And we who acknowledge the courage of others.
- I'm already feeling the love from this.
- (narrator) We who have found the meaning of life,
and we who have saved lives.
- I'm still trying to figure out if this is a commercial or what it is.
- (narrator) ...just love Denmark.
- Denmark, I was right.
- I guess regardless...
- (narrator) There's more that brings us together.
- ...we're still the same.
- (narrator) There's more that brings us together than we think.
- That would be really nice. - (narrator) TV 2 Denmark.
- It doesn't seem to be getting much better day by day, does it?
- That was really nice. Really nice.
It shows a really-- by the time you figure out everything you are,
you really belong to the whole group.
- Very politically correct, but very moving.
A message to reach out.
Yeah, we're all different.
Some people really bang heads hard against it.
Um, and some people are more accepting.
- Showing that a lot of people have a lot of stuff in common,
which we could use a lot more of today
when our government is trying to be divisive and, you know,
put people in boxes and not want to, you know,
deal with people who disagree with them.
- We all have the same color blood, right?
One race. One people.
We're all brothers and sisters.
(movie reel clicking)
- (FBE) So this video comes from the Danish broadcaster TV 2,
and since it's release, it's gone viral,
amassing millions and millions of views on Facebook and YouTube alone.
- I could see why.
- It really deserves to be seen widely.
- (FBE) So what do you think it is about the video
that people seem to be responding to?
- Because everyone is feeling impacted by what's going on.
- Because of all the hate and hateful rhetoric.
People needed to see something like this to make them take a breath,
take a step back, and think.
- How society or country, it needs something like that to lift us up.
We need to come together as one, you know, united.
- It's a brilliant video, and if it's gone viral here,
then that would certainly make a statement as to how we really feel.
Look at all of us embracing that video.
It's saying what we want to say.
- It makes us all think a little bit
and realize that, as different as we think we are,
we suffer the same ups and downs, tragedies, happiness, and feelings.
- (FBE) Well, the video's message appears to be that beneath the surface,
we are all human and have more in common with each other
than our outward appearances might suggest.
Let's jump right in-- and know that there is no judgement here today.
Are there any prejudices that you might have now
or used to have in the past?
- Oh, actually, I've never been judgemental in my life.
Even my kids tell me, "Ma, you're so good.
You think people are all good."
Because that's how I was brought up.
- I've always been a pacifist.
I've always tried to listen.
- The prejudices I have today against very religious people
who try and interfere with the rights of those
who don't think the same.
Are you trying to establish prejudice against people
and ban people from the country because of their religion?
Is that really what your God would want you to do?
- I can't see making different bathrooms for different people.
I don't believe that's correct at all.
And I don't know what the answer is either
because every person's got their own identity.
- I might have been prejudiced regarding gay and lesbian
because I did not understand it.
But I realize when you get more understanding,
then those prejudices disappear
and that's the way I feel today.
I feel that I have more understanding about that.
- The Germans in World War II and the Japanese in World War II
killed a lot of people.
Believe me, the mistakes we made by putting Japanese in internment camps,
I realize-- but there was, for years, that prejudice.
I've had to fight against it for years
because I was nine years old when that happened.
- When I was going to elementary school,
I had never seen a Black person before, you know.
And then there was the busing,
and then suddenly they start busing all these folks
from the South LA area and I had been told--
and that was the key, I was told they're dangerous.
So you're automatically responding without knowing a person.
As I got older, I was being prejudiced as well too.
In the '70s, uh, as I go into a restaurant in Hollywood,
they would not put my name down.
They didn't allow to seat me until everybody else behind me
is all seated.
It's different when you're on the other side
of the, you know, spectrum, you know, and you start realizing,
hey, wait a minute... I was that person who they treated me that way, you know,
and why am I treating other folks that way?
So you start to learn and understand, you know,
you should not be that way.
- (FBE) So as an elder, you've lived through a lot of recent history,
but have you ever seen the United States as divided
as it seems today? - Uh, well, not in my life.
- It was divided when I got here, in the '70s.
I would say it was more because the opportunities weren't there.
The red lighting was happening, where I couldn't rent where I wanted to.
You know, things have gotten, to me, better.
- We've had very big problems, of course, in the '70s,
the '60s and '70s.
The racial issue was huge.
Also, there's the Vietnam War.
There was such disruption about that.
Today, I don't get the feeling of violence.
It's a feeling of ugliness.
- Today's terrible.
I'm scared. Honestly, I am.
- No, I haven't. (laughing)
You've got people who just hate Republicans,
and people who just can't stand Democrats.
We can't seem to debate these things
without our feelings coming out, without becoming emotional.
- It's past disagreeing with each other.
It's off the Richter scale.
This group is being told one thing, this group is being told another thing,
and as the days go by, it gets tougher and tougher
to figure out what's real.
- (FBE) So some people feel that although it's been there all along,
prejudices are becoming a lot more visible as of late.
- That's right.
- I would think so, yeah.
- (FBE) There are those that say that your generation
has some of that intolerance.
Have you seen you or your peers not change with the times
or have you seen people change their beliefs over time?
- I think it's tougher.
I don't think they change at all.
If they were the hippie, you know, in the 60,
they still the hippie, you know, in their mind, you know,
if they are the conservative, you know, in the 60,
they still conservative today.
- Once you've been-- after six plus decades,
that's sort of the category I fall into,
you quit trying; you're not going to change their minds.
- Some elders are like that, yeah, but many, many, many, many are not.
All the elders I know, and we know a lot of elders,
and they are all very, very tolerant, fine people.
- I grew up in the '60s and, you know, segregation
was a big thing and that had to change.
And I... (sighing) I grew up in an all white town for Pete's sake.
I didn't know many people of color.
Now, it doesn't make much of a difference.
I like to shake the hands of any color but green, I guess.
(laughing)
- (FBE) So finally, in your opinion, with all that is going on
in the world today, if people don't think of people
more like this video was showing, what do you think will happen in the future,
even after your time?
- I... I can't even really fathom which way it might go.
- The environment will cause people to change
their ideas on that when storms increase.
- It will be constant wars in different parts of the world
and some civil wars.
It's scary. It's scary for you guys.
- We'll explode.
We can't, as a people, throughout the world,
tolerate this amount of intolerance.
- Unfortunately, history repeats itself.
I'm seeing where certain people are stoking that fear
of them against us.
Hopefully, people are going to wake up and start, you know,
watching videos like that, talking to each other,
figuring it out.
- I just hope that everybody gets together well
and not kill people, you know?
We're human beings. We should love each other
and be as one.
♪ (ragtime music) ♪