People Are Taught to be Different: Channelizing Aggression (1958)

An unusual dance film created through an unlikely collaboration

During Aurora Picture Show’s February 2024 Member Moviola gathering, guest Emily Vinson (Preservation Coordinator, University of Houston Libraries) presented a few film gems that were shot here in Houston between the 1950s and 70s. One of the local rarities shown was People Are Taught to be Different: Channelizing Aggression, an ambitious 30-minute educational film that was made (and televised) in 1958. Seen today, it is surprising in its experimental approach and fascinating in local historical contexts. This is one part of a 12-episode series envisioned by African American scholar Dr. Henry Allen Bullock (then head of Texas Southern University’s Sociology Department) and developed by TSU and University of Houston-owned KUHT-TV (in its early years as the country’s first noncommercial educational television station.) The goal of the series was to address universal crises and show how different cultural groups react differently. Shot on black and white 16mm film, the series features Dr. Bullock as narrator and an all-African American cast of TSU student dancers, illustrating through expressive modern dance movement various socio-psychological scenarios among minimal sets. Though it’s not known to what extent they were involved, legendary visual artist and educator John T. Biggers and his colleague Joseph L. Mack are credited as the film’s graphic artists, who would have been in their 30s and in the early years of creating TSU’s art department at the time. Only 3  of the 12 episodes of People Are Taught to be Different are known to have survived. You can view this unique short film here, embedded below, courtesy of the KUHT Collection, Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries. If you’re interested, check out Emily Vinson’s article here about the series and its contexts, and other films in the series here.