Animation is often an effective way to keep a viewer’s attention while demonstrating visuals that would not be possible with conventional film. Featuring interludes with academics like Joseph Stiglitz, Poor Us: An Animated History of Poverty uses animation to take the viewer on a journey through all of human history, examining what being poor has meant in different times. The film shows how the relatively developed nations of any era have tended to take advantage of the developing ones.
Fortunately, there is also a survey of the progress that has been made: the percentage of the human population that is impoverished today is at most one-fourth of what it was in 1800. Throughout the hour-long presentation, viewers are presented with perspectives which they had likely not considered before. Poor Us: An Animated History of Poverty is a great way for people of all ages to consider just how hard some of us have it here on planet Earth—and it might just spark some ideas on how to solve these problems.
– Jake Simon
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