1. ‘Everybody’s a Little
Racist’

2. ‘So are you two, like, related?’
• Racism is defined by Collins English Dictionary as ‘the belief that races have distinctive cultural
determined by hereditary factors’ (Collins. 2005: 1335). This means that judgements made about
a person purely based on their race can be deemed racist.
• So, when Princeton assumes that Kate is related to another character because they are both
monsters, this is deemed as racist.
• The characters sing about racism in a very jolly, upbeat way. The song is sung in a major key and
is very simple. Costumes worn by the puppets are all brightly coloured, as is the case in many
children's television programmes.
• By singing ‘Everyone’s a little bit racist’ rather than, for example, ‘Princeton and Kate are a little
bit racist’ or ‘Avenue Q is a little bit racist’ the song takes an almost educational tone. The
characters do not sing of just themselves, they speak more generally in order to inform the
audience of what they are trying to portray as a common truth. An example of this is Sesame St
teaching children about the subway. It is a song that says ‘this is what happens on a subway’, and
aims to educate the viewers of this.

4. Is this defamiliarization?
• In Literature, Criticism and Theory the definition of defamiliarization is given as ‘the primary
function of literary texts – to make the familiar unfamiliar, to renew the old, or make the habitual
appear fresh or strange’ (Bennett et al. 2009: 321).
• ‘Everybody’s a Little Racist’ does indeed ‘renew the old’. Where Sesame Street characters sing
songs on more topical subjects – the subway song shown on the previous slide, for example – the
cast of Avenue Q address the serious subject of racism. This juxtaposition challenges our
expectations, we expect the puppets to sing to us about the alphabet, or learning names of shapes,
but instead they tell us how we are all casually racist, and that it is okay as long as we don’t
commit hate crimes.
• Simple words and sentences are used throughout the song, in addition to phrases such as hate
crime, ethnic joke and personal attack. An example of this would be:
‘Everyone’s a little bit racist today
So, everyone’s a little bit racist, okay
Ethnic jokes might be uncouth
But you laugh because they’re based in truth
Don’t take them as personal attacks
Everyone enjoys them, so relax’
Lines 3 and 4 are sung higher than the rest of the verse, emphasising the phrase ‘hate crime’ as it
is the two words which start this movement. ‘Personal attacks’ is also lengthened at the end of line
5. This accentuates the adult themes placed within the form of children’s entertainment.
I believe this song can be defined as an example of defamiliarization as it takes the familiar –
Sesame Street – and alters it in order to give us a different view of something - in this case,
racism.

5. Bibliography
• Image source:
http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/leisure/welcome/9614581.Q_ing_up_for_fun/
• Collins (2003) English Dictionary –Sixth edition. Glasgow. HarperCollins
Publishers.
ISBN 0-00-710982-2
• Bennett, Andrew & Royle, Nicholas (2009, 4th Edition) An Introduction to
Literature, Criticism and Theory. Great Britain. Pearson Education Ltd.
ISBN 978-1-4058-5914-1