History Main / JustLikeUs

** One of the [[AnAesop Aesops]] of the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "Balance of Terror" is that the Romulans aren't all that different from the Federation. This Aesop was, of course, ignored later.
** Also touched open and ultimately ignored in the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode, "The Chase" when it was discovered humans, Cardassians, Klingons, and Romulans all have a common ancestry. Picard and a Romulan captain [[NotSoDifferentRemark remark on how they're similar after all]], but nothing comes of it.
* During the first half of ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'''s third season, the point of view was frequently with the Cylons just as often as with the Colonials. As such, many ended up becoming sympathetic characters.
* ''Series/{{Fringe}}''. While the alternate universe was initially portrayed as an unspecified threat, the end of the second season gave us the (rather understandable) reasons why and showed that "our" side wasn't so good after all. And finally, according to producers/actors, the whole point of season 3 was to make the alternate characters sympathetic to us.

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[[folder: Films -- Animated ]]

-->'''Kiara:''' A wise king once told me, we are one. I didn't understand him then. Now I do.
-->'''Simba:''' But they...
-->'''Kiara:''' Them? Us. Look at them, they ''are'' us. What differences do you see?

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[[folder: Western Animation ]]

[[folder: Real Life ]]

** In the second movie, the gang raises a young sharptooth. True to form, they have a song about it.

Sometimes the result of an EnemyMine plot. Related to PunchClockVillain. See also DefectingForLove and SympatheticPOV.

A large-scale version of NotSoDifferent.

** Also touched open and ultimately ignored in the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode, "The Chase" when it was discovered humans, Cardassians, Klingons, and Romulans all have a common ancestry. Picard and a Romulan captain remark on how they're NotSoDifferent after all, but nothing comes of it.

* A Creator/{{Quino}} [[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B-PPwDJIAAAqSO8?format=jpg&name=900x900 strip]] has a white man happily remark that thanks to globalization that even the most different cultures worldwide are "like us", detailing the way in which that happens (raising family, enjoying music, etc). By the end, he suddenly puts a more somber expression and muses "It's easy to say they are like us...How long will it take us to say ''we'' are like ''them''?

* Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, a veteran of the first Gulf War, turned against the US government in part because of the Iraqis he killed in the war

* In ''Disney/TheLionKingIISimbasPride'':

* Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, a veteran of the first Gulf War, turned against the US government in part because he found that the Iraqis he was ordered to kill while in the Army were "just like us".

Sometimes the result of an EnemyMine plot. Related to PunchClockVillain. See also DefectingForLove and SympatheticPOV. Most likely not related to OneOfUs.

[[folder: Film ]]

* This trope makes up most of the plot of ''Film/EnemyMine''.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'':
** In the second movie, the gang raises a young sharptooth. True to form, they have a song about it.
--> "We're a family and you're one of us now!"
** Most of Land Before Time has something like this, thanks to Cera's dad's bigotry. He comes around by the end of the story, but reverts as soon as new danger shows up.

* In ''Disney/TheLionKingIISimbasPride'':
-->'''Kiara:''' A wise king once told me, we are one. I didn't understand him then. Now I do.
-->'''Simba:''' But they...
-->'''Kiara:''' Them? Us. Look at them, they ''are'' us. What differences do you see?

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime II'', the gang raises a young sharptooth. True to form, they have a song about it.

* In ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'', Aang attended a Fire Nation school, and in the process learned that the Fire Nation isn't completely evil, contrary to the impressions he was given by traveling through lands that the Fire Nation was invading.

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[[AC:RealLife]]

* One of the [[AnAesop Aesops]] of the ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}'' episode "Balance of Terror" is that the Romulans aren't all that different from the Federation. This Aesop was, of course, ignored later.
** Also touched open and ultimately ignored in the ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration TNG]]'' episode, "The Chase" when it was discovered humans, Cardassians, Klingons, and Romulans all have a common ancestry. Picard and a Romulan captain remark on how they're NotSoDifferent after all, but nothing comes of it.

** The movie [[{{Anvilicious}} hit the audience over the head with this trope]].
*** The shortstory it's based on went more in depth into the aliens' culture, but the message was generally the same.
*** Although, in the text, both the human main character and the descendents and family of his alien partner find [[spoiler: they are no longer able to live amongst their own peoples because of the others are not willing to accept them and their alien-loving ways (even after the war has ended, political and racial tensions divide the two species). They end up forming their own colony on the planet they had been marooned on, with a tradition of sending their children to live with the human man in his hermitage for several seasons at a time, in order to honor the bond he shared with their ancestor]]

* In ''ComicStrip/{{Doonesbury}}'', B.D. becomes friends with Viet Cong member Phred. This comes as quite a shock to his fellow Americans, since B.D. was violently anti-Communist and had actually volunteered to fight in Vietnam.
** Actually he volunteered to get out of having to take a test (he WAS enjoying R.O.T.C. quite a bit).

* During WorldWarI, Franco-British and German soldiers resisted a return to combat operations after fraternizing with each other during a Christmas cease-fire. Only for the event to be expressly denied in the contemporary French media. ''Much'' later it was dramatised in the rather excellent film ''Film/JoyeuxNoel''.

* Done, kind of, in the PS3 game ''VideoGame/{{Lair}}'' in which the hero ends up joining his once-enemies mostly out of necessity, only to see that they are not the monsters his old kingdom made them out as.

* In ''LandBeforeTime II'', the gang raises a young sharptooth. True to form, they have a song about it.

* In ''Disney/TheLionKing 2'':

* Done, kind of, in the PS3 game ''{{Lair}}'' in which the hero ends up joining his once-enemies mostly out of necessity, only to see that they are not the monsters his old kingdom made them out as.

* In ''{{Doonesbury}}'', B.D. becomes friends with Viet Cong member Phred. This comes as quite a shock to his fellow Americans, since B.D. was violently anti-Communist and had actually volunteered to fight in Vietnam.

* The argentinian Political Strip ''Boogie el aceitoso'' inverts this trope, when a jew soldier tells Boogie that when they were children, his best friend, a palestinian boy, swore friendship forever, so when the trenches were calm, they talked -screamed- about their lives, each one of them occult at his line. This was echoed by a lot of soldiers in both camps. However, the years passed, and the young soldiers did not have the chance to know each other, so they didn't talked to the enemy. The conclusion is that a long war dehumanizes people.

* ''MartianSuccessorNadesico'', to a great extent.

* During the first half of ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|Reimagined}}'''s third season, the point of view was frequently with the Cylons just as often as with the Colonials. As such, many ended up becoming sympathetic characters.

* ''MyLifeAsATeenageRobot'', when Jenny was trapped on the Cluster homeworld.