Normally I try to come up with a unique viewpoint to discuss in my blog posts. Today, I'm just too upset about the film 2 Million Minutes. Right now I would much rather rant than think. Sadly, I'm not a very good ranter so I guess I'll have to include some thoughts in this post anyways. I can still, however, guarantee that none of my thoughts on 2 Million Minutes will praise the film.
After reading Freakonomics, I feel like I understand how to gather good data. The director of 2 Million Minutes probably never read Freakonomics or any other book that involved any speech about surveys and sample sizes. Did he seriously think that two kids from each of India, China, and the USA could come close to representing the masses? Of course he didn't, but he probably realized that the smaller number of examples he gave the easier it would be for him to fit these samples into the stereotypes he was trying to display. The director abused his power and presented a slanted viewpoint of all three countries pictured.
Now, I haven't spent any time in India and China so I really can't challenge what the director presented about those countries, but I've spent over 8.5 million minutes in the US. I've spent a lot of that time doing homework. It has been very hard. When some guy made a movie about the fact that it isn't hard, I got upset. I got upset because he is wrong. I see kids in school working hard all the time. Even kids that everyone judges to be lazy and worthless often realize they still have to dedicate time to school. While it may be easy to depict America as a lazy, defunct society, that is not what America is. There is still hard work being done.
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