30 Days

I discovered this series, which airs on FX, on iTunes.  It's from the Morgan Spurlock (who gave us the documentary Supersize Me) and it's one of the best things I've come across. The premise is interesting - Spurlock - or someone else - spends 30 days living in someone else's shoes.  For example, the first episode we watched focused on outsourcing.  Spurlock took a computer programmer, Chris, who lost his job to outsourcing and shipped him over to India to live with a traditional Indian family who work in the telemarketing field - all outsourced from America.  Maybe you've even had a phone call from one of them. The American is at first, obviously, angered at having lost his job and his salary, especially since he has a girlfriend and three week old baby boy.  His father, though, argues that outsourcing is a good (gasp!) idea, for it strengthens American businesses, which is good for our economy and other jobs. Chris ships off to India for the juxtaposition of his life.  On the ride to his host family's home, he encounters oxen and children begging on the road even as they pass technology city, basically India's version of Manhattan.  Right next to multimillion dollar buildings of steel and glass and replete with the most current technology in the world are huts and homeless huddled together. Ultimately, Chris sees how Indians are now questing for the American Dream, Americans once did early in the 20th century.  Now we've become lazy with the status quo.  But now that the world is flat, that laziness is going to cost millions of Americans.  Well, I shouldn't necessarily say 'lazy' because there are many hard working Americans out of work right now.  By 'lazy' I mean my students - and I'm looking at a few right now, who smile and nod when I tell them to watch the video and finish their assignments - who just expect the world to open wide for them, regardless of all the baggage they will bringing with them. It just ain't going to happen for them. Today's episode chronicles Spurlock and his fiance as they try to survive on minimum wage in Ohio for a month.  This is an eye opener to many students here, who are on the fast track to living below the poverty line.  Instead of seeing the ALC as the opportunity to get back on track, too many see it as just another thing to endure. Future episodes we will watch include Spurlock taking a Cuban born legal immigrant who despises illegal immigration and who works for the Minute Man boarder project alerting authorities to those sneaking across the boarder and put him in with a family of undocumented workers living illegally in East LA.  How will that change his reality and views? The final episode we will watch involves Spurlock going to live on an Indian reservation for a month.  It will be a total change of life for him.  Given I have a few Native American students, this should make for an interesting discussion. So far the episodes keep the students pretty rivitted and involved.  Plus, we tend to have interesting discussions.  Searching wikipedia, I just found that after 3 seasons and 18 episodes, FX has cancelled it.  Good thing they keep such thought provoking shows as "Nip/Tuck" and "Testees" (I don't need to speculate as to what the latter is about).