The Hangover — A Lesson In Analytics?
An Educational Perspective On A Comedy Of Errors
Is this article really going to use the plot of 2009’s hit movie - The Hangover to teach a lesson in analytics? How does the Hangover have anything to do with analytics anyway?
There is actually quite a bit of analytics in the plot of The Hangover. Which, incidentally was very similar to Dude, Where’s My Car. A couple of guys lose track of something important during a night they can no longer remember. They must now piece it all back together by retracing their steps. Yep, seen that before. Seems, I am not the only one to notice.
Of course, I enjoyed the older movie. I know that is not a popular statement. I can also see the analytic aspects of almost any plot… even though, in this case, not all lessons come from positive roles models.
I won’t spend much time here, but early on we get a taste of some poorly thought out causality. It is a great quote…
Stu: Why do you think we can’t remember anything from last night?
Phil: Because obviously we had a great f*@ing time!
…and a great lesson in how not to attribute causal effects. But let’s get back to time series.
Alan, Stu, and Phil have lost Doug. He is the bachelor at whose wild Vegas party everything has gone wrong. So they do what any group of friends would do… call the police. Wait, no. That would have been too obvious a choice I guess.
Lesson #1 — At the point where you have lost a friend, inherited an unknown baby, and a tiger…
Don’t call the police — engage in applying a problem solving heuristic. It is sure to work! To put this at Alan’s level “work backward”. Yes, that is actually a named problem solving heuristic AND it works, assuming you are not “too stupid to insult”.
Lesson #2 — Seek out professional help…
Always good to grab your nearest doctor or PhD… wait, never mind. This lesson has nothing to do with that.
The guys start working backward through their evening based on data and clues they collect from around their room and items in their pockets. Eventually they arrive at the local emergency room where they learn the cause of their amnesia and confirm that at the time Doug was with them. Their next step is… well wrong.
Rather than ask where they were headed next. They become focused on where they were prior. Eventually this explains the mysterious baby, but these guys got way off the analytic rails. It is a comedy after all, so we should expect it.
The clearer analytic path was to push forward. This might have led them to Tyson or the roof top sooner. For that matter, why did Alan wait to search the car only after they got back to LA? Wasn’t that an obvious thing to do? Also this next photo was on the phone in the car they had already abandoned… movie… moving on.
Lesson #3 — Baby, Tiger, Cop Car…
Stop ignoring the obvious! I know Doug was missing. I know Stu was missing a tooth. Alan was missing a bag. And Phil had a hospital bracelet. None of those things is really that unusual… especially not in Vegas. For that matter, neither is blacking out… sadly.
On the other hand, a tiger, a cop car, and a baby are three remarkably unusual and significant things. And just like in analytics, focusing on the most novel or unusual elements is far more likely to get you to an answer sooner. Sure they could be outliers, in fact that certainly are. But, in forensic analysis, those are the most important!
The Hangover was a fantastic comedy, in every sense. It is certainly not meant to be taken too seriously. But it is an example of some analytic concepts and anything that helps people learn analytics without the use of Bayes, CHAID, normalized, or ANOVA seems like fun to me! Thanks for reading!
