16 Comments on "We live in imaginary times"


  1. Jane: you are confused because the graph does not clearly convey the data. For example, the lilac part labeled “Morocco” over 41-45 is equivalent to the orange part labeled “Atlantic Ocean” under 71-75: each of those parts represent one movie. But your eyes expect unequal areas of color to represent different values. The graph maker clearly has not studied Tufte, and probably lacks geometry and theology as well.


  2. Agreed. While I appreciate the data, the graph seems to be suggesting that there were 10 movies located in Middle Earth between 01 and 05. This certainly cannot be true. I believe a simple line graph might better convey the data, one line standing for each location.


  3. Well I wouldn’t go as far as calling Tufte’s art “theology”…

    But I too think a stacked bar plot would be more fitting, a line graph always implies some function between year and number of movies, but it’s not like we could say “the number of movies set in Middle Earth skyrocketed in 2003!”, just “there were three movies”


  4. It made sense to me.

    The way to read it is as a stacked bar graph, with interpolation along the x-axis colored to make trends more visible.

    Haters gonna hate.


  5. Gotta go with the haters here… this is interesting data, poorly arranged. I wouldn’t go so far as saying Tufte is a god, but he’s worth reading before trying something like this.


  6. I don’t understand what the upper half of the graph represents, except that AFI might be american film industry…

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