36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Ironically, This Is Shameless Exploitation, May 8, 2000
This review is from: The Trouble with Dilbert: How Corporate Culture Gets the Last Laugh (Paperback)
First off, I agree with a lot of the author's opinions of "Dilbert" and its creator. But this book is pretty poor. Its crimes:
1) IT CRITIQUES THE STRIP ONLY INDIRECTLY. Most of the author's arguments discuss only the strip in general or on the cartoonist's views from his non-strip books. I only recall one direct "quote" of a Dilbert strip in the whole book.
2) WEAK ARGUMENTS. One of the books central arguments, for instance, is that the strip never attacks owners, just upper management in the form of the "Pointy Haired Boss." Now, anyone who reads the strip knows that the Boss can be anything from a lowly supervisor to the CEO depending on the gag. And besides that, I can think of several strips off the top of my head that directly attacked stupid, unfair owners.
3) IT'S A THIN, THIN POLEMIC. Readers will note the author is far more interested in talking politics than Dilbert itself. In fact, I suspect that he simply centered the book around Dilbert simply to attract attention and sell more copies, meaning he's guilty of the same shameless marketing he accuses Addams of.
4) IT'S FUNNY AS A CRUTCH! A good critic of humor should at least convey the idea that he understands humor. But this guy is as dry as plain toast. You walk away wondering if he even has a concept of humor.
Now for the good points: 1) an okay intro by cartoonist Tom Tomorrow, who IS funny; 2) a guest chapter by a humorist who isn't funny here, but who does seem to understand the strip; and 3) a good concluding chapter that turns out to be all that the author really has to say about the whole thing.
I don't usually go into this much detail, but I read this book just to fulfill a promise, and it was one of the harder promises I kept in my life.
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32 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
I don't read Dilbert anymore - but Solomon isn't the reason, September 6, 2001
About three years ago, I bought a Dilbert-a-day desk calendar. Every day I ripped aside the previous day to reveal today's comic. It was great up until around August or so, when I realized that Dilbert was still stuck in his cubicle, and so was I, and I couldn't stand the thought of having my nose rubbed in it every day for the next four months.
I threw the calendar away.
In "The Trouble with Dilbert," Solomon professes to have "cracked the code" of Dilbert comics, revealing that Dilbert is actually intended to keep workers complacent. This hurt Scott Adams' feelings, as Norman was accusing him of acting in the best interests of everything he stood against. Who's right? Both of them.
If one considers the entire body of Dilbert comics as one very large text, then it may seem significant that the protagonist (Dilbert) does not evolve as a character. By all rights, a protagonist should be affected by their experiences, and if they steadfastly remain constant, then one must assume there's a good reason for it. The most facile conclusion one might reach is that the character hasn't changed because the character likes things just the way they are.
One might then take the extra step, add a dollop of good old-fashioned paranoia, and assume that Scott Adams intends Dilbert to serve as an example. To subliminally assert that "Things are just fine" would indeed, make Scott Adams a tool. Quite a loathsome tool, to boot, because he's clever enough to disguise this message in what seems (to the uncritical eye) to be a scathing daily condemnation of corporate politics and practices.
But here's where things fall apart: Dilbert does not evolve because he is a character IN A COMIC STRIP. I don't say this to mean "it's too trivial to analyze" - that's simply not true. I say this because a standard convention of the art form known as the comic strip is that its characters do not evolve.
If comics were expected to behave like proper literary texts, then Garfield would have been put to sleep years ago, after suffering from incontinence, arthritis, deafness, cataracts, and kidney disease (not necessarily in that order). Jeffy would be a card-carrying member of the AARP, and Andy Capp would be either incarcerated for spousal abuse or knifed to death in his sleep, take your pick.
Dilbert caught on quick and big because it says funny things about familiar situations. Cubicle-dwellers (like myself) were hooked on Dilbert after that first shock of recognition; the "Oh my god, that's EXACTLY what it's like here!"
Recognition provides comfort, and Dilbert reassures most people that they're not the only ones made miserable by corporate life. In short, Dilbert feels your pain.
Scott Adams feels your pain, too. He's put in his cubicle hours, and honed his insight and humor to a keen edge through years of personal experience. Scott Adams knows just what it's like, and he wants you to feel better. His job is to coax a laugh out of millions of people every day (and he gets paid rather well for it, to boot).
I've almost entirely switched from Dilbert comics to Scott Adams books. Adams has written several books - BOOK books, not just collections of comic strips - which serve as roadmaps to cubicle life, complete with helpful tour suggestions. I have gradually molded my work life into a perfect expression of Adams Fu (translates as "The Way of Adams"), gleaned primarily from "The Joy of Work," which is one of my favorites.
In his books, Adams essentially advocates screwing the company any way you can. A full third of "The Joy of Work" is devoted to various strategies you can use to buy yourself free time at the office. I can whole-heartedly attest to the efficacy of these strategies, as I use several of them in conjunction to buy myself roughly four hours of free time every day. At Adams' suggestion, I have studiously put this time to good use; for example, I'm currently using my free time to write this very essay.
If one considers Dilbert in the full context of Scott Adams, then no, Dilbert is not a tool of the corporate elite. And yet I don't read Dilbert anymore. I just can't; even the occasionally half-glimpsed Dilbert comic makes me want to curl up on the bathroom floor and cry.
If I could take over Scott Adams' brain (and drawing hand), I would create a story arc wherein Dilbert escapes corporate life once and for all. He strikes out on his own and carves a new niche for himself. Several years pass, and one day he returns to his old office to taunt Pointy-Haired Boss. Maybe Dilbert (no longer shackled by notions of corporate propriety or threats of political retaliation) drops his pants and moons the PHB in front of the entire staff. Maybe he sets fire to the building (a la Stephen Root in "Office Space"). I haven't exactly worked that part out yet.
I suspect that part of the reason Scott Adams was blindsided by the Solomon's accusation is that the scenario I just spun out is, essentially, the story of Scott Adams' real life. Adams started drawing from his cubicle, and ten years later - presto! - he's king of his own empire. Safely insulated within the happy life he's built for himself, Adams can well afford to look back at cubicle life and laugh.
Me, not so much.
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42 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Borin' Norman, March 12, 2000
This review is from: The Trouble with Dilbert: How Corporate Culture Gets the Last Laugh (Paperback)
In "The Trouble with Dilbert," Norman Solomon seeks to expose the supposedly distressing truths behind the popular comic strip character, Dilbert. In this review, I'd like to expose some distressing truths about Solomon's "book." First off, it's hardly a "book" anyway; at barely 100 pages, if one were to remove all the various cartoons, lengthy quotations from assorted media pundits (including an entire chapter by another writer!), and Solomon's constant repeating of the same few points over and over, all that would be left would barely constitute a short magazine article. Working through the repetitive and pretentiously written text, it becomes clear that Solomon holds the Dilbert comic strip (and especially its creator, Scott Adams) in contempt, mainly because the strip doesn't go as far as Solomon would like it to in trashing C.E.O's and traditional corporate structure. Solomon considers Adams a traitor for giving frustrated workers a mere outlet for their anger rather than producing a "call to arms" for them to unite and overthrow the system as it exists. Ironically, Solomon never offers any concrete ideas on just how this should be done at any point in his book either; what comes across most powerfully is bitterness and jealousy that Adams has achieved the widespread acclaim and popularity that has eluded Solomon so far. Solomon's posturing and holier-than-thou attitude wear thin, and his claims that Adams is some sort of "double agent" for C.E.O's border on self-parody. Scott Adams is happy making money off Dilbert and freely admits it; he's not trying to change the world. This is unacceptable to Solomon, and one can only wonder which other comic strips he'll go after next ("Garfield Revealed"?). Additionally, I noticed no mention anywhere in "The Trouble With Dilbert" of Solomon intending to donate his profits (shudder!) from this book to help any downtrodden, downsized workers he claims to be so deeply concerned about. Of course, Norman Solomon has the right to say whatever he wants. And maybe if he came up with something more intelligent to say, and did so in a more entertaining manner, he'd achieve some of the fame and influence that he begrudges Scott Adams for having already earned.
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