When I first started cartooning, my job was to make funny comics. That was it. Over time, as Dilbert grew to 2,000 newspapers and became a cultural icon, I picked up some extra duties without realizing it. Now my job includes signaling changes in the way society views things. I didn’t volunteer for that job. It’s just part of the package.
Dilbert comics have been used several times in court cases to demonstrate that some topic or other should be considered general knowledge. For example, if the Y2K problem is in a comic strip without much explanation, then the CEO has no excuse for being unprepared. Perhaps an executive could be forgiven for not reading technical journals, but by the time a topic is in the funnies, he should know about it.
My trickier responsibility involves deciding who is fair game for humor. This is a bigger deal than you might think. I decide when it’s time to move some group of people off the “protected list” and onto the firing range with the other legitimate humor targets. If I jump the gun, all hell breaks loose because it looks as if I’m kicking the weak. But if I time it right, it signals an important step in our collective enlightenment about the value of our fellow humans. And it means some group has demonstrated its value to the point where they can no longer be considered victims. You haven’t achieved equality until you’re a legitimate target for humor.
I jumped the gun with my recent series about the “mildly retarded consultant.” Boy did I hear about that. I thought I covered my bases. First, “mild retardation” is the accepted medical term, and I used it that way, as a label and not as an insult. Second, it’s my observation that almost everyone has some sort of mental problem. I’m dyslexic. You have ADD. The neighbor is clinically depressed. Your uncle washes his hands four hundred times a day. Your sister is an emotional basket case. Your best friend is a chronic masturbator. The guy in the next cubicle is on Prozac. The woman behind him is on Xanax. To her right is the guy on Paxil. He’s on the phone with the vendor who’s on Valium. And they all pray to invisible friends.
To put it another way, who the hell DOESN’T have some sort of mental problem? To me, it seemed like everyone was out of the closet on mental disorders, and that mentioning one in particular should be no big deal. But as I said, I misjudged our collective readiness on this issue. I’ll be happy when society realizes that all humans are mentally fucked up, just in different ways. I mistakenly thought we were already there.
More recently, I called one right, in my Sunday comic on 11/19/06 (see www.dilbert.com), where Dilbert is on a date with a woman whose only conversational interest is her own hair. It wasn’t long ago that I would have been ripped to shreds by the feminist wolf pack for that comic. So far, I received one complaint out of 150 million readers.
Congratulations, women. You’re off the protected list. Apparently it’s now obvious to everyone that you can be Meg Whitman or Oprah or Nancy Pelosi if you want. But if you prefer, you can bake cookies, raise kids, and care about your hair. It’s simply a matter of choice. I hereby declare it common knowledge.
Welcome to the club.