Popular culture joins Microsoft bashing sjmercury.com
First Doonesbury, now the Simpsons. Who next, Seinfeld?
MICROSOFT'S slash-and-burn dominance of the software industry long ago made attacking the company a sport in many high-tech circles. But last week, Microsoft-bashing seeped into mainstream popular culture as never before, reaching millions of homes through Fox's animated hit TV series ''The Simpsons'' and the satire of the Doonesbury comic strip. Entertainment aside, could that growing exposure now start to cost Microsoft? Microsoft has already taken a beating in the business press, and the company didn't do much for its own image when it appeared to be treating government investigators with disdain.
But when a caricature of Bill Gates appears on prime-time television, portraying Gates as a bully who gets his henchmen to bust up Homer Simpson's Internet start-up, do viewers blithely laugh at the joke about Gates' bad haircut? Or does their perception of the Redmond, Wash., software giant begin to change when they watch his assistants trash Homer's home office -- Gates' interpretation of a ''buyout''?
''What the hell are you doing?'' Homer wails as the bullies break his pencils. ''I didn't get rich writing a lot of checks,'' the cartoon version of Gates says, laughing nefariously.
Rest assured, the article in general doesn't see this as a problem. One ironic note:
''Bill recognizes he is fair game, although the characterization of Microsoft and of Bill is not accurate,'' said Marianne Allison, a vice president at Waggener Edstrom, Microsoft's public relations firm, based in Portland. ''It's pretty much looked at as part of the cost of doing business, the cost of being successful, and for Bill, the cost of being well known.''
Fair game must have another one of those Microsoftese definitions. Compare and contrast:
Bill Is Such a Bully abcnews.com
Of course, the Doonesbury and Simpson guys can afford lawyers and going after them would make news. Bill's lawyers prefer to pick on little guys.
Cheers, Dan. |
