This past weekend, the number two movie at the box office was the Warner brothers film, Horrible Bosses. Reviews range from hysterically funny to infantile, but one thing is for certain: advertise Jennifer Aniston in lingerie, and you will be very rich indeed. With a budget of $35 million, the movie has already made over $28 million in one weekend.
More important than the ticket sales, this movie has brought the horrible behaviour of bosses well into the light of the public psyche. It touches on three architypes of bosses – the pschopath, the harasser, and the incompetent tool, played by Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston, and Colin Farrell, respectively. It is a great premise that attempts to put power back in the hands of the employee, and addresses, through comedy, a rarely discussed issue of abuse in the workplace.
But, this isn’t the first movie to showcase the atrocious behaviour of lemon bosses. Let’s take a look at some other horrible bosses from the movies:
Employee performance appraisal, anyone?
1. Darth Vader in Star Wars. Let’s face it, a boss that will put a death choke hold on you for screwing up just about takes the cake for bad bosses. Although, hearing James Earl Jones’ voice giving orders would be good workplace motivation.
2. Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) in The Devil Wears Prada. One stern look from Meryl Streep, and I’d be apologizing before I even knew what I’d done wrong.
3. Franklin M. Hart Jr. (Dabney Coleman) in Nine to Five. This movie could be considered the original Horrible Bosses, as Dabney Coleman plays a perfect “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot.”
4. J. Jonah Jameson (J. K. Simmons) in Spiderman. Want to be constantly yelled at by a spitting, cigar smoking, eternally angry newspaper editor? J. Jonah Jameson is your ideal boss!
5. Dr. Evil (Mike Myers) in Austin Powers. It is bad enough to have the world’s best (or worst) supervillian as your boss, but imagine having him as your dad as well? Poor little Scott Evil (played by Seth Green).
July 12th, 2011 at 9:21 pm
Thanks for all these great posts! They are giving me a lot of laughs – which are the only thing that came save me at work.
In terms of famous movie lemon bosses, I would have to put a vote in for Professor Umbridge from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix!
Keep up the great work!
July 13th, 2011 at 5:37 pm
How about Wall Street’s Gordon Gecko? He seemed pretty terrible!
July 13th, 2011 at 5:39 pm
Are you getting a cut from Horrible Bosses? There may be a lawsuit here.
July 13th, 2011 at 5:43 pm
Too true, Paul! Too true. I should call them and ask for, say, 5 million. Sound fair?