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Dr. Evil Unemployment, superhero capes, and one agency’s campaign to combat joblessness

At the close of Plato’s dialogue Symposium, Socrates finds himself immersed in a late-night libation-fueled discussion with the famous ancient comedic playwright Aristophanes and a number of others about the interconnection between tragedy and comedy—arguing that each are, essentially, two sides of the same coin. You can distill Socrates’ profound statement about human suffering into a simple adage, “One man’s comedy is another man’s tragedy.” One Florida labor agency recently may have crossed this line, designing a campaign initiative which effectively and unwittingly makes light of human tragedy for its own gains. What comprised this highly divisive and much derided campaign initiative against unemployment? Two things: superhero capes and Dr. Evil Unemployment.

Though well-intended, Workforce Central Florida’s recent “Cape-A-Bility Campaign,” which, according to the Orlando Sentinel comprises of the “handing out of 6,000 red superhero capes to jobless Central Floridians” and which “features a cartoon character named ‘Dr. Evil Unemployment’” may have shot far off its intended mark. Sparking an investigation (the campaign cost approximately $73,000) and met with harsh contempt, the campaign has served as a flashpoint. Some have wondered whether those funds could have been put to better use on the one side, and the agency’s administrator’s insisting that the campaign has brought much needed attention to the issue of joblessness and Workforce Central Florida’s critically important services on the other. Regardless of the rightness or wrongness of the message, Workforce Central Florida’s campaign has shed a much needed spotlight on an important villain who, despite an improving economy, continues to mercilessly weak his havoc—Dr. Evil Unemployment—and has offered a solution, by providing Central Florida’s unemployed with a cape-a-bility.

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