Albert J. Dunlap - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

A documentary film was made about Dunlap in 1998 called Cutting to the Core—Albert J. Dunlap .

In 2001, he was caricatured in Titans of Finance (Alternative Comics, 2001, ISBN 1-891867-05-9) by R. Walker and Josh Neufeld. The comic book is a collaboration between a cartoonist and a finance columnist, which casts Wall Street executives and traders as heroes and villains. The lead story features Ronald O. Perelman, and Mike Vranos and Victor Niederhoffer are among those included.

In 2005, the business magazine Fast Company included Dunlap in the article 'Is Your Boss a Psychopath', noting he "might score impressively on the Corporate Psychopathy checklist." The magazine's editor. John A. Byrne, noted: "In all my years of reporting, I had never come across an executive as manipulative, ruthless, and destructive as Al Dunlap. Until the Securities and Exchange Commission barred him from ever serving as an officer of a public corporation, Dunlap sucked the very life and soul out of companies and people. He stole dignity, purpose, and sense out of organizations and replaced those ideals with fear and intimidation."

In the book The Psychopath Test, the author, Jon Ronson, recounted an interview he did with Dunlap where he asked Dunlap whether he fit the characteristics of a psychopath. According to Ronson, Dunlap freely admitted to possessing many of the traits of a psychopath, but that he considered them positive traits such as leadership and decisiveness. In a review of the book, Business Week reported that Dunlap "scores pretty high on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist."

In a 1997 episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, the featured film Time Chasers depicts a villainous boss shooting his employee with an uzi after quipping "you're fired." The show's characters retort "he's still a better boss than the Sunbeam guy."

On November 29th 2012, the episode "Frank's Back in Business" of the series It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (season 8, episode 7) aired. Frank (Danny Devito), was called back by the board of directors of his old company to take upon the role of the "Warthog" CEO, who would ruthlessly downsize the company and fire individuals. Devito wore a a shirt with a white french cuff and collar, identical to the common outfit of Al Dunlap. Devito also had the nickname "Warthog", very similar to Al Dunlap's "Chainsaw" or "Rambo" nicknames.