“Wag the Dog” The Movie Essay
Wag the Dog is actually a movie that demonstrates the energy that media has within our society plus the ways that affects that. Through the movie we see how media manipulates people’s thoughts, believes plus the ways they interact.
Barry Levinson, the director from the movie, focuses on the importance of active press consumption as he shows all of us that anything we see in news nowadays could be an illusion very easily created in Hollywood production. Also, that presents Machiavelli’s idea of power and keeping that power by any means, described in his part “The Prince”. At the beginning of the movie Levinson offers an explanation from the title with the quote: “Why does the puppy wag its tail? As the dog is smarter compared to the tail.
If the tail were smarter, it would wag your canine. “The “tail” wagging the “dog” is a symbol of those who control the press, and the “dog” which lets itself be waged by its own tail represents American people. What Wag the Dog doesn’t demonstrate, but what we have to realize, is the fact real life incidents can be staged more easily than the hoaxes in the movie. The plot with the movie starts two weeks prior to reelections. The President of United States gets involved in a sex scandal, so his team gets to out to Conrad Brean, a well-known public relations professional.
Conrad will help them make a bigger account that will drive public’s attention away from the scandal. In collaboration with Winfred Ames, Conrad comes to an idea to create a false war with Albania. To be able to create the story more believable he hires Stanley Moss, a Artist producer who creates a false video footage in the war in Albania and decides to spread a rumor of any suitcase blast located in Canada. The plan challenges when Senator John Neal, who is likewise running in the elections, looks on the news and declares the fact that war is now over. At that point Stanley comes up with the most “realistic proof” of the warfare and present the nation their particular hero.
A soldier, a patriot known as “old shoe” for his mild figure, a man called- Schumann. While his introduction back in the Says is spasmodically expected by the public, Conrad and his environs face an additional setback. That they find out that their “soldier” is actually a convict guilty of raping a deshalb.
Thought the trip they must make sure he takes his drugs in order to stay come and doesn’t turn extreme. Nevertheless, following their airplane crashed and they ended up at the bar during nowhere, Schumann tries to rasurado a child of the owner. In the meantime, the bar owner, noticed the cries of his little girl, and he intervenes just to save her pointing a gun. He explodes two perilous shots, which in turn kill Schumann.
When they went back to POWER Conrad and Stanley completed up a state ceremony and announced that Schumann died as a war main character, with his coffin draped inside the flag with stars and stripes. The themes in Wag your dog can be related to the main ideas of traditional realism and postmodern/constructivist concepts (media lies, immersion). The simplest way to analyze this kind of movie is to take that from a person level.
Traditional realism says that Claims are made of persons, and these individuals have certain characteristics that provide a negative pregnancy of the point out itself. In fact realists have got a depressed view of human nature. Furthermore, Wag your dog presents ideas that Machiavelli explained in The Prince: “the end justify the mean” saying that the security of the point out justifies any kind of means important to achieve that end. The “mean” described by simply Machiavelli inside the movie is usually represented by media.
Conrad and Stanley are able to build a scenario based upon what people be prepared to see, a rustic that can perhaps have terrorists. Conrad can use the best part of the media- delivering details, and spreading a murmullo about a feasible war. In reality another main theme in the movie is a power organised by the persons. The leader, even if he is the president, requires orders and does whatever he is told to complete. At the end with the movie Conrad becomes himself the rendering of the Knight in shining armor that communicates his electric power on the persons and on Stanley too.
When Stanley tried to tell the earth that having been the manufacturer of the biggest illusion that American people have ever seen, Conrad got him murdered, showing once again that strength and physical violence are important to take care of peace. A media display is merely a simulation with the real thing or event. It presents only certain figure or facets of what basically happened.
Discussing constructivist concepts, the multimedia decides the actual show, to allow them to decide what perception they need to create in the viewer’s brain. This means that the media may essentially spin a story however they like and this concept is also known as press deception. Over the film, were constantly informed of the benefits of media, since there are many moments where individuals are glued towards the television screen or intently listening to the radio. These people are perfect sort of passive multimedia consumption since they do not participate, interact, or perhaps question this news they’re getting.
If they were more active in viewing the news, there was a fantastic chance that they would have learned that there is something suspicious about the sudden warfare with Albania. Wag your dog is a perfect case in point that should present people that it will be easy to strategy an entire region by using the concept of classical realistic look and postmodern/constructive thoughts and apply those to the real world. Public should be an energetic, thoughtful consumer of news and wag the tail, instead because we all became even more passive we have waged.
Furthermore what film has shown is that the two main characters a Washington fixer and The show biz industry producer suit like hand and glow. This should reveal that that the government product sales the news to the people in the same way that Hollywood sales their films. After viewing this motion picture everyone ought to wonder what is true and what is certainly not and engage in active media consumption, due to the fact that everyone inside the movie the story regarding the warfare that never really happened.
