My Reaction To Wag the Dog

Wag the Dog
The movie Wag the Dog was a story about the way in which a producer created a fictitious war with Albania in order to cover up a presidential sex scandal. The movie had a quote that stood out the most which stated to “never change your horse during midstream”. That basically meant to stick it out, in relevance to the movie it meant to re-elect the president. The movie made sure that it surrounded its theme (Wag the Dog) to show that we as people are easily manipulated by the media. In the beginning of the movie it was stated that a tail cannot wag a dog because the dog is smarter than the tail, but the movie proves that we are not in fact smarter than we think and that we have been outsmarted by our own tail. The biggest element that was conveyed by this movie was social proof; this took place when every one was throwing their shoe on either the gymnasium floor or in the tree. Everyone in the movie enjoyed having the idea of having a war hero even though no one knew who he actually was. What made this movie so significant is the fact that no one really questioned the war with Albania and everyone just went along with it and called it patriotism. The movie demonstrated that media and the people as a whole are in fact so easy to manipulate. The movie also showed that “liking” is an important factor when creating a story, because though everything looked like it was taking a bad turn they were able to flip it around and use it to there favor and just said it was “Producing”. i.e., when the convict was shot dead they were able to use it as a bonus, because they were able to bring back a solider that died while at war. In a way I felt that the movie was discussing the presidency of bill Clinton when they brought up the issue of a sex scandal. It also makes one think that the real reason we are at war with Iraq, could be to cover up a scandal, or could it have been just to win reelection.