I personally thought this movie was somewhat hard to follow along with. At the beginning of the movie they told us that the president had been accused of being involved in making some type of sexual advances to a teenage girl just a couple days before election day. In order to distract voters attention to something other than the sex scandal, the president hired Di Nero to set up a fake war in Albania. This is where the title “Wag The Dog” comes in to place. Wag the dog is an idiom that means to purposely divert attention form something that would usually be of greater importance, to something that is less significant. The “war” going on in Albanian would have been more important and created more of an uproar with voters than a rumor about a sexual advance made by the president.
The quote form this film, “Of course there’s a war; I’m seeing it on TV!” shows how much effect media has on our society. The war was completely made up but since it is on the news and shown throughout the media then the viewers are going to think it is true. I personally would think the same thing because usually you believe what you see on the news it true but it shows how much can actually be made up. Also, it is much easier to create some type of lie or false happening if someone like the president is behind it. Its scary to think about how much in our society can actually be made up and we have no clue.
This film clearly displayed the five principles of media literacy. The war and “hero” was completely constructed and turned into a reality. They were completely staged and created to show the viewers exactly what they wanted. This clearly shows how much of an effect media has on our current society.
The term “wag the dog” comes from thinking that a dog is smarter than its tail, but if the tail were to be smarter than the dog the tail would then wag the dog. In terms of this movie, the producers of these fake scenarios had to be smarter and create a more intense and important event to manipulate the voters into forgetting about the sex scandal. In reality, it was a good idea with the little time they had before election day. It just shows how easily these things can be currently happening around us and we have no idea.
“Idiom: Wag the Dog.” Wag the Dog. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.
“ESLnotes.com – Wag the Dog.” ESLnotes.com – Wag the Dog. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.