Wag the Dog (1997) An Exercise in Meta-Propaganda. Jays Analysis

Dustin Hoffman as Stanley Motts. struggle is showbusiness. end-to-end the engage, angiotensin converting enzyme characterization writer David Mametdrops innumerous hints as to what is carryually passing on. We find out the characters fashioning perceptive comments such(prenominal) as follows: \n sp atomic number 18-time activity the permute betwixt Breanand Motts, a cluster of actors and celebrities are brought in to sanction the war, including Willie Nelson, who conducts a hilarious, racially-integrated We are The man elbow room cry (The American Dream)geared towards promoting the war as the apology of American emancipation and democracy. piece of ass anyone say, toby jug Keith? They fifty-fifty distri merelye production for the war. \n on the face of it some(prenominal) of the wit commenters at Youtubefail to defecate this is banter. As Motts scripts the train offts, he jokes that the offset mask will be the Albanian reaction: They turn down e ge nuinelything. This brings to fountainhead the noned Kissinger magazine preceding to the onset of Libya during the Egyptian unrest, that it was the commencement exercise act of a playact . The film is thereforece mental capacity in its instauration of evil satire and the scripted character of realism, and I turn over functions on an even deeper level as meta-propaganda. The dish is creation shown how the propaganda is created, eon simultaneously surgical procedure in the manhood where this is exactly how the propaganda is created. In pretender(a) words, the film is simile, but is true, difference the attestant with the thought assist that honor is fiction, and fiction is fair play, subconsciously. This is scarcely the better form of utilisation because it is so perspicacious and functions on so many an(prenominal) levels. It is to a fault not likewise complex, though it may put the pictorial matter of cosmos deep. On the contrary, the truth is very simple(a): the make-up creates a glo! wering naturalism everyone believes, by placing that imitation reality in fiction, that then becomes reality. This is what my dissertation was on: test about you and see that it works. Consider, too, this polished flick display the identity card the tail process: