Spin to Win

by Paige Boos

In my opinion, more than anything, Wag the Dog was a satire on not only the electoral process and the sensationalized way in which our candidates gain or lose votes, but also a play on the political atmosphere at the time the film was made -- 1997. As stated by King in the book Film Comedy, Wag the Dog was produced during “ a period in which American faith in politics and politicians reached a lower than average ebb as a result of criticism of the role played by party funding and/or the revelation of sexual indiscretions during the Clinton era” (pg. 95). 

As the book explains, satire in film is often a way of exposing difficult or controversial topics that otherwise would not reach large audiences. It is no coincidence that the Clinton sex scandal took place around the same time as Wag the Dog. Unfortunately, however, Clinton was not the only politician to be accused of sexual misconduct. From the Illinois congressman Mel Reynolds and the accusations of rape that surfaced during his campaigning (from a young teen girl I might add) to the John Edwards scandal (more current) it appears that American politics are rife with sexual misconduct. In the film the President is accused of inappropriate behavior of the sexual nature with a young teen. Not only is the fictional president caught with his pants down, but he also enlists advisors and specialists to help him cover up the incident. In what I consider to be a critique on American political cover-ups, the specialists create a fake war with Albania to distract the American people during the election. 

Elections themselves are rife with corruption and cheap tactics. Elections are not only about the candidates and the issues but also about bad mouthing, disproving, or redirecting. We’ve all seen the commercials and gotten the phone calls. Campaigning is a play for popularity or to win the public. In the case of Wag the Dog this was accomplished by redirecting scandal from the candidate by means of “a fake war." Not only did they distract the people but did so by playing on emotions -- a popular ploy.  

From the beginning of the fake Albanian War the producers introduced a vulnerable girl who must hold a kitten, not a schnauzer, a kitten.  From there they found the hero Shumann who eventually died “a hero’s death”-- only after making a gut wrenching plea from captivity to his mother. Though these circumstances are untrue and likely highly dramatized in comparison to behind the scenes of a real election (let us hope) candidates do frequently play on the emotions of their voters. In fact picture this: an elderly widowed woman lives alone on Medicare and bill/act (insert arbitrary number here) proposed by (insert arbitrary candidate here) will rob her of her much needed medications and force her into a state run nursing home where she is forced to live on Jello and sleeping pills. Ok this might be exaggerated a bit but the point is these ads are commonplace and appear nauseatingly frequently.  

Finally, I think that the most important thing to notice in the film is the way everyone is always saying “wont the American people find out?” and the answer is always no and in the end, they don’t.  I think this is extremely important because it points out the ignorance that the American people either create for themselves or are forced to live in.  Such as Charlie Chaplin’s film The Great Dictator was a call to the Americans to answer the German threat, I think that political satires such as Wag the Dog are a call to the American people not to stand for ignorance. To ask questions, ignore the sentiment (and that kitten!) and don’t accept everything you are told.