What is Wag The Dog?

Wag the Dog
Directed by	Barry Levinson
Produced by	Barry Levinson Robert De Niro
Written by	Hilary Henkin David Mamet
Starring	Dustin Hoffman Robert De Niro Anne Heche Denis Leary William H. Macy Willie Nelson
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date(s)	1997
Running time	97 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

Wag the Dog is a 1997 film starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro about a Washington spin doctor who distracts the electorate from a presidential sex scandal by hiring a Hollywood producer (Hoffman) to construct a fake war with Albania. The scheme enlists the musical talents of Mark Knopfler (musical producer) and Willie Nelson (who creates a theme song for the 'war').

Wag the Dog was produced and directed by Barry Levinson. Hilary Henkin and David Mamet co-wrote the screenplay. The film is based on the novel American Hero by Larry Beinhart. The book, however, differs greatly from the picture. In the book the president is specifically George Herbert Walker Bush and the fake war operation is explicitly Desert Storm.

The film explores serious themes, such as the manipulation of the mass media and public opinion, with a comedic sensibility. The film drew attention at the time for similarities to the Clinton sex scandal, although the movie also makes reference to the Persian Gulf War as an example of war used as an electoral tactic. The idea of war as a creation of the media is not, of course, original to the movie. The French postmodernist Jean Baudrillard's ideas in particular are relevant to a discussion of the movie — see for example his essay The Gulf War Did Not Take Place.

The title of the movie is taken from the joke: "Why does a dog wag its tail? Because a dog is smarter than its tail. If the tail was smarter, the tail would wag the dog." Interpretations differ as to the meaning of this metaphor. Some suggest the dog is public opinion, and the tail represents the media; the dog is the media, and the tail is political campaigns; or the dog is the people, and the tail is the government. Or, when considering the personal relations in the movie, the dog is the president and the tail represents his PR assistants, who immediately assume the authority for the damage control. Moreover, the expression "the tail wagging the dog" refers to any case where something of greater significance is driven by something lesser.

Cast

• Dustin Hoffman - Stanley Motss
• Robert De Niro - Conrad Brean
• Anne Heche - Winifred Ames
• Denis Leary - Fad King
• Willie Nelson - Johnny Dean
• Andrea Martin - Liz Butsky
• Kirsten Dunst - Tracy Lime
• William H. Macy - CIA Agent Charles Young
• John Michael Higgins - John Levy
• Suzie Plakson - Grace
• Woody Harrelson - Sgt. William Schumann
• Michael Belson - The President
• Suzanne Cryer - Amy Cain
• Jason Cottle - A.D.
• David Koechner - The Director

Writing credits

Controversy surrounds the writing credits of the movie. Original drafter Henkin took the films producers to court and threatened to quit the Writers Guild of America after director Barry Levinson chose not to award her a screenwriting credit.

As a reviewer wrote at the time of the film's release:

According to Levinson, Mamet had never read the novel nor Henkin's script, and the only commonality between Henkin's draft and the shooting script was the premise of a make-believe war. Citing clear-cut differences between the two scripts, including the entire Hollywood-angle and the soldier left behind enemy lines in Mamet's creation, Levinson appealed the ruling, but was rebuffed. [1]

Coincidence

Less than a month after the movie was released, President Bill Clinton was embroiled in a sex scandal arising from his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Over the course of 1998 and early 1999, as the scandal dominated American politics, the US engaged in three military operations: Operation Desert Fox, a three-day bombing campaign in Iraq that took place as the U.S. House of Representatives debated articles of impeachment against Clinton; Operation Infinite Reach, a pair of missile strikes against suspected terrorist targets in Sudan and Afghanistan three days after Clinton admitted in a nationally televised address that he had an inappropriate relationship with Lewinsky; and Operation Allied Force, a 78-day-long NATO bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia that began weeks after Clinton was acquitted in his Senate impeachment trial.

In a further coincidence, the missile strikes against Sudan and Afghanistan were announced by the White House moments before the beginning of a press conference in which Lewinsky was to give details of her appearance before Congress.

Critics, including Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, charged that the former operation was an attempt to distract attention from the Lewinsky scandal, and Serb state television went so far as to broadcast Wag The Dog in the midst of NATO attacks on Serbia.

The video cassette version of the film contains an extended feature after the credits that has commentary about the movie in the context of the Lewinsky scandal by the producers of the movie and Tom Brokaw.

Music

The film featured many songs created entirely for the fictitious campaign waged by the protagonists: "Good Old Shoe", "We Guard Our American Borders" and "The Men of the 303" are but salient examples. Strangely, none of these pieces made it onto the soundtrack which was released on CD: it featured only the title track, by British guitarist/vocalist Mark Knopfler, and seven of Knopfler's instrumentals. In light of the popularity of the pieces, the soundtrack received many negative responses from buyers who expected the songs to appear on the soundtrack as a matter of course and considered the excision wholly unjustified.

See also

• Astroturfing, a controversial public relations practice depicted in the film
• Canadian Bacon, a film about an American war started for similar reasons

External links

• Wag the Dog at Rotten Tomatoes

•  • [ e] Films directed by Barry Levinson
Man of the Year • Envy • Bandits • An Everlasting Piece • Liberty Heights • Sphere • Wag the Dog • Sleepers • Disclosure • Jimmy Hollywood • Toys • Bugsy • Avalon • Rain Man • Good Morning, Vietnam • Tin Men • Young Sherlock Holmes • The Natural • Diner