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Wag the Dog

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Wag the Dog
Eyes On the Media

3-23-12

Orwellian Aspects of Wag the Dog

Wag the Dog uses aspects from the novel 1984. In the way of controlling the public and using the Orwellian aspect to cover up a scandal. A presidential election is approaching, and the sex scandal involving the president needs to be covered up so he does not have any problems. The Orwellian aspect is brought upon in this film when the president hires people to fabricate a war to take the heat off of him. Orwellian aspects consist of making up a fabricated story so that the public is mislead to believe something no one has heard or knows about. The saying “the dog wags the tail, but if the tail were smarter, then the tail would wag the dog”. In the film Wag the Dog, the president has gotten himself involved in a sex scandal right before the election and doesn’t want the public hearing about it. He goes out of his way to hire a Hollywood director so that he can produce the best story cover up possible. The story he creates is that there is a war in Albania. The story is easy for them to fabricate and control because none of the public knows about it so therefor anything that they say about it the public is going to believe because they have not heard anything about it before. The Orwellian factor is prominent in this film because they take full advantage of the public by misleading them, and continuing to pull things together to make it seem more believable. The government began to turn the society into Orwellian because they kept lying to them to protect their own. Its prominent in the way that the “war” in Albania is going on and everyone is being mislead and brought away from the fact that the president got himself involved in something that he shouldn’t have and no one is worrying about it anymore because of the new “topic” of discussion, war. The president brings around a fake war veteran from the war that is said to be going on in Albania to protect his story and make it seem more

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