Wag the Dog (1997)
7/10
The notion that a sitting U.S. president could lose re-election due to a sex scandal—the driving force of Clinton-era political satire Wag the Dog—feels quaint in the post-Trump era. Major politicians still occasionally fall from grace for such reasons, as former Toronto mayor John Tory can attest. But at this stage in the ongoing crisis of capitalism, the scale of problems facing society is so great that a politician’s sex life tends to rank low on voters’ priorities. Both major-party candidates in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Trump and Joe Biden, had credible accusations of rape against them—though this situation is more an indictment of U.S. capitalism and the two-party system than any feelings of the electorate.
Directed by Barry Levinson from a screenplay by Hilary Henkin and David Mamet, loosely adapted from the novel American Hero by Larry Beinhart, Wag the Dog follows political “fixer” Conrad Brean (Robert De Niro), recruited after the sitting president is caught making advances on an underage girl in the Oval Office weeks before the election. Brean’s solution is to create a fictional war against Albania (“Why Albania?” people ask, to which Brean responds, “Why not?”). With presidential aide Winifred Ames (Anne Heche) in tow, Brean enlists Hollywood producer Stanley Motss (Dustin Hoffman) to “produce” the war, complete with a theme song by country singer Johnny Dean (Willie Nelson) and fake footage of a fleeing orphan girl, played by actress Tracy Lime (Kirsten Dunst). When the CIA gets wind of the scheme and reports to media that the war has ended, Brean’s team invent a new story: a soldier trapped behind enemy lines in Albania.
Wag the Dog is amusing, though it probably felt edgier in 1997. Reality has become so absurd, what used to be outrageous satire now just feels like another headline. What the movie nails is the utter cynicism of the political establishment; the shallowness of capitalist politics as media spectacle, and the central role of image and spin. Consider: the media in this film credits the president’s upswing in the polls to his clichéd, substance-free campaign slogan “Don’t change horses in midstream.” Anyone who remembers the 2004 U.S. presidential election will know this precise metaphor helped re-elect George W. Bush.
The witty script offers clever and quotable lines, which also have some interesting things to say about the role of propaganda throughout history. Not only are current events reduced to simple images and slogans, but our understanding of history is often equally superficial—a point Brean makes when he explains to Motss why he wants the latter to “produce” the war:
Motss: I'm in show business, yes? Why come to me?
Brean: Well I'll tell you why, Mr Motss. “54-40-Or Fight”, what does that mean?
Motss: It's a slogan, it's from the, uh...
Brean: “Remember the Maine!”
Motss: Oh yeah, that's from - that's gotta be from the, uh...
Brean: “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too!”
Motss: No, that's not, uh...
Brean: They're war slogans, Mr. Motss. We remember the slogans, we can't even remember the fucking wars. You know why? That's show business. That's why we're here. Naked girl covered in napalm. “V for Victory”. Five Marines raising the flag, Mt. Suribachi. You remember the picture 50 years from now, you'll have forgotten the war. The Gulf War, smart bomb falling down a chimney. 2,500 missions a day, 100 days. One video of one bomb, Mr. Motss, the American people bought that war. War is show business—that's why we're here.
In one sense, Wag the Dog doesn’t go as far as reality. Here, the president’s operatives manufacture a fake war to distract from a sex scandal. In December 1998, just a year after the film’s release, then president Bill Clinton bombed Iraq during his impeachment trial revolving around his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Bombing countries is generally considered an act of war, though you wouldn’t know it from Western media that present such routine attacks as the natural right of the U.S. empire and its allies. But I would say an actual war that kills hundreds of thousands of people is worse than a fictional war that kills no one, at least not directly.
All in all, though, I enjoyed this movie, which has many funny moments and doesn’t overstay its welcome at a brisk 97 minutes. Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits composed the music, which is always a plus. Woody Harrelson steals the show when he appears late in the proceedings as Sgt. William Schumann, the soldier supposedly trapped behind enemy lines who turns out to be quite different than the image Brean, Motss and co. have created. The ending accurately sums up the ruthlessness of the U.S. ruling class and the unintended blowback that results from its destructive policies.