Wag the Dog (1997)
Directed by Barry Levinson
During the final weeks of a presidential race, the President is accused of sexual misconduct. To distract the public until the election, the President's adviser hires a Hollywood producer to help him stage a fake war.
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What critics compared Wag the Dog to
McKay was clearly inspired by classics in the genre from Dr. Strangelove, which turned nuclear war into comedy, to Network and Wag the Dog among other fondly-remembered gems we now recognize weren’t far off from getting at some real truths.
As well as the aforementioned Strangelove and Armageddon , Don’t Look Up also has echoes of Deep Impact , Network , Wag the Dog , Bob Roberts and Seeking a Friend For the End of the World, as banging their heads against a brick wall of bureaucracy – and a divided public, some of whom believe it all to be a massive conspiracy theory – takes its toll on the protagonists.
While wildly aware that Don’t Look Up is absolutely a political satire that applies a dash of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), Network (1976), and Wag the Dog (1997) with a nice helping of Armageddon (1998), the way in which an extinction-level event serves as the metaphor for climate crisis doesn’t always land because of the ever-present concern of COVID-19 and its variants.
The plot suggests Wag the Dog — David Mamet’s 1997 political satire about a Hollywood producer inventing a foreign war to divert attention from a Presidential scandal — but in reverse.
A more optimistic take on the power of Hollywood to orchestrate a media spectacle than Barry Levinson’s “Wag the Dog,” Affleck’s tale shifts from brooding espionage to amusing farce when Mendez heads west to hire acclaimed makeup artist John Chambers (John Goodman) and cigar-chomping producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin) to flesh out the plan.
Whenever they appear on the screen for their comic-relief turns, Argo turns into a cross between Wag the Dog and The Producers.
And while at times Argo resembles a reverse Wag the Dog, it never lets the audience forget that a very dangerous and very serious situation underpins everything going on.
Like “ Wag the Dog ” before it, “Argo” takes full advantage of the overlap between tradecraft and showbiz, depicting the movie industry at its most tacky, mendacious and fulsomely amoral.
That’s especially true in the terrific final act, when the film goes from “Wag the Dog”-type satire to “Dog Day Afternoon” and “Midnight Express”-style tension.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Themes
Dr. Strangelove inspired that kind of reaction, as did Network and moments in M*A*S*H and Being There.
The movie is a satire that contains just enough realistic ballast to be teasingly plausible; like " Dr. Strangelove ," it makes you laugh, and then it makes you wonder.
Peel back the surface of a lot of great comedies and you’ll find a core of righteous anger — whether it’s the war cries behind “Duck Soup,” the racial tension within “Blazing Saddles,” the distrust of religious fervor in “Monty Python’s Life of Brian,” or the political cynicism of “Wag the Dog.”
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The impressive original screenplay by relative newcomer Gary Spinelli plays much of this for laughs as he and director Liman set a satirical Wag the Dog -style tone that is perfectly pitched for this notorious tale.
It’s Thank You for Smoking and Wag the Dog with all the satire stripped out and just the crass reality remaining.
With a bit more subtlety (think Mamet's Wag the Dog) it could have been a masterpiece.
(More than either Wag the Dog or Primary Colors, it stands as the defining film of the Clinton years.)