Memenes In Levinson's Wag The Dog

In Wag the Dog, ideas and behaviors grow and expand rapidly. This correlates with the definition of a meme, which is “a unit of information in a mind whose existence influences events such that more copies of itself get created in other minds” (Brodie, 2015, p.23). This information is able to copy, spread and then influence people's thoughts. The media executives in the film want to create ideas that copy and go beyond one mind so that the President can move along with his campaign. Therefore, there are several memes that evolve throughout the film. One of those memes is the idea of a prisoner of war named “Schumann”. They have chosen to use Shumann to show that the war in Albania is real, and that Albanian soldiers have captured Schumann

The spectacle is when “the image becomes more important than the reality it represents” ( Vacker, 2015, Spectacle). The spectacle is shown through how many people start to follow the memes without actually questioning the war. These individuals get so caught up in the images of the war against Albania which shows that entertainment has started “representing even serious and social intellectual issues” (Deboard, 2015, p.46). The citizens in the film see incidents on television screens and without questioning the events taking place, they believe that those events are real. They pick up these memes and start partaking in them without questioning what those actions stand for in the war against Albania. No one in the film asks why the war with Albania started or take the time to look more deeply into the war itself. These people saw the images and become consumed with the ideas and happened to more concerned with the images. In Wag the Dog, the media executives create a fake video, that showcases a girl escaping her village. This Albiana girl is actually an actor and yet everyone believe the terrifying image. The media executives, know that the spectacle will create a distraction, one away from the president, and at a meeting the executives even discuss past wars. They discuss these past wars while mentioning several spectacles that came along with those wars. It is explained that many people remember slogans, paintings, and pictures of the war but do not remember the war itself. Conrad Bean’s idea to create a fake war is generated through the idea of a spectacle. The entire film generates a huge spectacle for the viewers become distracted, forget about the President's misdeed and start believing in a war that they know nothing