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Wag The Dog And Saturday Night Live Analysis

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A representational study of Barry Levinson’s film, Wag the Dog and Saturday Night Live (SNL)’s parody of Donald Trump’s campaign highlight the symbiotic relationship between the political landscape and individuals in society. Both composers integrate the vital idea that the political landscape is fragile and constructed by individuals and accordingly, the people find purpose and patriotism from political people in power. Levinson affirms the concept that the political representations are precarious and easily manipulated by spin-doctor individuals where absolute truth does not exist. Where as critics like SNL suggest the motivations in political landscapes can be misinterpreted by individuals and thus create controversy. Through the overall …show more content…

Levinson parallels the politics to an overarching theatrical metaphor to demonstrate through different characters, their ways to construct truth. In the characterisation of Motts, he considers politics as “pure Hollywood” and another medium “for the credit”, presenting to audiences the perspective that the political landscape is fabricated and like theatre able to be controlled. Accordingly, we are compelled to question the truth within the political landscape upon having enhanced understanding for individuals’ ability to ‘play and stop’ occurrences just like in the dialogue, “the war isn’t over until I say its over”. Similarly, Levinson employs Brean as a vehicle to introduce alternate ways spin-doctor individuals “just got to distract” attention from the truth that makes up the political landscape. Low angle shots are utilised in the opening scene to capture Brean walking down the hallway, suggesting how true power and control is within the spin-doctor individuals who create political landscape. His truncated and didactic rhetorical questions with “what good are they if they show no war?” emphasises his sense of knowledge and ability that convinces audiences and the American people that a constructed truth is the absolute truth. Ultimately, we are persuaded to be wary of the deception that make up the political landscape as …show more content…

From SNL’s parody of Trump’s campaign we can see that the landscape is fractured and may be interpreted in numerous ways by individuals in society. Satire is employed to ridicule Trump’s biased image, showing how the representation of political figures are dependent on individuals. The contrast of inspirational non diegetic background music to the satirical monologues of American people demonstrate how the image Trump attempts to present can be easily misinterpreted as racist and controversial. The irony in “he’s definitely not P.C” conflicts against the representation that politicians are supposedly politically correct which is further emphasised with a panning shot that captures a Trump supporter burning books symbolic of Trump’s lack of appreciation for the truth and instead makes his own. As a result, we are lead to view such controversy as a weakness of the political landscape as SNL effectively shows the power of individuals in affecting the representation of political

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In the 1940s, America was faced with a great decision, one that would affect not only the United States, but potentially the world. To enter war, or not to enter war? That was the question. Whether ‘tis more patriotic in the Americas to “sacrifice…normal interests in life in order to insure the safety and the welfare of [America]” or to take arms against a world of troubles, and by opposing end them (Lindbergh, and a little Shakespeare). Franklin D. Roosevelt and Charles Lindbergh represented the two sides of this argument: one strongly favored war while the other thought it would cause turmoil.

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this is the war room!” is trivialising politicians, even though they are absorb in war and power, actual conflicts would be a disaster. Or the visual comedy of the slogan “Peace is our profession” being on a billboard with multiple bullet holes in it due to the war that is taking place around being another example of the satirising of the American government. The theme of “Appearance vs Reality” in regards to how the American government want to be viewed contrasted to how they actually are, is significant throughout the film. I conducted a focus group with the intention of analysing how people react to satire by screening all 95 minutes of the film and I encouraged them to discuss their thoughts on the film

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I don’t believe that this film expresses any political view. I believe that image, speech, sound, music, and writing interact to produce meaning. They are all in sync with one another, but I believe writing dominates because the film is based off of a novel. The facial expressions and speech of the younger actors add to the film, evoking emotion and sympathy from the viewer. The novel emphasizes the spectator more so than in the film.

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Taking a Stand in Stand Up Comedy: Lenny Bruce and the Trials of Obscenity In this time, satire seems inescapable. We scroll through countless articles making fun of our government and other establishments and can’t help but wonder: where did this start? What or, rather, who made it so easy to create parodies and caricatures of some to the seemingly purest American ideals? What made it so our “freedom of speech” was as free as we imagined?

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