Wag The Dog

In the film Wag the Dog, we are presented with a peculiar and humorous story surrounding government issues. The plot encircles leaked personal information of the president’s intimate life. Because the events took place during the president’s reelection campaign, his team was forced to fabricate a fake war between the United States and Albany in order to distract the public from the president’s scandal. After facing a few difficulties, the team was driven towards creating a second and third lie for the public to believe. Similarly to the Wag the Dog’s political theme, The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli and Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu also contain governmental characteristics. However, while The Prince discusses political issues, the author of Tao Te …show more content…
According to Machiavelli, “… a prince should guards himself, above all things, against being despised and hated…” (54). This statement can be connected to the film due to the fact that the president’s team was working towards cleaning his imagine and attempting to avoid any hatred that the public might develop. Also, Machiavelli said, “… one of the most efficacious remedies that a prince can have against conspiracies is no to be hated…” which relates to the movie since, if the public would have kept their focus on the sex scandal, they would have developed detestation towards the president and conspired against him in order to prevent him from being reelected. On the other hand, the content in Tao Te Ching greatly differs from the film’s story. For example, Lao-Tzu said, “In governing, don’t try to control,” which is the opposite philosophy that the group in Wag the Dog used since they controlled the public by making them believe that the president’s wrong doings were false (8). All in all, The Prince and Wag the Dog used similar mistrustful ideologies while Tao Te Ching utilized a separate sincere