What does wag the dog mean anyway?
Does dog refer to the public and tail refer to the politicians, so it goes like the public is supposed to control the destiny of the politicians by voting, in the end they are manipulated by the politics?
Any comment?
When I first here the expression "Wag The Dog" it sounds like it makes perfect sense. After rereading it I realise that you cannot "wag The dog." This may be the same as for others.
From this I interpret that the expression means to bull**** someone. To trick them/con them. To pull the wool over their eyes.
I'd say it's more like the president's administration, which may be a "tail" for both the president AND the whole nation, is "wagging" the actual "dog", which could be either of the above
shareIt means the system is reversed, screwy, backwards - the elements within the system that should be following are leading - the dog isn't wagging its tail, the reverse is happening - and that's bad.
shareDuuuude, The "Tail" Wagging the Dog! Haven't you ever heard that expression? The dog's head is supposed to come before the tail. Where are you from man? Wag The Dog is like like Putting the cart in front of the Horse!!! The Horse goes first! The dog's head comes before the tail. It's an analogy. An analogy is a literary device used to draw a parallel between to divergent subjects. An analogy is sort of like, like a Parable, like in the Bible, dude. There is also an element of Irony. Irony...hey, send me a private message. I'm a writer.
Mary Ellen
Basically, the short of it is that in America, the people are supposed to be in charge. We are supposed to determine what is important, what is relevant. We elect the President, and the President does what we want the President to do. We are the dog. The White House (the tail) does what we want. They are supposed to do what's best for us as a country.
The title is referring to the fact that the opposite is happening. They are telling us what they want us to hear. They are skewing what is important and misdirecting us. The people are no longer in charge, the powers that be are just manipulating us into doing what they want us to do, and making us think that we still run things.
That's what the title is saying, anyway.
It's like when the rabbit carries the gun or when preserves take granny for winter. It refers to cases where the influence or impact between sides is reversed although it is not supposed to happen.
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The onscreen text at the beginning of the movie, which nobody seems to have read, goes thus:
Why does a dog wag his tail?
Because the dog is smater than its tail.
If the tail were smarter, the tail would WAG THE DOG
It's all about control- the government controls the country because it knows more than the country. If the public in the country knew what the government knew, ridiculous chaos would ensue. As ridiculous, in fact, as the concept of the tail wagging the dog.
[deleted]
Wag the dog is an interesting title and I interpret the meaning (as a media analyst) that, because the dog is so much smarter and bigger than the tail it seems rediculous that the tail could wag the dog. However in the movie the "all powerfull" media who supposedly has control over all of the american people, were duped into being controlled by this small group of people trying to divert media attention so in essence the dog has been wagged.
Much Luck
Chris
Thank you for that very accurate interpretation. I was waiting for someone to mention the fact that the media was the target. In our society the news is the concidered the smarter entity because of its great influence over the mindless public, well the larger part of the public at least. In fact the media being smarter than the public started the entire problem with the president in the movie. They called in the doctor because they knew that the media would have the scandal all over the news and once that was done all reporters would be ravaging for any new developments or the fact that it indeed happened and there was no way of proving other wise. The media would make him out to be this raving lunitic (wich was ironic that the man who saved his carrer was in jail and died for the same crime)I think that it is so funny how the public is not even suggested as a smarter whole, the points being that through out the entire movie the commercials didnt mention anything that would encourage thought. In fact the commercials main point was not to think. Since people were concidered mindless zombies, it was ok that the news broadcasted the scandal because it was only half a day's news and everyone forgot about it because of the extencive coverage on the "war." Then when it was "over" it was because the news said it was over. So the small staff being the tail created yet another cover up to continue its control over the dog it had began wagging.
shareI'm not going to reiterate the posts above. I just want to mention how unfortunate it is that it's never about what the people will think. It's always "what will the media think?".
shareBut don't you think the media is the gatekeeper to what the people think about? Therefore, whoever gives information to the media are the ones giving information to the public. Hope that comes across the way I wanted it to.
shareYes, that's largely true. The tragedy lies in the near-total dependance the general public have on the media to form opinions FOR them as opposed to thinking for themselves. Unavoidable, given the system's tendancy to keep us so distracted with minutia that most of us have little time to react rationally to a given crisis situation, but true.
share"But don't you think the media is the gatekeeper to what the people think about?"
No, it's the media deciding what the people should think about, not the other way around.
For example this year's LEGAL annual freetekno event in open nature met unusual hostility from the Czech police. They claimed the organiser didn't have the landowners permission, even after they showed the contracts and the landowner explicitely declared that he DID gave his permission on national television. Foreigners were turned back on the Czech borders on the base of "colored old cars, haircuts and tatoos", which is not only very discriminating, but also illegal: free transport of people, goods, and services in the EU. The police then attacked the 6000+ people, who hadn't commited a crime by gathering on a private piece of land, with a brutal and irrational assault. One person got killed. The day after there was a protest action in the Czech capital.
So, what did they say on the news about that (in Belgium)? NOTHING. It should be worldnews goddamned. NOTHING in a single newspaper, except for one. It was a very small article, something about freetek people destroying neighbourhood property. (Which was true, to some extend. They tried to get through the police bloccades by going through some fields.) But NOTHING about the highway bloccades, the riots, or even about the police.
It pisses me off.
Are they going to cover it up or what?
umm wag the dog def...dog= president; tail=deniro
get it pres is Deniro's pupet... Deniro is the one controling the situation, everything goes past Deniro, furthermore public nor the media cannot be the dog bc the media/people are never smarter than the leader (esp of the country)
think about it, anthing that gets released (having to do with war etc) goes through the whitehouse first... they basically decide what comes out
i dunno i saw the president as the dog, and i thought it was clear that deniro was controlling the situation..
ps im doing a paper on public relations on this movie any help with product, price, promotion for the presidential campaign in the movie
sanja
I think there's also something to do with the fake war creating a real one at the end of the movie.
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