Comparing Wag The Dog And Tennessee William's Orpheus Descending
900 Words4 Pages
Corruption goes beyond just bribery and cheating, it includes the unequal distribution of resources such as wealth, justice, security and power.
Some of these issues are synoptically addressed in works of art like Barry Levinson’s Wag the Dog and Tennessee William’s Orpheus Descending. Both of these texts theatrically convey different messages of our present social standing in the United States. They focus on issues of social justice and the role of power in undertaking this organizational corruption. These texts are almost social commentaries on our present day social system in America. The citizens in both texts are experiencing pervasive corruption with a government that is incapable of providing basic services. They yearn for social and…show more content… “The dog is smarter that the tail” suggests that the people in charge of the government are smarter that the citizens of the country. Instead of the president “wagging his tail” and running the country, other people are doing his job. These masterminds in charge, Motss and Brean, take the two poles of the governmental system, Political (president) and American (people) poles, and create a reality that manipulates both poles. They reach out to the people through passion, sentiments and emotions. They rely on language and images that transform the people’s reality to operate this system that they set up. In this movie, politics is presented as a show business using tools of sophistry to draw people into this pseudo reality. Sophistry works in a way that relates to the truth, that is, the idea is grounded in some kind of truth and accessorized with deception. For example, when they say the president is in China for trade relations, he is in fact in China, but the details of the “b3 bomber” is…show more content… Since they don’t have easy access to information, the societies do not challenge these injustices going on in their environment mostly due to the misinformation of the media. If presented properly, the information on corruption can inspire fights in people and create results. But unknown if the media actually has the adequate revealing power to ensure accountability in the government. The antidote is reasoning. People need to start doing their own research instead of jumping on bandwagons and questioning policies instead of going with the status quo. Questioning bring about change. In questioning, there is hope that one day, someone will find the answer and the situation can change. Moreover, the questioning masses instill fear into the minds of the government. They know not to fuck with