Jacobin Radio
Michael and Us: Albanian Bacon w/ Daniel Bessner & Derek Davison
In Barry Levinson and David Mamet's WAG THE DOG (1997), a political spin-doctor teams with a movie producer to fake a war and save an incumbent president. You've heard of manufacturing consent, but to what extent can Hollywood and Washington manufacture reality? We're joined by Daniel Bessner and Derek Davison of the American Prestige podcast to discuss.
Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Duration:
- 48m
- Broadcast on:
- 03 Aug 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
We can take a we can take a minute or two to get into character. I always find that transition is I was born in character. I take it the two of you have met my co-host Will. He seemed to be here before I got here so you guys have gotten acquainted. As of 30 seconds ago. We're all like longtime friends now. I'm going to say this off the top because I don't know if this fits in anywhere. I think just watched Weg the dog. It put me in mind to check the list of movies that Bill Clinton watched in the White House, which is easily. I look at that list maybe every two or three months. My president has one and they're actually pretty interesting. Yeah, Reagan's is by far the best because he was just a film guy. He's just watching Reds. He's having a good time, whereas Bill Clinton, every single one, feels calculated. Reagan watched every Woody Allen movie as it came out, which you would not think, but I think he just liked upper middlebrow kind of movies. That's so funny. It'd be funny if Bill Clinton just watched Dave a hundred times. Oh, I got to check if that's on the list. I bet you that's on the list. I looked to see if this one was on the list because Bullworth is on the list and not only is Bullworth on the list, but when Warren Beatty got his AFI lifetime achievement tribute in 2008, Bill Clinton presented it to him and in fact, singled out Bullworth as a movie that he really loved. He said worse to the effect of I saw Bullworth during a difficult year of my presidency and it taught me to not take things too seriously, but also take them very seriously. Wow. The point is he did not watch "Wag the Dog" and I don't know what to make. Did you watch the American president, the liberal wet dream of what Clinton should have been a little worried? Hang on. I bet he did. I got the list in front of me. Did he watch Dave? Yeah, he watched Dave on 23rd 1993. I'm going to write a movie about Bill Clinton watching Dave. The best thing from Bill Clinton's White House film club that I've seen was when he watched Fight Club and he said, "Oh, it's a really good movie, but I did think its critique of consumer culture was a little harsh. Capitalism has yielded a lot of benefits and not just for rich people, for working people too." I really like that because it's an example of Bill Clinton, the ideologue coming through. He watched Fight Club and he actually found its critique of society, a little off-putting, so a little actual sincerity there from Slick Willie for a change. That is really interesting, yeah. He said that in an interview with Roger Ebert in the waning days of his presidency, but he also pointed out that he thought the movie was quite good. I like that about him. I respect that he was able to separate ideology from aesthetics a little bit. Okay, well, welcome back, everyone. You are listening to the Michael Enos podcast or possibly the American Prestige podcast, depending on which feed you found us from. I'm Luke Savage. With me, as always, is my co-host, Mr. William Sloan. Hello, hello. And joining us, it's Dania Derek from American Prestige. Welcome, guys. Thank you very much for having us. Derek, should we do that beginning sort of podcast bullshit? We'd never, ever, ever, ever do it or have done it. I don't think it's not no real us. I don't think anybody needs that from either of us. I feel like your podcast is maybe a little more serious than ours, so I don't know how well it would work. But the best thing is when you just turn the mics on and forget they're there. Will and I have done that and then found we've gotten like 35 minutes of gold. Or as is more often the case, we don't turn the mics on and we have a really interesting conversation. They're like, "God damn it, let's recreate that so we can commodify it." And then you can never find the magic a second time. If you're not selling it, what's the point? That's my motto and everything I do in life. But since you guys are here, obviously, we do have a movie to discuss as well as mentioned already. But I did want to talk a little bit about Kamala Harris since that is the subject that I think is probably most bountiful on all of our timelines at the moment. I have to say, I found there's a certain narrative about Kamala Harris that I'm finding a little bit cloying, a little bit irritating at the moment, which is this whole idea that we don't really know what she thinks about all kinds of issues, particularly in the realm of foreign policy. And I feel that there's a certain amount of wish casting going on at the moment. As is often the case in moments like these on occasions like this, I'm finding my own reactions to the things I'm seeing on the timeline very different from, I guess, the ambient vibe I'm picking up. It seems like after Biden finally dropped out and I think many of us thought that was never going to happen. You know, there was just this collective sense of relief. Now, though, there's a void that's being filled by coconut tree memes and things like that. And I'm not here for it, though. Clearly lots of people are, I don't know, Danny and Derek, are you guys part of the K hive now? What's your feeling about everything that's going on? Absolutely. No, I mean, it's just like the quick answer is no, I'm just very, I'm very doubtful that it'll, I mean, I think it should will be better than Trump. And I'm generally just very doubtful that she'll do any of the things that very clearly need to be done in a number of issue areas. So it's just going to be more the same. I mean, maybe she'll surprise me and be like a very straight and liberal reformist president. I doubt it's, I assume it'll be more of the same. Neoliberalism, imperialism, continuing basically unabated border policy, basically the same, maybe some more investments in infrastructure by that nearly enough. I think the economy will continue to be basically unregulated, at least elements of it. The media, for example, the one that I know best will probably continue to be unregulated. So, you know, it's better than Trump, but it's not very exciting. Over the last 10 months, there were certain leaks to the press to the effect that she was, or at least communicating the idea that she was uncomfortable with Gaza, that she would have been calling for a ceasefire to a greater extent than Biden had. They look like very deliberate leaks. How seriously do you think we should take her as somebody distinct from Biden on that particular issue? I mean, those are those leaks themselves are fundamentally unserious. Like, oh, she's uncomfortable with the genocide. Wow. That's that changes everything. Yeah. Like she would be calling for a ceasefire. She would have done it earlier than Biden. Wow. Okay. What? Who cares? Who gives a shit? Like, is she going to take any action that materially changes the US-Israeli relationship or undercuts the Israeli ability to massacre tens of thousands of Palestinians? Probably not. You know, the bar here has been set so low by Joe Biden that, yeah, I think she'll probably be an improvement on this, but it's mainly going to be an improvement in form, you know, kind of the trappings of how we manage this as opposed to anything substantive that would really make a positive impact. You know, even even that could be something. If she lets a vote go through the Security Council, if she's a little more harsh with the rhetoric that could have, you know, effects on Israeli politics, you know, that's that's not meaning less, but it's not exactly meaningful either. You know, I keep trying to parse this, but the bottom line is Joe Biden is an outlier even by DC standards for being obsequious, just sycophantic toward Israel. He's an outlier by Israeli standards in some cases, not like by Israeli standards. That's right. That's absolutely right. The bar is there. If she just reverts back to sort of the traditional behavior of let's say, you know, the George W. Bush administration for fuck's sake, that would be an improvement. Derek, but is it going to be enough? It wears off this podcast. Okay. We're fucking in relax here. Yeah, but Derek is absolutely. I think Derek is absolutely right. And I don't know what you guys think. I'm very, very pessimistic about the future of basically everything. I think Bernie was a Hail Mary pass. I really wished that it had succeeded. I'm extraordinarily pessimistic about the future for a variety of reasons. And I'm curious if you guys share my it's not black pill because it's based on analysis, but my assessment of the situation. Yeah, I mean, I know what you I know what you mean. Pessimistic isn't quite the word I'd use. I guess certain things have happened in the last few weeks actually that have made me feel perhaps, I don't know, less pessimistic, less cynical than I was. I do think what the French left achieved in France, although obviously we'll wait to see what happens. We'll wait to see if they're actually able to form a government we don't know yet. But the fact that they were able to form this kind of ad hoc coalition, which really did not seem likely. And then we're really able to outperform the polls and relegate the far right to third place. I mean, it's just an example of a political development that's good, at least good so far. I'm on a custom to that sort of thing. I also actually thought the UK election, which I watch every UK election, I was really not feeling good going into that because I thought not only is Keir Starmer going to get a big majority, but it's going to be like 1997. They're going to get 44% of the vote or something like that. You're going to see this big surge for Nigel Farage at the same time. The latter happened and Labour did get a big majority. But I mean, they got like 33% of the popular vote. There were a bunch of these independents who got elected, in many cases, over the issue of Gaza. Corbin won his seat, which actually all my friends in London were telling me he's got to barely any chance of keeping his seat. No, he kept it. He kept it with 5,000 votes more as an independent than Keir Starmer got as Labour leader in his own constituency. And I realize these are just anecdotal things now. I'm answering you, Danny, by giving you like specific constituency results in one country's election. But I have actually felt, despite the bleakness of everything over the last little while that kind of politics is happening again, I've actually even found in my own writing, I feel like more urgency about some of the things I've been writing. It's kind of a feeling that I hadn't felt since like the, you know, beginning of 2020, I guess, the opening months of 2020. I felt for the past four years, nearly, like, I feel like I've pivoted to culture, I've pivoted to history, I've pivoted to philosophy, because there's often it doesn't feel like there's any point writing about the present, at least not directly, because what the fuck does it matter? Everything is sclerotic, everything is static. And so I guess my like glass half full version of what you just said, which like analytically, I don't think I can really throw anything up to disagree with you. But in terms of vibes, I think I have a little bit of a more glass half full vibe for what it's worth. I don't think this is glass half full. In fact, I think it's probably glass like 95% empty. But, you know, over the last 10 years, so many things have happened that haven't been what we're supposed to happen from Brexit to Corbin to Bernie to Trump to Gaza. Many other things I'm forgetting that are aberrations from what was supposed to be the timeline. The fact that most of these things are bad, you know, is obviously bad. And the world is facilitated to make the bad things happen more than the good ones. But I don't know if I get any not encouragement, but just any feeling out of this, it's the feeling that, you know, there are certain pressure points that something is going to happen from, and maybe it can be good. Well, to pivot back to Kamala, I mean, yeah, I am not getting, I am not getting encouraging signs from any of the stuff I'm seeing. I saw this, I saw reporting to the effect of there's a serious possibility that she may surround herself with not just like ex-Obama people, but like the worst class of them, because I do think there are, there were like better and worse Obama people. You know, it's all relative, obviously, but I agree. There's reporting that she might be trying to hire Jim Messina, who is not only like a bad guy in terms of like his corporate bent and the clients he represents in his day job, but is a loser who worked for the British Conservative Party twice and was participant anyway. I don't know how significant his influence was on the Theresa May Tory campaign, but like classic electoral train wreck, electoral disaster. There's also this rumor about Rahma manual, which would be absolutely insane. Although, yeah, honestly, the thing that gives me the most pause was this reporting in the Financial Times about how Kamala and her people are reaching out to the crypto industry. And I just want to read a little bit from this, because I feel like this is very emblematic of the stuff that seems to be going on behind the coconut tree memes. People advising the Harris campaign on business matters said the decision to reconnect with the crypto industry had little to do with attracting new electoral contributions. They said the objective was instead to build a constructive relationship that would ultimately set a smart regulatory framework that would help the growth of the entire asset class. The outside advisors to the campaign said Harris wanted to change the perception among many top executives in America that the Democrats were anti business. One person said her campaign was using the change of leadership on the dem ticket as an opportunity to reset relations with the tech industry, which had felt targeted by the Biden administration, particularly on anti trust matters. So, yeah, not great. We'll see. I guess just before we move on from Kamala, this is perhaps the best thing I saw this week, just on position on Gaza. This would tweet from Jennifer Rubin, you know, one of my favorite words, he commentators. Yeah, friend of friend of both of our shows. I'm sure, you know, someone, yeah, she's she's got a Jennifer. We aren't going back. Rubin is her current handle. And she wrote a piece in the Washington Post and had this comment. So far, she's been pitch perfect thorough condemnation of protesters celebrating Hamas and burning American flag. No policy difference with Biden, but a more empathetic expression for innocent Palestinians. Well done. So this is a type of commentary that's like incredible. Like you're just commenting on like the meta theatrics of something. She actually says no policy difference with Biden, but she's saying that as praise, dumb as hell. But I think Jennifer Rubin may actually be onto something there, even though, you know, she's saying that is praised rather than, you know, condemnation. Yeah. So I think, again, like, I think this is just going to be like another caretaker presidency issue. And I mean, as people of my life keep reminding me, she's, am I my mind, she is going to win, but she's never really won much. So she might actually lose. But Trump does seem to have really put people off this time. I just don't think he did enough in the first term, besides bring fascist into the United States, besides that he was basically kind of a weak ruler. And so I think there's a lot of disconnect between his rhetoric. So I think there's a very good chance she'll win. And I think it'll be a very caretaker administration, which to me, I mean, my big thing that thinking about writing something on next is about the crisis of liberalism, because I think more than anything, that's what the last two decades have shown. I think ultimately, as I, you know, analyze my own thought, that's probably the main reason that I was so invested in the fascism debate, because I think it totally misidentified what was actually happening. And so I think this is just more data points in the fact that liberalism, having failed to deliver its utopia after the end of the Cold War, and in fact, made things worse in a lot of ways, many ways, most ways, I think is really in crisis. But the problem is there's been no other ideology to really challenge it. And so in that sense, the Phukiyama thesis was correct. And so I'm still working through these ideas now, but I think that's what's going on. Well, yeah, we'll pivot to the movie in a second. But Danny, that is all music to my ears. The crisis of liberalism is one of the main things I think about. And I really think that the debate about the right that is going on today, I mean, obviously, there's people that write intelligently about the right, but the sort of mainstream liberal debate on the right really misses the extent to which the ascendance of some kind of new right wing formation, which is often called fascist. I think I agree with you. I think the picture is more complicated than that. I think we're dealing with something different. It doesn't mean that it's not scary and bad. But I think there's a terminological slipperiness in this whole debate. And I think as you pointed out and believe it was an intervention you wrote in the nation, fascism has a long lineage as just a sort of a term of abuse in American political discourse. It's been used across the political spectrum really as a kind of floating signifier for bad, basically. But I think that the debate has really missed the extent to which so much of what we're seeing on the right now is epiphenomenal of a wider crisis in a liberal order that remains hegemony. And it's explicitly not forward looking. I mean, one thing famously about the Nazis, they were reactionary modernists. There's nothing forward looking whatsoever about trying to explicitly make America great again what it was like. So again, I think this is why it's like very difficult for me to get excited about politics just because it does seem to me still a bit frozen. But of course only time will tell. There's a crisis in the White House. What's the crisis? And the president's top advisors have been called together. Oh, geez. The sexual misconduct occurred inside the Oval Office with the election only days away. How much will this scandal affect the outcome? The president spent the weekend pressing the flash. He wasn't campaigning. He was dating. Now, Washington's top spin doctor. We can distract a press for 11 days to the election. I think we got a chance. It has an idea. We can't afford it more. We're going to have the appearance of a war. But he can't pull it off without Hollywood's top producer. Do I know you? We have some mutual friends in Washington. Why come to me? We want you to produce. You want me to produce your war? Not a war. It's a pageant. We need a theme, a song, some visuals. We need, you know, it's a pageant. Well, we move on to 1997's "Wag the Dog," part of a spate of big studio prestige, cynical politics movies of the late Clinton era, thinking primary colors, bulworth being two other examples. This movie, whatever else you might think of it, has sort of entered the lexicon. It entered the lexicon pretty quickly after its release because of a series of bombing campaigns that the Clinton administration did in Kosovo and Iraq and Sudan that happened to coincide with major milestones in the Lewinsky scandal. Long before Barry Levinson gave us "Man of the Year," long before David Mamet's far-right turn, they made this movie that's become something of an American political touchstone. I'll say off the top, I found this movie sort of clever but also somewhat limited. I think it sort of states its idea very early on, and then you get the idea over and over again. It's interesting to me because I think it actually reflects what I think is wrong with them a lot of ways. The left wing thing, not even thinkers, that people on the left approach things and that is like giving propaganda and the media an incredible amount of power that I don't think they have. I'm actually reviewing Chomsky's but it'll probably be his last book that he co-wrote with Nathan Robinson of Current Affairs and that's going to be one of my main arguments, which is that it's a totally misunderstood, it's like a very mid-century understanding of media communication and I think placing far too much causal weight on the media as a prime mover in politics. I don't want to take us back in the conversation here but I mean because this is a film that is about the phenomenon of a calculated political deception. I mean something that I've thought a lot about in these kind of periodic manias we have around certain liberal politicians who are often quite bland and vanilla is that a lot of the deceptions that happen in contemporary politics and it's like yeah, the media is a participant but the other ingredient is kind of wish fulfillment. There's a willingness, at least with all kinds of contemporary political deceptions, there's a willingness on the part of many people to be deceived, to see something, like we have the internet, we have some ability to check our perceptions against objective reality and a lot of times it doesn't matter, like it doesn't matter how many times you tell people, Joe Biden's actually not an honest politician, he's one of the most pathologically dishonest politicians in the last few decades of American politics. If people don't want to believe that, it doesn't matter how many examples you give them. So I will say that this film, even though yeah I think it's reasonably clever, it does run a little contrary to my own feelings about how a lot of political deceptions actually worked. I will also say that Will and I have now watched so many politics movies for this podcast that I feel my ability to evaluate whether they're good or bad is somewhat blinkered and corrupted at this point. This is a digression but about a year ago, my girlfriend was actually watching the aforementioned movie Dave and I sat in, I don't know why, but she was and I sat in and started watching it and I thought oh my god, I feel like I'm at work now, I can't watch this. There's nothing even really wrong with this movie, it's just too painful. I actually do have a question about the presidential movie list. How do we know it was the president's watching and not someone in the White House? It was like we know Bill was watching it and not, you know, his brother Roger? That's a great question, I don't know, I think if the president's not watching it, then it's not, it's not logged. It's his house, it's his house, he lives there. Yeah, what are you like, you're going to crash on his sofa and watch cable, like what do you, what scenario are you like? You know, maybe Roger's over for the weekend and you know, he rents showgirls or something and now it gets listed. It's not pay per view though, I mean, like they have to reel up the White House movie room and everything, like I think it's a bigger deal. Well, is he the only one who's allowed to be in the movie room? No, it sounds like we don't know. Again, I think like to log in. There's probably something ceremonial about it, right? Like, it's entered into the record. But getting back to "Wag the Dog", there's a moment early in this movie that's kind of one of the key moments where Robert De Niro who plays this master spin doctor says, "We remember the slogans, we can't even remember the fucking wars, you know why? That's show business, that's why we're here. Naked girl covered in napalm, fee for victory, five marines raising the flag. You remember the picture 50 years from now, you've forgotten the war." And you know, as he says those, the director Barry Levinson cuts to, you know, the iconic photos, the photos from Vietnam or the Second World War. And something about this line, maybe we can work through this together, it left a bad taste in my mouth. And I think I have a fundamental disagreement here about the particular cynical stance this movie is taking where I think one reason why those photos resonate so much is because they crystallized, they created a symbol for a feeling that was circulating prior. They didn't necessarily or they didn't single-handedly shape the feeling or create the feeling. You see the naked girl running from the napalm in the Vietnam War photo. Yeah, it crystallized this widespread discontent. I think there's a cynicism in this movie that's like, "Well, people are stupid and they wouldn't have hated the Vietnam War if they didn't see a picture that told the dumb hogs, you know, what to think." I think that's right. And then this gets into the question of what is political communication and what is propaganda? And these are things that are not easily distinguishable because in some sense, all political communication is propagandistic. So the way that the initial theorists of propaganda would delineate them is that propaganda tries to override reason while political communication engages in audience in exchange of reason, right? It's not dictating, but it's communicating. But I think in practice, this is basically almost impossible to actually delineate and to distinguish. So there's a fundamental, I think, problem in how we talk about propaganda. I mean, this is a problem with at least the popularization of Chomsky, I thought, which is like, everything is propaganda, which is also true in a sense. Everything reinforces the status quo. When you read the New York Times, it's coming from a particular perspective, even though it's not saying like we're liberal capitalists or whatever. But then, again, that makes propaganda basically nothing, right? The sort of unique elements of it initially were the spectacular, like in the literal meaning of the term spectacle elements of it. But like, obviously, that's not necessarily even though in this movie that is the form the communication takes, it's not necessarily the form that all political communication takes. So there's like a fundamental problem here is trying to determine what is propaganda and what is political communication. But I think the most important thing at least that I take from it, and I think this is in line of what you're saying, Will, is that political communication or propaganda is ultimately only successful in terms of material realities, right? The guy wrote my book about Hunch Byer. He had a quote that I thought was really nice. He's like, I'm going to paraphrase, but he's like, you're not going to be able to convince people who have bombs dropped on them that their bombs aren't being dropped on them. The point being that there's a material reality that propaganda and political communication needs to reflect for it to be effective, but it's something that this movie doesn't really talk about, right? It's just like, if the media decides that they want you to focus on something, you sheep will focus on it. That was my take from it. But I wonder what you got if you guys think that was, I mean, it's, it's cynical about the American public and how, you know, dumb we all are, we'll believe anything, haha. But it's also wish casting for people who are in showbiz or political spin guys or these folks who think that they can create reality. And David Mement is one of them. And like everything else he writes, there's no subtlety to this movie. That's the thing that strikes me the most. There's absolutely no subtle. He beats you over the head with it, which sometimes works. Obviously, he's written some great things. Sometimes it seems to me. But, you know, this is, this is like, you know, we're really creating reality every second of the day. And it doesn't matter what's actually happening. What matters is what we tell you, which I don't think bears out as as Danny has said. I mean, I wonder sometimes like the context of when this movie came out immediately before the Lewinsky scandal broke and Bill Clinton bombed the aspirin factory in Sudan and everybody was like, Oh my God, it's wagged the dog just like the movie. Like, I wonder if that if that hadn't happened, I wonder if we would even be talking about this movie now, if we would have the kind of legs that that it has, if that cultural connection hadn't happened after the fact. But as a as a story, it's just like, you know, it's it's sort of like, this is the way I wish the world worked. Like, you know, I tell you a story and you believe it because you're an idiot. And reality means nothing. It's just about what I spin to you. But, you know, I don't I don't know how realistic that is. Well, I guess we should we should say, you know, in brief what the movie is is about before we go any further. I mean, movie summary, I feel like that's actually pretty important. Sometimes that's important. You know, I'm assuming, you know, most people listening are relatively familiar with this film, you know, whether you've seen it or not, it is kind of a, you know, for better or worse, a cultural touchstone. The movie is is about an unpopular president who is running for reelection. I don't I don't know if we actually do even see the president. He's just kind of a structuring absence as well as fond of saying, but you know, he's caught up in a number of scandals. He's accused of sexual misconduct. There's some kind of scandal alluded to about an illegal immigrant nanny. And so this guy Conrad Breen, played by Robert De Niro, a sort of Machiavellian spin doctor type is brought in comes up with this idea of basically engineering a war that doesn't really exist, you know, filming a war with the Republic of Albania. He hires Dustin Hoffman, who is a Hollywood producer, who I guess the only salient point about his character is that he feels like as a producer, he does not get enough credit because all the credit goes to the director. So the movie is about a series of hoaxes that are contrived as part of this jingoist hysteria that they're creating in order to salvage the president's reelection campaign. Their existing strategy is not working. I was kind of amused. We kept seeing these ads throughout the movie that are just like these two guys on a racetrack or something and they're like, let's keep America working, folks. Don't change horses in midstream, which is, you know, exactly the kind of stupid commercial that you would see, particularly in the 1990s. Like my daddy always used to say, and I live by it. Never change horses in midstream. Never change horses. Sounds like a smart bet to me. Yeah, always stick with a winner. Keep America working. Don't change horses in midstream. Just to respond to what you all said, I mean, I will say that I do think there are a number of real world political deceptions that the movies either channeling or sort of predicting. Two of them that I'm going to name here were both sort of found out so we can debate their effectiveness. But they do seem like real world examples of the kinds of things this movie is depicting. I mean, you have this idea they come up with after the rival campaign basically conspires with the CIA to come out and say, oh, the war is over. And they come up with a thing about where Woody Harrelson is a chumid, you know, a soldier crap behind it. And the old shoe, which was like, actually I didn't, like that was a little confusing what they did with the song. Yeah. So they, yeah. So what Danny's talking about is they can try of a song. They have Willie Nelson record a song, which then they stick in the Library of Congress and pretend is like an old 1930s folk song. And then they discover it. And because the guys name becomes a meme. Yeah, it becomes a meme before memes. They turn into a meme. But I mean, you know, it was hard for me to watch this and not think of the whole Jessica Lynch saga or something like that where the Pentagon, it seemed like did just contrive this, you know, heroic story of the rescue of this army private in Iraq, which, you know, she herself said, well, that's, that's just not what happened. So I think that's a perfect example, right? But when you look at what happened in retrospect, and Derek and or you guys correct me from wrong, but basically the support for the war traced almost directly how the material realities of the US how the US was doing, right? Like once the US was doing bad and oh, five oh six, it's like, oh, the war sucks. There was that brief resurgence during the surge. And there was like, oh wait, the war sucks again, right? So like the Pentagon could like try to create these stories. The effects to me are not as important as other things. This film is actually based on a novel. You know, I think it's called American Hero by a writer. I'm not familiar with Larry Binehart. You know, the plot of that, as I understand, is that Operation Desert Storm is just like scripted and choreographed. And, you know, I mean, I do think Desert Storm is very much the template for a lot of the satire in this movie. That's what it's drawing on. I mean, there's also the, what was the name of the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador, Naira, who testified before the US Congress about all these, you know, horrors that she was seeing in Kuwait. And then, you know, they gave her a fake name or something. And, you know, it was entirely made up. Now the Gulf War was popular with the American public throughout the time it was going on. And it was something where the media was really taking the lead and sort of framing it. It was like 24-hour infotainment. It was a big coming out party for CNN, which had been a sort of bit player in network TV. Before that, they just decided, "Well, we're just going to embed directly with the military and bring you these kind of live reports so that people watching at home can almost feel like this is gamified for them now." But I don't know, while the film is operating on the basis of these sort of real-world examples, I do take your point, Danny. I think it's a strong one that ultimately, there's a certain point at which material reality just kind of overrides your attempts to sort of create artifice around it. I didn't particularly like this movie, I have to say, because again, after the first 10 minutes, I sort of got what it was doing. I think it's interesting that the movie's sort of cynicism and contempt for, I don't know, the American people is such that we almost never see them. It's a movie that's entirely limited to the cloistered DC and Hollywood environs. There's no sense that there's any sort of grassroots momentum for this deception. There's a sense that it's an entirely top-down phenomenon and it's not really clear to what extent it's tapping into pre-existing popular sentiment. I found the movie again just limited because it's just the same idea over and over and over again. It's just like a series of deceptions, but they're all basically the same deception. And for the last 30 minutes, I didn't really know why we were still here, you know? Yeah, especially when Dustin Hoffman's spoiler alert gets killed, it happens kind of abruptly. The movie got kind of abrupt toward the end. It feels like there's supposed to be a character arc that doesn't happen. Dustin Hoffman just suddenly decides at the end that, wait a minute, I want credit for all of this. And after going along with it, the entire movie is like, well, screw you guys, I'm going to talk about this publicly and let everybody know. And Robert De Niro's like, we'll kill you. And he's like, I'm going to do it anyway. Yeah, like I'm going to do it anyways. Yeah, what is that like saying about Hollywood? I don't know that they want credit. I mean, as much of a touchstone as this movie has become, I don't think you could make this movie the same nowadays because everyone has been black-pilled or red-pilled. And they don't make political movies. I mean, like Hollywood is in such a fucked state that they are like, this genre is totally just something that's not made. But also, Luke, I think earlier you said that you'd felt that politics revived in some way. One of the reasons why that early Robert De Niro monologue, where he's talking about how, you know, you don't remember the war, you remember the photos. One of the reasons why it rubbed me the wrong way is, you know, when Levinson cuts to those images and particular cuts to that iconic image of the little girl running from the napalm, there's never any thought that anybody making this movie actually feels something about that image. To them, that image is merely an empty signifier. I think it would be harder to make a movie that's that cynical now. This comes from a particular time and place. I'm sorry, we say it so often on the podcast, but this comes from that end of history moment, where, you know, since all the problems have been solved, these images that once created so much outrage are now just empty signifiers of, you know, something that was once felt. But I think I actually sort of found the use of that image a little bit offensive. Well, I guess there is one reading of this film just thinking about this as you guys were talking. I mean, I agree it's an end of history film, but I think it's a late end of history film. I think it's a very second term Clinton era film. I'm thinking about the War Room documentary from, what, 1992, which? The Rage in Cajun, right? James Carville, yeah. Hell yeah. The film that introduced us to, yeah, the, you know, charismatic dynamo James Carville and George Stephanopoulos, you know, this film, which was really reveling. I mean, I think it is such a quintessential film about the Clinton era, you know, because it's, you know, it's all filmed, it's all the campaign to elect Clinton, obviously, but I mean, that film is just reveling in like the wizardry of these backroom boys. There's a scene in it, Will and I talk about a lot where it's, you know, he's had a debate with Bush and then you see Stephanopoulos going from room to room, like all the little media spin rooms after and they're just like, Oh, say George, say Bush seemed low energy. And then he just goes from room to room is like, Oh, we thought Bush was low energy. And the film is showing you that and you're supposed to go like, Wow, that's so cool. I didn't realize it was done this way. And so that's a film, which is it's saying like, Hey, look, the public narrative is completely contrived. But that's a good thing because we have these cool operatives who are savvy and they elected this rock and roll ass president, first president from the rock and roll generation as the trailer for that movie says. And then you got wag the dog, which is from 1997. And it's basically about the same thing. But it's saying actually, no, this is, this is bad and scary. And I do think that's an interesting turn that even by 1997, what five years after the war room, Hollywood is giving us a film that is basically taking the same idea, but he's become very jaundiced and cynical about it. But it's in the service of no message, right? What like, what was the message? What was that? Oh, history is still over. So there can't be a message. It's 1997 for God's sake. What is the prescription? I think the prescription is basically, this is the reality. So surrender to it. Basically, yeah, I mean, it wasn't it wasn't the positive message of increased media literacy. There was really no upshot, right? It's just like they do things. And then it ends, basically, Robert De Niro like wins, kind of, I guess. And the president, presumably the president's reelected. And then I guess there is that little newscast at the end, which suggests that an actual war with Albania may be about to happen. So I guess the film is trying to say like, deception like this has real world consequences or something like that. It's not a huge surprise to me that David Mamet had that far right turn that he had after, because I mean, this movie fits pretty cleanly in his body of work, which is so often about like con men and deceptions. But it's not surprising that he had that turn because there's no indication that he really believes anything. Well, it's certain. Yeah, there really is no upshot either politically or in terms of the media or in terms of propaganda. It was almost like a fun movie of like people being really good at their jobs in that sense. It was Sorkin-esque. But then like, I guess the sort of Hoffman turn at the end, that to me was so crucial. And I have no idea what they were trying to say with it. Like they were buddies. So and then just like, okay, like, I guess we'll have to kill him. I suppose I found the movie sort of interesting in the current moment, not to be too on the nose about it. But you know, with the situation in Gaza, as well as many other situations, there's been a disjuncture about, you know, this movie is a relic of a time when there are certain big media enterprises that basically give you all the news. And it would have been easier to filter reality. You know, the first Gulf War, the second Gulf War, even for the most part, there was a very clean narrative about them that was presented in the media. And you were only exposed to certain sorts of images. That's not the case currently. And yet the big media apparatuses are still giving you the sanitized version of reality. And there's this odd disjuncture disassociation from reality that I think a lot of people feel coming from this. I hope to God, David Mamet in his current state, revisit some of these themes and in "Wag the Dog II" to see how they've changed. Point of information. I'm unaware of David Mamet's turn. So for those listening at home, can you tell us about that? I believe he was a 9/11 Republican. But I highly recommend you check out his movie Spartan, which I think came out in 2004. I don't know if you guys have seen it, but it's a political thriller about getting black pills. One of his better works. Yeah, he's a pretty much, you know, on every issue or right-wing guy now and switched on a dime. He's actually working on a movie now. I think it was just announced that he's going to be doing a sort of Hunter Biden-ish film for the same producers who did "Sound of Freedom." So it's something to look forward to. Oh, hell yeah. I'm sure it will be very on point, but it's very subtle, very kind of fun. Well, he's interested in con man. He's interested in deceptions and games and, you know, what greater con man than the Biden crime family. Mamet always struck me as someone who became conservative because he was around so many annoying Hollywood liberals. There's like a species of person who was like just so annoyed with Hollywood liberalism, which granted is extraordinarily annoying because it all didn't- Yeah, yes. It never comes down to giving money away. It's all everything but that. And so I think there's like a fundamental sourness to that that people like don't love. And I think Mamet, you know, having dealt with annoying Hollywood for decades. He always struck me as like that sort of, he doesn't have any like, because he doesn't follow the eternal science of historical material. So, you know, and without that sort of guiding thing, you could kind of float around. And he always struck me as sort of reactive to annoying Hollywood liberalism. Who's got the story? Hey, tell you one of those two. Whatever doesn't make of it's two. It's a story and it breaks. They're gonna have to run with it. How long we got till it breaks? Front day to Washington Post tomorrow. Oh, well, yeah, no, that's not good. Just got to distract me. I've got less than two weeks till the election. What in the world would do that? What in the world would do that? One plot point in this movie we haven't talked about that I do think is just worthy of no, is the William H. Macy appearance as a guy from the CIA who basically shows up and says to Robert De Niro, it's like, look, we've looked into this. We've, you know, our satellites are over Albania and there's no war. And, you know, De Niro is initially able to sort of bluff him, but then eventually, you know, he seems like the CIA just cuts a deal with the other candidate. And I took note of this because I thought it was interesting that the source of the deception is, yeah, like these James Carville types. I mean, not quite, but it's like these backroom operatives or, you know, it's just like these people for hire, like the deep state is a separate thing in the film, right? And I think that's an interesting point as well. I was curious, what is your guys' response that I wasn't quite sure what to do with it? Well, the movie, I think, is a bit confused because on one hand, they're defending truth, but they're very clearly not the good guys because obviously, like, we're going to agree with the protagonist. So it's that classic confusion in these movies because, like, ideally, someone should want the truth, right? That's a good thing. But then I guess because they cut it political deal, it's not supposed to be good. But there was a tension there and a big, I thought it was a bit confused. Like, I thought a lot of this movie was a bit confused. I mean, I think you have to acknowledge the fact that if you tried to invent a war, somebody would know that you were bullshitting and it would probably, at that time be the CIA, I mean, it would be, I got maybe more obvious now than in the '90s. But if nothing else you would think, you would hope, as a good liberal institutionalist, as Mehmet was back then, you would hope that the intelligence apparatus of the United States would be competent enough to know that there's not a war going on in the Balkans that the United States is involved in. But you have to get past that plot point somehow so you can try this idea that the CIA cuts a deal with the other guy to continue the myth but to spin it in their direction. I mean, is there any reason to think that if such a deception, if there was a flailing US presidential administration that was doing something like this, is there any reason to think that the CIA wouldn't just be aiding in the deception and participating in it? I don't know, I think it's interesting that the thing the film is anxious about really is not so much the deep state, it's, yeah, as I said, it's like these these backroom types, it's Hollywood, it's spectacle, it's image. The distinction to me feels somewhat artificial because, you know, the deep state when it contrives conspiracies, phony wars, et cetera, it's perfectly capable of wielding spectacle and image itself. And I don't know, it's very 1997 to me that the film sort of makes this distinction and that it makes the CIA like its own character. Yeah, and but then again, like how much does the film want us to be worried about De Niro? I don't know, I don't think it's that word, it doesn't feel that worried about De Niro. I think it comes across as basically sympathetic. Absolutely. What you just said, Danny, I feel is making me almost flip on my previous point where I was talking about the war room because maybe we're supposed to think of De Niro, like what we're supposed to think of Carville and Steppanophilus. Maybe the movie is like, well, yeah, this is a, you know, this is a deception, but hey, you got to hand it to him, you know. But then he kills Hoffman who we're also supposed to like, this is why it's confused, right? Like, because we're definitely supposed to find Hoffman charming, 100%. Well, because in this movie's moral universe, because it has contempt for everyone and everything, the people that it has the least contempt for are the ones who are the deceivers, the ones who are in charge. So what the movie is inviting you as an audience member to do is to say, well, if this is a sewer, at least be with the guys on top of the sewer, to the extent that you sympathize with the movie, it's that it sort of flatters you into being in on the deception. I wouldn't agree with what's been said about the pacing of the final, like, I mean, it felt like there was like a whole, I think one of you said a whole character arc missing. It's very sudden, it's very abrupt. Hoffman has just disappeared after about a 30 second conversation. And this actually reminds me of certainly a lesser Barry Levinson film, but a film that Will and I have come back to again and again as like a superlative example of a confused politics movie that I guess comes out a few years after this. And that's a man of the year, a film that was marketed as like, what if John Stewart ran for president? What if John Stewart became president? Fewer people remember because who the fuck even saw that movie, but like that the third act twist is that he never even fucking got elected president. The whole movie becomes this stupid paranoia thriller about like, oh, there was some like computerized voting glitch and he actually never got elected. And the movie just undermines its own entire premise. It has no idea what the fuck it's trying to say. And so I'm actually getting shades of that in this final third act twist where it's like, okay, well, what if I just introduced one more little complication and throw people off and people will like, I don't know, mistake the ambiguity for profundity or something? Actually, I thought what was interesting about that movie Man of the Year was that at the end resisted becoming sort of fully black-pilled. You mentioned Danny that it's like missing a character arc. None of the characters change from beginning to end. And it's sort of uncompromisingly bleak in how it regards the system. But Man of the Year feels like it's made by somebody who, yeah, is 10 years older and has gotten just a little bit more scared about the world surrounding him. And so it's like, well, but but but this premise wouldn't actually happen. Anyway, check out Man of the Year if you're looking for a for a really good movie. And also another film of his we watched recently that I had never seen, but which I thought was absolutely great, flawless, wonderful satire, good morning Vietnam, which is also a slogan that you can say. And I do. Anyway, so I guess we have thoroughly sacked Wag the Dog. We've put the proverbial dog down. So guys, this is fun. Maybe the next time we collaborate, we can do a movie that I don't know, we can we can find some beauty to appreciate somewhere. Politics may be dead as we discussed earlier. History may be over, but we'll always have the movies. We'll always have the movies. That's really beautiful. That's beautiful stuff. I just aren't ending our podcast with we'll always have the movies. I'm not here to justify the cost or to count up all the laws that's all been done before. Just can't let you feel alone with us so much love. We'll send it out to you.