History Film / WagTheDog

* AcceptableTargets: In-universe, the Albanians are this.
-->'''Ames:''' Why Albania?
-->'''Brean:''' Why not?
-->'''Ames:''' What have they done to us?
-->'''Brean:''' What have they done ''for'' us? What do you know about them?
-->'''Ames:''' Nothing.
-->'''Brean:''' See? They keep to themselves. Shifty. Untrustable.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wag_the_dog_9.jpg]]

* TheUnreveal: We never get to know if the president did, in fact, have sex with the Firefly Girl.

* ArtisticLicenseAwards: Motss repeatedly rants that there is no Oscar for producing. However, the producer is the one who receives the award for Best Film.

* ItsAllAboutMe: Motss goes off the deep end by the end of the film, ranting about how he'll tell the media everything because he wants the credit for pulling it off, not the reward he was offered. He's so insulted that he hasn't got any prestige or media attention that he shrugs off Brean's warnings and makes it clear that he wants everyone to know. [[spoiler: And it gets him killed.]]

* SmartPeoplePlayChess: Subverted. After a particularly devious play in their campaign to create a fake war, the film producer remarks to the spin doctor, "I'll bet you're great at chess." The spin doctor replies, "I would be, if I could remember how all the pieces moved."

* CaughtByArrogance: A Hollywood director gets tapped as part of a campaign to get a [[SleazyPolitician sleazy president]] reelected by inventing a fake war and making the president look like a competent wartime leader. However at the end of the film the director is absolutely furious that the president's bumbling campaign team and their [[StylisticSuck genuinely awful campaign ads]] are getting all the credit for the president's reelection and the director will never be able to reveal the truth. He declares that he's going to tell the truth about what happened... [[KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade and promptly suffers a fatal]] "[[TheCoronerDothProtestTooMuch heart attack]]".

* ExecutiveMeddling: An In-Universe example. During the filming of the fake footage of the Albanian war, Motts wants to have the refugee holding a calico kitten as she's seen "escaping", but when the President is informed of this during filming he insists for whatever reason that the kitten be white. Motts is less than pleased to say the least.
--> '''Motts:''' [[LampshadeHanging I hate it when they start to meddle.]] [[TranquilFury Can we have a white one please, he wants a white one...]]
* TheFaceless: The film almost always has the main characters talking to "the president" on the phone. The one time the President is on camera, he is in shadows and seen from the back only. On the other hand, his opponent is frequently shown in TV ads and on talk shows. His name isn't said either- his campaign ads just have 'Re-elect the President' as a tag line.

* HopeSpot: After he gets shot the first time, Motts stares at [[spoiler:Willie Schumann]]'s body and excitedly yells to the others that the man's still alive, only to be [[InstantlyProvenWrong cut off by a second gunshot.]]

* InventedIndividual: To make the entirely fake war in Albania more "real" Hollywood producer Stanley Motss (Dustin Hoffman) creates the personality of a special operations soldier: "Old Shoe". A series of setbacks (including the fact that the person they used died before his staged return) forces them to explain his death. They even mount an AstroTurf memorial by throwing tennis shoes in trees.

* POVSequel: Producer Stanley Motss claims to have made an extremely successful film re-telling Moby Dick from the perspective of the white whale.

** The terrible "You don't change horses in midstream" ads and how much Motts hates them.

* ShoutOut: "When the fit hits the shan" was, famously, the line that inspired Creator/RogerZelazny to write ''Literature/LordOfLight''. Since a proposed film version was part of the [=CIA=] operation to rescue hostages from the Iranian embassy siege in 1979, it may be a subtle hint as to this film's real life inspiration.

* BlackComedy

''Wag the Dog'' is a 1997 political {{black comedy}} film, co-written by Creator/DavidMamet and directed by Barry Levinson.

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Dustin Hoffman based Motss look and mannerisms on real-world producer Creator/RobertEvans. Evans is said to have joked on occasion that he was ''really'' good in that film.

** Despite being knee-deep in a cover-up that has far wider implications, Winifred is more obsessed with ensuring there are no illegal immigrants involved.
*** The farmer that rescues them after the plane crash actually turns out to be an illegal immigrant. The next scene shows him being fast-tracked into US Citizenship.

* SuspiciouslyAproposMusic: Quickly pressed into vinyl and smuggled into the Library of Congress.

** [[{{Squick}} You sure you wanna know?]]
** There's another example: at the end of the film, there's a news flash telling us that an Albanian terrorist organisation has claimed responsibility for a recent bombing. We don't find out if it's real or fake, who's running things now that [[spoiler: Motss is dead]], or why, if it's real, they'd want the war to continue.

* AdamWesting: Willie Nelson shows up as a thinly veiled copy of himself, portrayed as a redneck corporate sellout who never actually manages to complete a song they want him to record.

Conrad decides to create a fictional war with UsefulNotes/{{Albania}}. He recruits Hollywood producer Stanley Motss (Creator/DustinHoffman) to create the illusion of the ongoing war. Actors play war orphans, an army convict is cast as a war hero, etc. All broadcast by American networks as real news. They take advantage of the relative obscurity of Albania among the public to make up details as they go.

* InvisiblePresident: The film almost always has the main characters talking to "the president" on the phone. The one time the President is on camera, he is in shadows and seen from the back only. On the other hand, his opponent is frequently shown in TV ads and on talk shows. His name isn't said either- his campaign ads just have 'Re-elect the President' as a tag line.

Conrad decides to create a fictional war with UsefulNotes/Albania. He recruits Hollywood producer Stanley Motss (Creator/DustinHoffman) to create the illusion of the ongoing war. Actors play war orphans, an army convict is cast as a war hero, etc. All broadcast by American networks as real news. They take advantage of the relative obscurity of Albania among the public to make up details as they go.

Conrad decides to create a fictional war with Albania. He recruits Hollywood producer Stanley Motss (Creator/DustinHoffman) to create the illusion of the ongoing war. Actors play war orphans, an army convict is cast as a war hero, etc. All broadcast by American networks as real news. They take advantage of the relative obscurity of Albania among the public to make up details as they go.

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Dustin Hoffman based Motss look and mannerisms on real-world producer RobertEvans. Evans is said to have joked on occasion that he was ''really'' good in that film.

* ShoutOut: "When the fit hits the shan" was, famously, the line that inspired Creator/RogerZelazny to write Literature/''LordOfLight''. Since a proposed film version was part of the [=CIA=] operation to rescue hostages from the Iranian embassy siege in 1979, it may be a subtle hint as to this film's real life inspiration.