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Homicide and Oz. David MametDavid Alan Mamet (born November 30, 1947) is an American playwright, screenwriter, director and poet born in Flossmoor, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Educated at Goddard College and a founding member of the Atlantic Theater Company, Mamet first gained ac co-wrote the screenplay. The film is based on a novelA novel is a long or extended work of fiction written in prose, usually in the form of a story. It is longer and more complex than a short story or novella (ie. 40,000+ words), and it is not bound by the restrictions of plays and poetry. The word "novel", American HeroAmerican Hero is a novel written by Larry Beinhart in 1993. The book formed the inspiration and basis for Wag the Dog and is soon to be republished, following many years being out of print, under the title Wag The Dog: A Novel''. by Larry BeinhartLarry Beinhart is an American Edgar Award winning author. Beinhart's novels include: You Get What You Pay For No One Rides For Free American Hero (soon to be republished as Wag the Dog: A Novel The Librarian''..
The film explores serious themes, such as the manipulation of the mass mediaFor other uses, of the word Media see media (disambiguation). The media is the whole body of communications that reach large numbers of the public via radio, television, movies, magazines, newspapers and the World Wide Web. The term was coined in the 1920 and public opinionFor the book by Walter Lippmann, see Public Opinion. Public opinion is the aggregate of individual attitudes or beliefs held by the adult population. Jurgen Habermas, a German, contributed the idea of "Public Sphere" to the discussion of public opinion., with a comic sensibility. The film drew attention at the time for similarities to the ClintonWhile working as an intern at the White House, Monica Lewinsky had a short-term sexual relationship with President Bill Clinton. The news of this extra-marital affair, and the resulting investigation and impeachment, became known as the Monica Lewinsky sc sex scandal, although the movie also makes reference to the first Gulf War as an example of war used as an electoral tactic. The idea of war as a creation of the media is not, of course, original to the movie. The French postmodernist Jean Baudrillard's ideas in particular are relevant to a discussion of the movie — see for example his essay The Gulf War Did Not Take Place.
The title of the movie is taken from the joke: "Why does a dog wag its tail? Because a dog is smarter than its tail. If the tail was smarter, the tail would wag the dog." Interpretations differ as to the meaning of this metaphor. Some suggest the dog is public opinion, and the tail represents the media; the dog is the media, and the tail is political campaigns; or the dog is the people, and the tail is the government.
The video cassette version contains an extended trailer after the credits that has commentary about the movie in the context of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky by the producers of the movie and Tom Brokaw.