Wag the Dog, Levinson problematizes the efficacy of artificially generated cinematic
images. Although its films entertain billions of satisfied customers across the globe, is
the entire culture of Hollywood complicit in the destruction of meaning and reality?8
Does Levinson freely confess that one day we will not be able to separate virtual
warfare from true violence because of the nefarious effects of bombarding the modern
subject with too much Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI)?
For Baudrillard, CGI is clearly one of the main tools responsible for the murder of
the real. Elucidating that it is because of CGI that we can no longer even talk about
signs of the real anymore, Baudrillard asserts, “The computer-generated image is like
this too, a digital image which is entirely fabricated, has no real referent and from which,
by contrast with analogue images, the negative itself has disappeared” (The Intelligence
of Evil 28). The philosopher reiterates, “The ultimate violence done to the image is the
violence of the computer-generated image […] in the process of computer-generation
the referent no longer exists and the real itself no longer has cause to come to pass,
being produced immediately as Virtual Reality” (The Intelligence of Evil 95). While
watching Wag the Dog, the viewer might initially laugh at the absurdity of an alleged
terrorist victim running with a bag of potato chips that is concealed by a superimposed
image of a kitten. However, the gravity of the message that Levinson is trying to convey
soon destabilizes the spectator. Does CGI create a hyper-reality or a space in which
human anguish is trivialized to such epic proportions that the immense suffering of
casualties of war is erased from public consciousness? Will CGI and its sterilization of
war ensure that the horrors of bloody conflicts are wiped clean from our memory? In
8
In America, Baudrillard examines the global sociocultural impact of Hollywood stars and music
divas.
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