Analysis Of What Calling A Tail A Leg By Barry Welson

‘How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling it a leg doesn’t make it a leg.’ What calling a tail a leg does do, however, is affect our perspective of it. Whether one is inclined to see such a thing, is what decides how many legs we see a dog with, regardless of the actuality. Who we are, and how our perspectives materialise, has a great impact on our reality: the way we see the world, react to events, and make decisions. Often, an objective reality, the way things really are, the four legged canine, gets left behind, worth little in the face of stubborn views and beliefs. The opposite can also be true, with the actuality of a widely accepted reality refusing to lie dormant in the face of beliefs, the truth pushing

Often, this can change ones view on the objective, and cause us to construct, and believe, a reality that has little to do with fact. This is clear in Barry Levinson’s satirical comment on modern day politics in America, and much of the Western world, where unbeknownst to the public, their very participation in democracy is being swayed by the media. It is the preconceptions of the American people that make this so possible. The public trust the media, they believe that what they are being shown is true, and that it is all there is to say about it. This is evident when we see the interview near the end of the film, putting the president’s success down to ‘commercials, commercials, commercials’. This ignorance is a focus of Levinson’s, and we see the very response of the American people in Stanley’s response to the president’s book, ‘I never looked at the cover I just looked at what was signed to me’. It is this same trust that what is directed at you is enough that resulted in such a ruse being maintained, amidst Albania ‘screaming their defence’ to the war that united the American people behind their president. The presidential success was not due to commercials, as much as the media insists, with their repetitive and useless ‘Don’t change horses mid stream’, it was the war, the distraction. That is the actuality, and trust in the media to deliver the

This is demonstrated in Wag the Dog, where for all Stanley's desires, the reality of the situation was not one that awarded him the credit. Stanley saw the world through the mask of his ego, his vision that this is his project, his desire to prevent any one ‘editorialis[ing]’ on his brain child. He holds himself to a ‘higher calling, art’, however the reality is that this is not a piece of art. This is business, and this is a pragmatic exercise in diversion, the means to ‘distract them’, and this success, with there being 'no mention of the firefly girl’ after war was declared, does not change its purpose. While for Stanley, it is ‘the best work [he’s] ever done’, something he did ‘for the credit', that can not eventuate. Brean is in control, even if Stanley is the producer, even if it is ‘[his] picture’, and this actuality will not be changed. Stanley’s death was the reality of refusing to accept his own, and demonstrates that seeing something one way does not necessarily make it so, nor does it deplete what it actually is. Death of a Salesman additionally shows this unfaltering nature of aspects of reality, in Willy being forced to face his own incompetence. We see his belief in his own superiority, asserting ‘I could outsell them’ when we see that reality has been contrary for years evident in his flashback