MOCKUMENTARIES

Some of the funniest comedies ever made have been spoofs of documentaries or satires that look like serious documentaries. These are called mockumentaries and they often include interviews with what seem to be, or sometimes are, real people in the real world. 

Mockumentaries are media texts (radio programmes, short films, feature films, television programmes, and any number of online materials) which ‘look’ and/or ‘sound’ like documentaries or realitybased media. Mockumentaries use the same characteristics as documentaries and related media, such as an authoritative narrator or on-screen presenter, apparently ‘real’ footage of events, photographs, interviews with apparent ‘experts’ and ‘eyewitnesses’, and other familiar ways of representing reality.

Mockumentaries ‘work’ because of the assumptions and expectations that we as viewers have of representations of reality. When we see a text that looks and sounds real, we tend to begin reading and responding to it as factual. At some point a mockumentary will ‘flag’ that it is fictional. This might happen through promotional material, or become obvious when watching the mockumentary itself, or not be revealed until later.

Many filmmakers and television producers who create mockumentaries are not interested in trying to ‘raise our consciousness’, or in forcing us to think more deeply about how we read and interpret different forms of media. We need to consider a variety of reasons why media producers themselves are using mockumentaries: simply as a novelty; for promotional purposes; as an innovative dramatic style; or for parody and satire.

Many popular mockumentaries are simply looking to create humour by using the documentary as the ‘straight person’ in a comedy double-act. They make an absurd subject funnier by taking an apparently rational perspective on it. Others incorporate a number of popular culture references, often building a satiric commentary on other media.

Some of the most popular mockumentaries include This is Spinal Tap which documents the career of a rock group, Waiting for Guffman, about an amateur theatre group, and Best in Show which looks at the world of competitive dog shows. Other very funny mockumentaries include Sacha Baran Cohen’s Borat and Bruno and Shane and Clayton Jacobson’s Australian mockumentary Kenny which documents the life and career of a plumber who specializes in portable toilets.