What Fourth Wall?

This post is self indulgent. The time has come to talk about one of my favourite genres – the mockumentary. A mockumentary is a facetious or satirical work presented in the style of a documentary. A portmanteau of “mock” and “documentary”, a mockumentary gives the guise of a documentary by having the typical features such as side interviews, voiceovers and handheld cameras but it is in fact an orchestrated work to mock their chosen subjects. This is different to a parody because it is less on the nose, it is not necessarily copying one documentary in particular, but adopts the style to add some realism to topics. Also, despite the “mock” name, I would argue that parodies can be blatantly dictates their humorous opinion to the audience, but a mockumentary presents the situations for the audience to analyse however we please. 

Examples include:

• ‘The Office’

• ‘Modern Family’

• ‘Parks and Recreation’

• ‘Abbott Elementary’
• ‘This Country’

• ‘Ja’mie Private School Girl’

• ‘High School Musical The Musical The Series’

• ‘St Denis Medical’

• ‘Borat’

• ‘Best In Show’

• ‘Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping’

• ‘I’m Still Here’

• ‘Take the Money and Run’

• ‘This is Spinal Tap’

Mock History

The most famous mockumentary is ‘This is Spinal Tap’ (1984) – they are known for coining the term. While other films before then have been called a mockumentary, this movie’s popularity skyrocketed it. Also, it introduced a mockumentary that was subtle in its humour. A previous one, like ‘Take the Money and Run’ (1969) was a mockumentary that was intentionally comedic, almost slapstick. But ‘This is Spinal Tap’ centred around a fake British rock band claiming that they were “the loudest rock band in the world”. It was ridiculous but no-one acted like it was. The band was delusional and bad and it is the blueprint for the mockumentaries that we see today. The unconventional zoom ins with handheld cameras, the confused stares, the outlandish statements. However, the audience of the time didn’t really get it. They were asking why the director, Rob Reiner, would make such a bad documentary about a terrible rock band that nobody had ever heard of.

Because it’s satire, beloved.

The band, Spinal Tap, actually played by comedic American actors ended up playing concerts in real life because the people that got it, got it! And it set off many more mockumentaries, most notably by Christopher Guest who played one of the band members.

Tongue in cheek humour has always been around. Sarcasm is sarcasm. But when presented as a documentary, the humour part can be missed and people can genuinely think that it is a serious think piece. For instance, in 1957 for April Fools’ Day, BBC released a documentary on ‘Panorama’ claiming that the time of year has come in Switzerland for them to harvest spaghetti trees – trees that grew spaghetti. You can watch the 3 min doc here. As a result, Britons started contacting the BBC asking how to grow spag bowl from their back garden. I hope this goes without saying but spaghetti is made from wheat and flour and not grown in the ground! And yet, people believed it because of the way it was presented. So it begs the question of what can be permissible when packaged as a documentary? What can people get away with?

How far can mocking go?

Well, we have seen some extremes. Works like ‘Borat’, ‘Nathan For You’, ‘Brüno’ and ‘I’m Still Here’, take a more guerrilla style to their mockumentaries by having protagonists immerse themselves in their character and go out into society to see what happens. Sacha Baron Cohen is known for this and it is notably seen in ‘Borat’, where he plays the titular character and remains in the role while he mocks different races, religions and genders all while trying to kidnap Pamela Anderson to make her his wife – all to an unsuspecting public who believe that Borat is real. Throughout his provocative mockumentary career, Baron Cohen has been chased after, shot at and threatened to name a few, but he argues that his aim is to “expose American bigotry, xenophobia and sexism as the title character’s unwitting scene partners reveal their true beliefs.” There is a beauty in the “mock” of the documentary only being known by the cast and crew because it shows how true society reacts to diverse people. It is compelling and confronting to see society react when their pressure points are hit. We can find humour in it, but also a reality check. To tackle such large societal problems through humour, one has to be bold in character – you would need to be a Sacha Baron Cohen, a Nathan Fielder, a Chris Lilley (read my post about him to see more).

Borat played by Sacha Baron Cohen. Sourced from Rotten Tomatoes

The fun in the everyday

Other wacky characters that we see in mockumentaries may not be there as a critical mirror to society, but they are still funny and telling. Many of them are rooted in a real-life idea and are centred around something the everyday – an office, a school, a hospital, a generational family. It’s the characters that make the setting come alive. It’s more focused on the human element of comedy not necessarily the ‘ba dum tss’ laugh, but the joy in real life cringing, honesty and understandable human errors. Mockumentaries use the art of talking heads (those little side interviews that they do with the character) to relate to the characters on a more human level. Its takes away the privilege of sitting back as a viewer; you are invested now because you real the character’s real intentions, you see them break the fourth wall with a knowing look, you know the secret that their colleagues don’t. When we do grab onto the concept, it’s one of the most bingeable genres because you’re in on the joke.

These works add a levity to real life and try and maintain the documentary feel as much as possible despite being scripted. The shaky handheld camera to show that situations are unexpected, the zoom ins, the quick cutting to the next scene. The camera is intentional in its movement to provide the audience with the comedic timing that the laugh track would have provided. There are no laugh tracks in mockumentaries, you decide where the laugh goes. Mockumentaries are more intentional and they make you think – is this truly funny or not? What do I really think of the character when it’s not dictated to me by music or a clearcut stock character?

Even though some mockumentaries don’t really explain why the camera is there in the first place, the audience knows that they are watching. Whether it’s to see sharp satire, relatable characters, and/or the joys of reality, the mockumentary must continue and can never die please I’m begging.