TITLE: Mockumentary: A Farcical Realism

NAME: Samuel Osagie

COURSE CODE: LMUT009J
TUTOR: Daniel Vidal

MOCKUMENTARY: A Farcical Realism

By
Samuel Osagie

Limkokwing University, London

29th September, 2008

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TITLE: Mockumentary: A Farcical Realism
NAME: Samuel Osagie
COURSE CODE: LMUT009J
TUTOR: Daniel Vidal

Mockumentary: A Farcical realism

Fictional documentary also know as Mockumentary, over the years has been used as a
satirical tool, which has cut the interest and attention of myriads of audiences across the globe.

“Mockumentaries are films and television programmes which ‘look’ and ‘sound’ like
documentaries, but are not factual” (http://www.waikato.ac.nz/film/mock-doc/teachmain.shtml).
Mockumentary has also be defined as “a fictional film or television text which mimic the visual
and aural conventions of the documentary in order to challenge the very foundations and
privileged status of the documentary form” (Roscoe, J. and Hight, C., 2001).
Mock-documentary as it is popularly called, found its origin with films like Nanook Of The
North in Robert Flaherty’s 1922 film, a documentary which was supposed to show how
Eskimos lived when a camera was in their midst. Flaherty succeeded in shaping the
documentary with different false images. Faked scenes were included in the film to depict live
actions and events that the camera was unable to capture to add more credibility and
believability to their footage.
In 1978, British Comedian Eric Idle came with one of the earliest example of a long
mockumentary film called The Rustles. The Rustles is about a British Pop band composed of
young singers who cause girls to go crazy wherever they go to perform.

Another name for mockumentary is Docufiction. They use the same codes and conventions
as documentaries, such as real archival footage, an authoritative narrators, interviews with
particular experts, video and photographic archives, eyewitnesses, and so on.
All of these aforementioned codes and conventions of mockumentaries are craftily subverted
to make an unreal event or situation visually and aurally look real to the perception of
audiences, leaving the audiences with the question of the credibility and reality.
Mockumentary is the craft of making fiction a reality. It is a fictional documentary which
encourages viewers to reflect on the nature of documentary. It uses credible documentary
tactics to portray a fictional story convincingly.

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TITLE: Mockumentary: A Farcical Realism
NAME: Samuel Osagie
COURSE CODE: LMUT009J
TUTOR: Daniel Vidal
Mockumentaries are not meant to enhance credibility but to question the believability of
what the audience is viewing. A mockumentary could be both real and fake, both hilarious and
shocking. In order to capture the audience believe directors of mockumentary films employ
many tactics and conventions. A good mockumentary must leave the audience questioning the
reality and credibility of the film. Mockumentary takes the formal pattern and behaviour of a
documentary and assert a sense of credibility and believability.

Theoretically, every mockumentary share some relationship and features with documentary
genre. Mockumentary films are successful because viewers see them as documentaries. They
share the same reflexivity towards documentary.
Mockumentary films have three main features, which are: parody, critique, and
deconstruction, and the degree of subversion and fiction of any mockumentary film is built on
these three things: parody, critique, and deconstruction. And there are three elements that
make up a mockumentary just like in documentary; they are the Filmmaker, the Text, and the
Audience. It is the triangle of mockumentary.. Without this triangle: the Filmmaker, the Text,
and the Audience, there will be no documentary or mockumentary.
In this report, I will like us to look at how Filmmakers can use parody, critique, and
deconstruction to create Texts (mockumentary films) for the Audience using the codes and
conventions of documentary film.

In the film This is Spinal Tap directed by Rob Reiner in 1984, Rob Reiner was trying to use
mockumentary to satirize and create parody of heavy metal band of the 1980’s. This is
Spinal Tap is a hilarious, brilliantly dramatized and cinematically assured rockumentary about
a fictitious British heavy metal band, who really never embarked on a ridiculous America tour.

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TITLE: Mockumentary: A Farcical Realism
NAME: Samuel Osagie
COURSE CODE: LMUT009J
TUTOR: Daniel Vidal

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TITLE: Mockumentary: A Farcical Realism
NAME: Samuel Osagie
COURSE CODE: LMUT009J
TUTOR: Daniel Vidal

The writers of This is Spinal Tap, Christopher guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, and
Rob Reiner, in order to invoke a sense of genuineness and factuality for the audience,
improvised on the codes and conventions of documentary to come up with a realistic
documentary comedy with jokes and languages of the everyday life. “The rock group does not
really exist, but the best thing about the film is that it could. The music, the staging, the special
effects, the backstage feuding and the pseudo-profound philosophising…” (Ebert, R., 1985)
combined to create a sense of reality and credibility.
Rob Reiner, the director of the film, subversively deployed the codes and conventions of
documentary to satirize heavy metal band, leaving the audience questioning the credibility and
reality of the film.
Rob Reiner made this film without a script; the only documented thing in the film was the
music that the Spinal Tap performed. The issue of no script for this mockumentary was a real
art of ingenuity and creativity in mockumentary genre. The satire of This is Spinal Tap
became one of standard against which mockumentaries are evaluated today. “The satire has a
deft, wicked touch” (Ebert, R., 1985). “This is Spinal Tap is a whole lot more honest and
entertaining than the majority of rock movies. Hence, this is where the hidden humour lies, in
the off-the-cuff remarks and improvised comments of the cast, all of which add valuable depth”
(Cannon, D., 1997).
In order to create parody and deconstruction in the film, the director made Spinal Tap the
main character and exaggerated them to make the audience boo, hiss and laugh. The Words
and Settings are natural, and the dialogs on the film are kept with authoritative Tones.

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TITLE: Mockumentary: A Farcical Realism
NAME: Samuel Osagie
COURSE CODE: LMUT009J
TUTOR: Daniel Vidal

Tim Robbins in 1992 wrote, directed, and starred as Bob Roberts in a political and satirical
mockumentary film called Bob Roberts. Tim Robbins used this film to satirize the dirty,
crooked, and perturbing aspect of American politics. It is a paranoiac and parodying
mockumentary masterpiece of political realism. In the film, Bob Roberts, Tim Robbins played
the role of the main character, Bob Roberts, a renowned musician who decides to run for a
political office, Pennsylvania’s senatorial seat, the whole film centred on his political campaign.
It is a false and fictitious documentary that asks the audience, what will happen when a
celebrity ran for a political position? The film portrays to the audience what the life of an
average American Politician or Political Officeholder is all about.

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TITLE: Mockumentary: A Farcical Realism
NAME: Samuel Osagie
COURSE CODE: LMUT009J
TUTOR: Daniel Vidal

Bob Roberts, when asked in an interview what inspired the character of Bob Roberts, he
said: “I used to live in Greenwich Village, and I returned there after about an eight-year
absence and had seen how my neighbourhood had shifted. A lot of the artists and bohemian
iconoclast had just drifted away. I noticed a lot of franchises opening up. I started thinking
about what would happen if all of these businessmen picked up guitars. So I wrote him
[Roberts] as a businessman folk singer, and as the eighties came his ambition grew, and by
the nineties he was running for office” (Roberge, C., 1992).
The film caught the acceptance and believability of the audience because of its satirical,
parodying, and insightful content coupled with the fact that the film is filled with most of the
scenarios of American politics known to the viewers. This is a real life situation revealed in an
unreal documentary (mockumentary), factuality in disguise.
In Bob Roberts, the audience reflexivity is on the Text of the film, which the director of the film
reflects fictionally in the nature of a documentary genre. “The factual basis of the story gives
the action of the play its credibility” for an audience (Edgar, 1988).

The Death of a President is a fictional TV documentary written and directed by Gabriel

Range, in 2006, a film about the assassination of George W. Bush, the 43rd President of
United States of America, on October 19th, 2007, in the city of Chicago. This dramatic
mockumentary was produced by a British Film Company for a programme about the effect of
the War on Terror. The Death of a president depicts how mockumentary could be used as

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TITLE: Mockumentary: A Farcical Realism
NAME: Samuel Osagie
COURSE CODE: LMUT009J
TUTOR: Daniel Vidal
an satirical and critical tool. The film has caused outrageous roar among Americans, because
its context and content bothered on matter of high public interest, that is, the Bush war on
Terror. As in many documentary films, The Death of a president has no voice of a central
narrating figure; the creator of the film simply left the film to do the story telling itself from the
beginning to the end. This film also proves that mockumentary is not limited to comedy and
satire. The Death of a president was ultimately a critique of President George W. Bush
policy and the war on Terror.

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TITLE: Mockumentary: A Farcical Realism
NAME: Samuel Osagie
COURSE CODE: LMUT009J
TUTOR: Daniel Vidal

The subject matter, war on Terror; the real archival footage; the special effects; the acting and
the shots; the action sequence and the directing, all combined to create a high degree of
critique and deconstruction in this film. They reinforced the content and context of the film.
The Death of a president wasn’t just about the assassination of U.S. President George W.
Bush, but the sequence of events and saga that the assassination brought about. “It’s about
how contradictory evidence is suppressed or ignored, stereotypes are reinforced, rights are
willingly surrendered by a frightened public, and hatred is stoked”
(http:www.imdb.com/title/tt0853096). The persuasive grip of this mockumentary has generated
a high level of interest and raises the question of credibility among audiences around the
world.
The deconstruction and fictional manipulation in this faked TV documentary was perfect that
it raised so many questions from the audience. Gabriel Range ingeniously used the combined
of actors, real archival footage, and special effects to convince the public of the assassination
of the American president. All the sequences in the film was flawlessly put together to explicitly
show how the president was shot, leaving uninformed audience wondering if they are watching
a real documentary.

Mockumentary genre is set to look as realistic as possible both to satirize the audience, and
also challenge them to judge what the watch and question what they accept as fact.
Mockumentary films are farcical reality, an illusion of believability. To create a realistic
portrayal, mockumentaries employ many of the tools that traditional documentary genre uses
to produce reality. Directors of mockumentary films are questioning their audiences: “do you

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TITLE: Mockumentary: A Farcical Realism
NAME: Samuel Osagie
COURSE CODE: LMUT009J
TUTOR: Daniel Vidal
think this is real; do you think what I am telling you are true, or do you believe your
eyes?” The audience are given the opportunity to decide whether they accept or agree to
Text. On the other hand if the audience fails to pick on the satire then they too will become an
object of satire.
One of the things that make mockumentary really successful is its ability to exist at the same
time in the world of fiction and in the world of reality.
We have seen that mockumentary films use parody/satire, critique, and deconstruction to
reflect any subject matter. And that mockumentary is a genre that craftily and subversively
deploys the codes and conventions of a documentary genre, using fictional text to visually and
aurally create a parody, critique, and/or deconstruction of a particular subject matter, which
viewers reflect on and question the reality and believability. Mockumentary filmmakers deploy
the codes and conventions of documentary genre, such as real archival footage,
eyewitnesses, narrators, archival photographs and interviews, to create mockumentary films.
And we’ve also looked at the three degree on which mockumentary films are built: parody,
critique, and deconstruction. And filmmakers use fictional Texts to create different degree of
parody, critique, and deconstruction in fictional TV documentary. Mockumentary genre uses
fictional creativity to create Text with questionable reality and believability to audience.
Directors of mockumentary films combined all the following: real archival footage;
eyewitnesses; authoritative narrators; special effects; acting; action sequence and sound, to
reinforce the content and context of their subject matter, to create farcical reality.

REFERENCE

1. Cannon, D., 1997. This is Spinal Tap (1984): A Review by Damian Cannon.
http://www.film.u-net.com/movies/Reviews/Spinal-Tap.html, 17/9/2008
2. Ebert, R., 1985.This is Spinal Tap: Review by Roger Ebert.
http://rogerbert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dii/article?
3. Roscoe, J. and Hight, C., 2001. Faking it: Mock-documentary and the Subversion of
Factuality. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
4. Roberge, C., 1992. Tim Robbins Campaigns for Bob Roberts and Political Change
(interview), September 15, 1992 by Chris Roberge.
5. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0853096, 18/9/2008

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TITLE: Mockumentary: A Farcical Realism
NAME: Samuel Osagie
COURSE CODE: LMUT009J
TUTOR: Daniel Vidal
6. http://www.spinaltap.com, 18/9/2008
7. http://www.waikato.ac.nz/film/mock-doc/teachmain.shtml, 20/9/2008.

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