Story Type: Mockumentary

In Hollywood movie circles, there are genres like Horror or Science Fiction, cross genres like Action-Thriller or Drama-Comedy, and sub-genres like Romantic Comedy or Mystery Thriller.

Then there are story types, a shorthand way to describe a specific narrative conceit that is almost always tied directly to the movie’s central concept. They can be found in any genre, cross genre, or sub-genre.

Knowledge about and awareness of these story types can be a boost not only to your understanding of film history and movie trends, but also as fodder for brainstorming new story concepts. Mix and match them. Invert them. Gender bend them. Genre bend them. Geo bend them.

Story types exist for a reason: Because they work. Hopefully this series will help you make them work for you.

Today: Mockumentary. Per its Wikipedia page:

A mockumentary (a portmanteau of the words mock and documentary), is a type of film or television show in which fictitious events are presented in documentary format. These productions are often used to analyze or comment on current events and issues by using a fictitious setting, or to parody the documentary form itself.[1] They may be either comedic or dramatic in form, although comedic mockumentaries are more common.

Some examples of mockumentary movies:

Take the Money and Run (1969): The life and times of Virgil Starkwell, inept bank robber.

Real Life (1979): A pushy, narcissistic filmmaker persuades a Phoenix family to let him and his crew film their everyday lives.

Zelig (1983): “Documentary” about a man who can look and act like whoever he’s around, and meets various famous people.

This is Spinal Tap! (1984): Spinal Tap, the world’s loudest band, is chronicled by hack documentarian Marti DeBergi on what proves to be a fateful tour.

Bob Roberts (1992): A corrupt rightwing folksinger runs a crooked election campaign while only one independent muck-raking reporter is trying to stop him.

Waiting for Guffman (1996): An aspiring director and the marginally-talented amateur cast of a hokey small-town Missouri musical production go overboard when they learn that someone from Broadway will be in attendance.

Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999): A small town beauty pageant turns deadly as it becomes clear that someone will go to any lengths to win.

Best in Show (2000): A colorful array of characters competes at a national dog show.

A Mighty Wind (2003): Mockumentary captures the reunion of 1960s folk trio the Folksmen as they prepare for a show at The Town Hall to memorialize a recently deceased concert promoter.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006): Kazakh TV talking head Borat is dispatched to the United States to report on the greatest country in the world. With a documentary crew in tow, Borat becomes more interested in locating and marrying Pamela Anderson.

For Your Consideration (2006): Three actors learn that their respective performances in the film “Home for Purim,” a drama set in the mid-1940s American South, are generating award-season buzz.

Bruno (2009): Flamboyant Austrian fashionista Brüno takes his show to America.

Mockumentaries, at least the comedic ones, fall into the broader category satire. They create an intriguing dynamic whereby the filmmakers go inside a subculture to make a commentary about it from the outside.

If we chose to ascribe a character archetype to mockumentary, it would have to be Trickster, whereby a character or characters don masks purporting to be representative of a specific viewpoint or sociological experience, only to use their personae to unearth the foibles, fabrications, and fun of those cultural environments.

From a psychological standpoint, one major attraction for a mockumentary movie viewer is the experience of being in on the joke, one that extends for the duration of the film.

What other qualities and dynamics do you think are present in mockumentary movies? What other films of note belong in the list?

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For more articles in the Story Type series, go here.