Could you find a more likable attitude? A happier, happier-to-know-you kind of attitude
Over the past 20 years, the mockumentary format has become synonymous with the sitcom
From The Office, to Parks and Rec, to Modern Family, to Abbott Elementary
some of the most popular sitcoms have been mockumentaries. But why? What do I know
What is it about this genre that attracts people like camera crews to paper companies
Boom! Freeze! Michael Schoon, FBI, you know what you did! Y'all must have forgot I'm me
My wife and I have a timeshare. In Muncie? These cards are 11
This is how it hits. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a mockumentary is defined as a..
Whoops, hit a paywall. Take that tropey dictionary definition intro. So according to Merriam-Webster's free dictionary, a mockumentary is defined as a facetious or
satirical work, such as a film, presented in the style of a documentary
Almost any story is almost certainly some kind of lie. One of the first mainstream mockumentaries is F for fake, where filmmaker Orson Welles
documents the career of Elmer de Ori a professional art forger who is a real person So it was a fake documentary about a real person forcing the audience to consider for themselves what is truth and what is a lie
and whether it actually matters. Is every mockumentary this meta? No. But the good ones tow that line between art imitating life
and life imitating art. Arguably, the genre went fully mainstream with 1984's This is Spinal Tap
a fake documentary about Britain's loudest band. There's a fine line between stupid and clever
The band was fake, but the music sounded like it was from a real band
So initially, audiences were a little confused. People didn't get it right away
They didn't know what the hell it was. People come up and they said, why would you make a movie about a band that nobody ever heard of
But once people got the joke, the film became a cult classic
It evolved into something. We did a tour in 92, 93 that was now a completely legitimate tour with huge amounts of people watching
And now that the separation had been totally erased between what we had created for the film and reality
And we played Wembley. There were 73,000 people there. The fake band parodying real bands had become a real one
Christopher Guest then went on to make a slew of wildly successful mockumentaries such as Waiting for Guffman This is the day of the show Oh my God And Best in Show How much weight do you think I could bench press
Just make a guess, ballpark figure. By the mid-2000s, people were now in on the mockumentary joke
and it started to spill over into mainstream TV with The Office
I declare bankruptcy! Hat tipped the OG UK office, my favorite, but it was the American office that made it the international hit it is today
It inspired such subsequent hits as Parks and Rec, Modern Family, Abbott Elementary, and so many more
There are too many to mention. What is it about mockumentaries that's so alluring
First, it's that voyeuristic excitement that we are watching someone deal with something vulnerable in real time
That was the most embarrassing moment of my life. Christopher Guest, considered by many to be the mockumentary goat or bloodhound
I'm the best one here. I'm the best one you ever seen
Talks about the allure of the mockumentary being the perceived spontaneity of it
There's a spontaneity that comes from this kind of work that you don't find in a conventional
movie because the things being said are being said for the first time. And it's a different
way of working. I find it exciting and I think other actors find it exciting because you're
there in the moment when you work on a conventional film and you worked on you rehearsed you know what the next line is going to be You are acting in a different way This is more reacting to something that happening legitimately for the first time
There's no dialogue written at all. In any film you've made? No. The sitcoms we've come to know and love within the same format are almost entirely scripted
We had great scripts and great writers. We always made sure that we got every line as scripted
People like seeing things that are authentic, or at least feel like they are really happening
Yet they feel safe knowing that it's not actually happening. The feeling of reality with enough separation to know it's entertainment
That little pocket of safety within a seemingly real moment is the mark of a great mockumentary
Nailed it. With the rise of the internet and social media, coupled with access to more news and world events becoming so real and overwhelming that we wish it were fiction
mockumentaries have become more popular and more prevalent on our screens because they toe that
perfect middle ground between truth and fiction assuming that difference actually matters the
important distinction to make is not so much whether it's a real painting or a fake it's
whether it's a good fake or a bad fake what's your favorite mockumentary let us know in the
comments. Otherwise, we'll catch you next time on How It Hits