Mockumentary

A mockumentary (or mocumentary or mock-documentary) is popularly understood to be a fictional audiovisual text, such as a feature film or television program, that looks and sounds like a documentary. These texts feature fictional characters and events that appear to have been “captured” on location and through interviews by a documentary film crew. The term mockumentary was first widely used to describe the fake rockumentary This Is Spinal Tap (1984; Rob Reiner, director), and is often assumed by commentators to refer only to similarly parodic or satiric material. Because of the range of material that now falls under this label, however, it is more useful to consider mockumentary as a discourse that is characterized by the appropriation of codes and conventions from the full continuum ...