Jane Roscoe and Craig Hight,
Faking It: Mock-documentary and the Subversion of Factuality.
Manchester: Manchester University Press. 2001.
ISBN: 0 7190 5641 1
Au$43.95 (pb)
(Review copy supplied by Footprint Books)

Although I have always been a big fan of This is Spinal Tap (USA, 1984) The Falls (Britain, 1980), and such television series as The Games (Australia, 1998) and People Like Us (Britain, 1999), I have never really paid serious attention to mock-documentary. Jane Roscoe and Craig Hight in Fakin’ It, the first serious and comprehensive examination of the form, have convinced me that I should do so. Jane Roscoe, currently head of Screen Studies and Research at the Australian Film Television and Radio School has published widely on documentary and those “border genres” adjacent to it, while Craig Hight has published previously on documentary and new media. In this book they set out to produce a theory of mock-documentary and in the process productively traverse a range of developments in recent documentary theory. Indeed, in setting the context for its development, they provide much that is of value to readers who may not have a specific interest in mock-documentary. In particular I have recommended the first two chapters to students seeking an introduction to contemporary debates in documentary theory.

For the authors a mock-documentary is a fictional film or television text which mimics the visual and aural conventions of the documentary in order to challenge the very foundations and privileged status of the documentary form. Their definition of mock-documentary “is specifically limited to fictional texts; those which make a partial or concerted effort to approximate documentary codes and conventions in order to represent a fictional subject” (2, original emphasis). They recognise that there are varying degrees of subversion involved here and posit a framework of analysis built on three “degrees” of “moc-docness”: parody, critique and hoax, and deconstruction.

Any attempt to construct and theorise a new form needs to make distinctions between that form and others which might appear to be similar, to analyse the contextual factors which have supported the emergence of the form, including the tracing of a genealogy, and to analyse key examples. In this comprehensive discussion Roscoe and Hight do all of these things.

Rejecting sterile debates based on a binary opposition between fact and fiction, they argue instead for the existence of a fact-fiction continuum on which to place both documentary and adjacent forms including docu-drama, docu-soap and “reality TV”, among others. Crucial to all forms of fact-based discourse, they argue, is a “truth” based project: all forms of factual discourse make some claim to an indexical relationship between the sound / image of the text and the social world. However, as they point out, indexicality can be faked. While Roscoe and Hight do not consider “faked” documentaries to be mock-documentaries, they point out that faked documentaries do illustrate how fragile is the basis of factual discourse when audiences are increasingly aware of the constructedness of factual programming.

They begin their argument by establishing what they mean by factual discourse, its assumptions and expectations and the tensions in what they call the genre of documentary. Here I have a concern about the problems of terminology in much documentary theory in which documentary is commonly referred to as a “genre”, a “style”, a “stance”, a “mode”, a “project” and a “discourse”, all of which have some value. Roscoe and Hight share this problem, at various times in the book settling, rather uncomfortably, on the term “genre” both in relation to documentary itself and to mock-documentary, although recognising the inherent difficulties of the term (on page 183 they refer to mock-documentary as a discourse rather than a genre). One of the problems with referring to documentary as a genre is the inherent tendency to generalise and to homogenise, a danger evident in the otherwise valuable discussion of the conventions of documentary. I am thinking here of such claims as “most documentaries will also make extensive use of photographic stills” (16) Nevertheless this discussion does lay out those conventions specific to documentary and those shared with other discursive forms which may be evident in individual examples and which are so easy to parody in mock-documentary.

Central to their argument about the context in which mock-documentary arises is the link between the scientific, empiricist project of modernity and the documentary project itself, a link which has led to the privileging of “facts” in much factual discourse and the critical discourse which surrounds it. The problem they point to here is the conflation of “fact” and “truth”, and the claim that the images in documentaries speak for themselves. As previous writers have pointed out, with increasing challenges to the realist, empiricist model of modernity, faith in the camera as a scientific instrument, and the image as scientific evidence, is undermined.

While the authors point to the challenge from post-modern theorists such as Lyotard and Baudrillard to the foundational discourses of documentary, they also recognise the role of television in shifts in documentary practice and reception: the development of new, often hybrid, forms and of new audience positions. Hybrid forms such as “docu-soap” and “reality TV” may blur the boundaries between fact and fiction, but they still claim access to the real through a variety of observational modes. What they do provide is a popularisation of factual discourse and a valuing of non-expert discourses (no doubt in less reflexive and critical ways). Like Bill Nichols the authors apply a tripartite approach to documentary based on analysis of production, texts and audience consumption, also applying this to their discussion of mock-documentary.

Chapters four, six, seven, and eight set out to establish and then detail a mock-documentary schema based on the three degrees of parody, critique and hoax, and deconstruction. The three key issues in this discussion revolve around the intentions of the filmmaker, the range of textual strategies deployed and the role being constructed for the audience by the text. The analyses of individual texts exhibit obvious enthusiasm on the part of the authors, making those sections of the book an easy and enjoyable read, which will be an important issue with students who may use the book.

The recognition of the role of the audience is most evident in Chapter seven in the discussion of Forgotten Silver (New Zealand, 1995) which details the complex audience engagements with the text through public documents such as newspaper articles and letters to the editor. As the authors recognise, there is still a need for more systematic research into audience reception of mock-documentary.

Whether or not this will occur depends, at least partly, on the future of mock-documentary, and whether or not it turns out to have been a fleeting phenomenon or one which continues to develop. Whatever turns out to be the case, this analysis of the form provides a useful discussion of the critique and subversion of factuality provided by mock-documentary which, in itself, is a positive contribution to the developing theorisation of documentary, especially as, in this case, it is presented in a manner accessible to readers with little or no background in documentary theory.

Ensuring its continuing relevance as a resource, Fakin’ It provides a useful bibliography for students of both documentary itself, and of mock-documentary; along with a filmography which includes detailed annotations of a number of the film and television texts referred to.

Peter Hughes
La Trobe University, Australia.
Created on: Tuesday, 4 May 2004 | Last Updated: 4-May-04