In this chapter we shall examine the ways in which modes of comedy figure in documentary and factual films and programmes. This will involve engaging with notions of satire and parody, the role and development of the so-called ‘mock-documentary’ and the ways in which comedic expression can be seen to be in conflict with notions of documentary truth or objectivity. In many respects, ‘comedy’ and ‘documentary’ are similar in the way that they are referred to – wrongly, it may be argued – as ‘genres’ in commonsense discourse, when in fact they can be better understood as ‘modes’. There is not the space here to go into detail about the background of comedy as a mode. The key point is to offer an overview of how documentary strategies (and the intimately related ‘current affairs’ and ‘investigative journalism’) are figured in specific films and television programmes, but also to explore how they are inflected and critiqued by modes of comedy. This is a relationship that has yet to receive any sustained attention, but is an increasingly important area of expression.
Defining the field: documentary and satire, irony, parody
One of the first distinctions to make is that between those programmes and films that make their main aim to satirise the textures and conventions of certain types of documentaries and documentary practices, and those that use documentary strategies in order to satirise other subjects. There is of course some overlap between these two categories, but broadly speaking, the former could be termed parodies, as what they are holding up to the satirical light are the formal aspects of specific types of documentary, whilst the latter are more likely to be termed ‘satires’ proper, because their aim is to critique (via laughter) a wider social structure. Parody has tended to be associated with a ridiculing of the formal properties of a genre or individual text. However, it can be argued that such ridiculing of norms and conventions plays a critical, disruptive role and has implications for elements beyond the text itself. This is particularly the case with documentary parodies because documentaries are representing the real social world. Any specific examples of parodic undermining of the assertive, apparently objective stance of documentary inevitably mean that the certainties of documentary as a mode, as a way of understanding and representing the world, are thereby also undermined.
Bill Nichols groups his discussion of the satirical and the ironic in documentary under a subheading: ‘The Reflexive Mode of Representation’ (1991: 56–75). As he notes, ‘The reflexive mode of representation gives emphasis to the encounter between filmmaker and viewer rather than filmmaker and subject’ (1991: 60). There are a number of types of reflexivity, ranging from the purely formal to the more overtly political. What is being noted here of course is that the range of material that combines documentary and comedy relies on some level of ‘reflexivity’ on the part of the practitioner and the viewer. Both have to understand and recognise the existing conventions in such a way that it is understood that the result is a parodic or satiric text, rather than an actual documentary. Such reflexivity is suggestive of a ‘media literacy’ that enables one to be ‘in’ on the joke, and not fooled. A good example of this is when Carl Plantinga quotes director Rob Reiner with regard to one preview of his film This is Spinal Tap: ‘A small section of the audience laughed. The rest asked why we would make a serious documentary about a terrible band they had never heard of’ (1998: 320). As Plantinga continues: ‘clearly, an appreciation for This is Spinal Tap depends on taking it not as a "serious documentary" about an obscure and untalented band, but as a pseudodocumentary, a fiction film which … parodies the forms of documentary’ (ibid.).
For documentary and comedy to meet and interact successfully, in the form of parody, there must therefore be a high level of audience ‘recognition’, of both the original material and the extent to which the parody diverges from it. Dan Harries defines parody in the following terms:
The process of recontextualising a target or source text through the transformation of its textual (and contextual) elements, thus creating a new text. This conversion – through the resulting oscillation between similarity to and difference from the target – creates a level of ironic incongruity with an inevitable satiric impulse. (2000: 6; emphasis in original)
Harries then goes on to usefully adapt Rick Altman’s (1999) work on film genre in his discussion of film parody. A parodic text can be summed up as one that invokes another highly recognisable text by mimicking it, but at the same time in some very important ways differing from the original. It is this similarity-yet-difference figure that is characteristic of genre as a system, and which explains why genre theory is useful as a way into discussing parody. Harries, following Altman, proposes that every textual system consists of three ‘levels’: lexicon, syntax and style. The lexicon ‘is composed of the elements that populate any film text, such as the setting, the characters, the costumes and the various items comprising the film’s iconography, like guns and horses’ (2000: 8). Syntax ‘is the narrative structure in which the lexical elements reside … in other words [it] is the film’s plot’ (ibid.). The film’s style includes things like camera movements, particular use of sound and so on, and ‘weaves itself throughout the lexicon and the syntax to add additional sets of expectations based on that particular type of film text’ (ibid.). Harries argues that the parodic emerges from the ways in which a text ‘faithfully replicat[es] either the syntax or the lexicon of the target text while altering the other dimension’ (2000: 9).
As documentaries are about the real world of actuality, and even those fictional films that parody them must construct a plausible rendering of a believable ‘real world’ in which the comedy unfolds, then it is straightforward enough to point out that the lexical elements of documentaries (and fictional versions of documentaries such as mock-documentaries) will be recognisable elements from the ‘real world’, rather than the ‘generic’ elements of, for instance, a western. Characters that are known to be real people (or who convince the viewer that they are real people), recognisable locations, and everyday situations – all of these elements will feature in a documentary or parodic version of one. There are plenty of films that deliberately blur the boundaries between documentary and non-documentary in this regard (indeed, the viewer’s understanding of mock-documentaries is entirely based on such a blurring). The successful BBC ‘mock-docu-soap’ The Office, for example, draws its comedy entirely from the creation of a gruesomely plausible workplace, a paper merchants in Slough, and the behaviour of the people who work there. In terms of the lexicon-syntax-style model sketched above, however, it is difficult to discern what is being ‘altered’ in order for the parody to function. The comedy is subtle to the point of there being no recognisable exaggeration – indeed, there are many docu-soaps that follow exactly the same syntactical patterns (the use of the working day, special events such as the Christmas party, promotions and so on) in order to draw out some of the ‘drama’ (if that is the correct term) of the everyday. The accuracy of what would be termed the lexical elements in The Office, and the way the programme mimics the specific style of this kind of documentary series (observational/fly-on-the-wall camera, occasional straight-to-camera interviews) is note-perfect. Indeed, a programme such as The Office highlights the fact that documentary comedies of this kind rely on the viewer to a marked degree. The ‘logical absurdity’ that is often identified as a marker of parody – a sudden incursion of something that ruptures the verisimilitude and creates incongruity – is absent from The Office; the humour derives from the programme’s sustained plausibility, rather than the alternation between plausibility and implausibility that is characteristic of parody more usually.1
Figure 6 The Office (2001; 2003)
On the other hand, a film such as Mark Lewis’s The Wonderful World of Dogs (1990, Aus.) appears to inhabit a space that is somewhere between a ‘proper’ documentary and a spoof. Like his earlier film, Cane Toads (1988, Aus.), does for its eponymous species, the film offers statistics and information about dogs and their living habits, and is clearly about the real world in that sense. Where it veers into a grey area in definitional terms is when its interviews and reconstructions take on an obvious comedic edge. For example, one sequence begins with a tiny Chihuahua sheepishly wagging its tail as it swipes the burger from a huge burger bun. Cut to the dog sitting on his mistress’s lap as she recounts the tale of how the Chihuahua was spirited away in the bill of a pelican, while she was walking the dog by the sea one day. At this point the film moves into an obvious flashback mode – slightly blurred edges to the frame, echo on the voiceover – with the clear indication that this is in fact the burger-swiping Chihuahua’s dream. The reconstruction is ‘camped up’ for all it is worth – complete with overacting and one memorable shot of the tiny dog aloft in a ridiculously-faked pelican bill. The ‘dream’ ends when the pelican drops the dog and he awakens with a relieved gulp. Lewis’s films tend to use such techniques quite frequently and are often dismissed as ‘not documentary’ as a consequence. However, we have no reason to believe that the story itself, although seemingly ludicrous, is not true. All Lewis is doing then is ‘reconstructing’ an event – hardly something that, in and of itself, renders the film a ‘non-documentary’. Certainly, its deliberately staged nature makes the viewer think about the status of what they are watching, but in this respect it is simply using comedy as a ‘reflexive’ strategy, as Nichols (see above) has noted.
What some viewers find problematic about documentary films like The Wonderful World of Dogs, Cane Toads, or some of the work of Errol Morris (for example, Gates of Heaven (1978, US)) is the sense that we are being shown faked interviews, actors pretending to be bizarre eccentrics, and that the joke is somehow on the viewer. However, most mock-documentaries are easily discernible as such and can be enjoyed accordingly. There are some infamous cases – for example, the New Zealand reception of Forgotten Silver (Costa Botes and Peter Jackson, 1995, NZ), as documented by Jane Roscoe and Craig Hight (2001: 146–50) – where some viewers ‘fall into the trap’ (as they see it afterwards) of believing the parody is an actual documentary. An intriguing alternative to this is the reception of a film like American Movie: The Making of Northwestern (Chris Smith, 1999, US), about an actual person trying to make a real low-budget film, which was taken in some circles as an elaborate parody of a particular kind of documentary, and talked about by some as if it was a mock-documentary.2
The mock-documentary, or mockumentary, is one of the more prevalent forms of comedy documentary. Although not all mock-documentaries are necessarily comedies (or comedies of the same type3), the comedic mock-documentary certainly predominates. Roscoe and Hight have produced the most sustained analysis of mock-documentary to date. Theirs is a useful work because it constructs a tentative typology of mock-documentary, locates the form in relation to notions of ‘factuality’ in documentary and argues that the (fictional) mock-documentary form is essentially a ‘subversion’ of a specific ‘normative’ way of looking at and understanding the world. They also argue that the mock-documentary constructs a particular (and active) position for the viewer, due to the ‘ambivalence and ambiguity’ of the mock-documentary as a parodic text: ‘Parodic texts talk to a knowing viewer. The comic elements of parody can be appreciated only if we recognise the object being mocked. The mock-documentary can develop the complexity inherent to parody only if we are familiar with the codes and conventions of documentary, and its serious intent’ (2001: 31). The flip side of this observation is that there will be inevitable occasions where viewers will effectively ‘misrecognise’ a ‘proper’ documentary as a mock-documentary, simply because of the tone used, or the presence of bizarre characters. Some viewers will read these elements and strategies as part of the comedic repertoire and draw the conclusion that the film is a mock-documentary. The problem with this is that mock-documentaries are by definition fictional, albeit a fiction that comments astutely on documentary filmmaking and its assumptions. What we have with such films as Cane Toads and The Wonderful World of Dogs are examples of nonfictional films that use exaggerated techniques for comic effect. It should be noted that many mock-documentaries adopt ‘observational’ or ‘fly on the wall’ strategies as their shorthand for ‘documentariness’; documentaries such as those made by Mark Lewis use more ‘obvious’ comedy strategies to draw attention to (and ‘mock’) the assumptions and objectives of documentary as a whole.
A discourse of (in)sobriety? Parodies of documentary as a source of knowledge
There are a range of films and television programmes that have as their basis a humorous and ironic stance on the ability of certain types of documentary output to inform us. For instance, there are programmes that use comedy to offer some critical distance on the certainties offered by many conventional representations of history (see also chapter three’s discussion of representations of history). Similarly, there are parodies of educational and informational programming, such as the note-perfect spoof of early 1980s-era schools science programmes, Look Around You (BBC, 2002, UK) Finally, there are comedy programmes that draw upon some of the conventions of lectures and the imparting of knowledge and as such can be said to be satirising the commonsense belief in voices of authority and discourses of sobriety.
Ultimately, what any spoofs of specific modes of nonfiction/information films tell us is that the originals have achieved some level of recognisable or ‘canonical’ status. This must happen for them to function as parodies. For example, the ‘Mr Cholmondeley-Warner’ sequences from the Harry Enfield comedy sketch shows (for example, Harry Enfield and Chums, Harry Enfield’s Television Programme) – short informational sequences in a 1930s/1940s ‘Griersonian’ style, where well-dressed men engage in stilted exchanges in order to elucidate and inform on a particular issue. These are parodies of a specific style of nonfiction filmmaking, but offer satirical comment on outdated social mores (‘Women: Know Your Place!’ and so on). A strong component in these short films, Look Around You, and any other films or programmes that engage in this kind of commentary on modes of documentary, is the mobilising of a nostalgic frame. As well as the invoking of the original that we see in any parody, there is a double edge to the humour: viewers are meant to revel in the ways in which the parody resembles the original, but they are also meant to thereby find the original funny and, especially, how the parody diverges from it whilst resembling it. In the case of the Mr Cholmondeley-Warner sketches, the rather clumsy, artless style is amusing, but it is really the expository ‘certainty’ of what are actually class– and gender-based assumptions and prejudices that is being satirised. This is what raises such material above the level of simple pastiche.
As both Harries and Roscoe and Hight point out, the parodic can be seen as a stage in the life cycle of a genre (as outlined in John G. Cawelti’s essay (1985) on Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974, US)). The conventions of a particular type of filmmaking become so familiar to viewers that they are literally ‘laughable’ as clichés. But it is vital that a level of ‘recon-textualisation’ occurs for these conventions to register as funny. Such recontextualisation can occur in a number of ways though. In the case of Look Around You and the Mr Cholmondeley-Warner material, the sober discourse of an informational documentary mode is juxtaposed with ludicrous statistics and outright lies, so that the original conventions appear ludicrous too. A crucial thing to note is that the viewing context can contribute to this parodic shift, so that a film such as Reefer Madness (Louis J. Gasnier, 1936, US) is viewed in a modern context for its camp value and hysteria over drug use. A didactic cartoon such as the patriotic Old Glory (Chuck Jones, 1939, US), which includes some simplistically tub-thumping notions of US history, was screened between acts at the Filmore Stadium in San Francisco in the late 1960s, and was appreciated by the audiences for its ‘countercultural’ worth, especially the cartoon’s ending where Porky Pig is seen enthusiastically saluting the US flag (see Schneider 1994). What such examples prove is that the audience plays an important part in defining the ‘place’ of specific films. Harries discusses the ways in which parody in some sense overturns or challenges the idea of a ‘canon’ (in that parody ridicules well-established forms), but he also astutely points out that parody films can be read in a ‘canonical’ way by audiences, and that they can constitute their own orthodoxy.
A good example of the fusion of elements of stand-up comedy and the often sober discourse of documentary is the series The Mark Steel Lectures (BBC, 2003–2004, UK). In chapter three we examined the ways in which documentary representations of historical events need to be seen as more complex than is commonly supposed, especially with regard to the issue of reconstruction and re-enactment. The Mark Steel Lectures (originally a BBC Radio 4 series, then transferred over to BBC Television) takes the biographical documentary model of various famous individuals and plays it for laughs. But the point is not just to demonstrate that characters like Karl Marx or Ludwig van Beethoven had ‘more to them’ than their legacy often lets on, but to deconstruct using humour the very notion of a certain type of documentary discourse. As Steel demonstrates, the conventional historical biography documentary tends to be a narrowly-conceived affair, discussing ‘great figures’ for certain aspects of their legacy, but omitting much of the historical context in which this legacy was created and thereby missing why it should have any relevance to many people in the contemporary moment. A case in point is Beethoven. Clearly, any documentary about Beethoven should talk about the music he created, but Steel locates what the man did in the context of the cultural and class conflicts of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and makes an impassioned case for why Beethoven should be seen as not only a hugely gifted composer, but as the radical force that he actually was. The comedy here is a critique of the ways in which Beethoven (and classical music in general) has his ‘rough edges’ smoothed so that he and his work are made more palatable for middle-class consumption. What is lost are the very things that connect someone like Beethoven to a large range of people; people who would no doubt perceive classical music as being ‘not for them’. In the programme there are several hilarious moments where Steel outlines the contradictory status of someone like Beethoven. From a modern perspective, with the benefit of hindsight, he is a composer-genius; yet in order to live in his era, he had to initially rely on the patronage of royalty (who treated composers as gifted as Beethoven and Mozart as little more than performing seals, to add to their social standing) and, later, by teaching music to the children of the noble class. Steel points out the contempt that Beethoven had for this kind of work. As he speaks on the voiceover, we see a student playing the piano while Beethoven wanders around in pyjamas, listening to a personal stereo, obviously completely uninterested. Another of these ‘reconstructions’ shows someone with a passing ‘look-alike’ resemblance to Elton John, smugly playing ‘A Song for Guy’ as Beethoven rolls his eyes in boredom behind him. Earlier in the programme, as Steel makes a case for Beethoven’s musical and cultural importance, the camera pans along a row of faked record sleeves, each spoofing a famous musical icon: Beethoven-as-Eminem, Beethoven-as-Johnny Cash, Beethoven-as-Bob Marley. (Later in the programme, Beethoven even appears as one of the Ramones.) As a passionate, radical, gifted voice during the turbulent times immediately after the French Revolution, Beethoven can only be fully understood in these ‘popular’ terms. Steel’s comedic take on the standard documentary therefore not only gives more of the historical context of Beethoven’s time, but also shows the things that make him still relevant today: it is in the contrasting of historical figure (and the facts about their life) with such apparently incongruous modern-day elements that the true complexity of the individual and the historical forces that shaped him emerge.
Clearly, then, these films are parodies of a certain type of educational historical biography genre. They include many patently silly skits, such as a young boy in a seventeenth-century wig, pretending to be Isaac Newton, or an actor, playing Karl Marx, standing ignored in a modern-day street as he proffers leaflets about world revolution – the one time that someone pauses in front of him being to ask directions. But in parodying the form, the intention is to satirise the broader (mis)understanding of how history is constructed, and the role of specific people within it. As noted above, if the objective of the programmes were simply to fill in some of the things that are usually omitted when making programmes about these people, then they would be of less interest than is being proposed here. The films are not simply showing the quirks and foibles of people like Thomas Paine, Sylvia Pankhurst or Leonardo da Vinci. By virtue of parodying some of the conventions of the standard biographical programmes, Steel provides a satirical take on the epistemological rationale of such programmes. This irreverent approach to the received wisdom of certain ways of understanding the world offers an important route out of certain ‘dead-ends’ of history, where the ‘standard’ mode of explanation is inadequate, precisely because it effaces the very things that make things happen in history – ordinary (and sometimes extraordinary) people and their struggles. As we saw in chapter three, the standard or official explanation of what happened at Orgreave is riddled with distortions and inconsistencies, because it is an explanation that tries to minimise the real reasons for the showdown that day. Likewise, the events shown in The Peasants’ Revolt are commonly ‘explained’ as a sudden, inexplicable uprising, fuelled by outside agitators, rather than an organised revolution against unjust laws. The approach to documenting history seen in these programmes and The Mark Steel Lectures is one that uses alternative explanations and considerable humour to subvert the pomposity of the traditional, received wisdom.
‘Investigative comedy’: current affairs and journalistic models
Mockumentaries aside, a commonsense assumption seems to be that the modes ‘comedy’ and ‘documentary’ do not mix easily, and one needs to be very careful when walking the line between them. This is particularly the case with satirical current affairs programming and other examples where the dominant models of professional journalism are critiqued in some fashion. Jon Plowman points to this dichotomy:
If you’ve got something to say of a serious nature that adds to the political debate, the place to say it is Newsnight, or in a documentary form. If you’ve got something to say that’s funny, the place to say it is a comedy programme. And the problem is the marriage of the two. (Quoted in Keighron 1998: 129)
What seems to be at issue is the contradiction inherent in trying to combine the supposedly ‘objective’ discourse of documentary and current affairs with the notoriously ‘subjective’ nature of comedy. What is funny, it seems, is all a ‘matter of taste’ (or opinion), whereas the empirical certainties we have learned to expect from a documentary text are precisely that – clear, measurable and anything but a matter of opinion.
Yet this is based on a doubly false premise: the related ideas that first of all, documentary discourse exists on a plane where facts are presented ‘impartially’, and in a ‘balanced’ manner, in order to reach external truths; and, secondly, that comedy discourse is somehow unable to access such truths, and can only render the comedian’s own view on the issue. This is flawed quite simply because many documentaries are of a polemical nature, and advance a specific and identifiable argument. Even those that appear ‘more objective’ are functioning within a set of conventions and institutional contexts that mean they will draw upon certain ways of doing things, and their apparent balance and impartiality are often due to the effacement of a distinct ‘voice’ in favour of notions of ‘professionalism’ (a very important term for journalists). In other words, what we have here are two inter-related myths. A documentary could be one-sided and opinionated (while masquerading as balanced and objective), and actually reveal nothing (new) about the world; a comedy programme could advance a convincing argument about certain issues in the world, while remaining fundamentally a comedy programme. This is, after all, what we should view documentary as – a text that advances an argument, marshals evidence, or makes assertions and reaches conclusions about issues in the real historical world. It is just as possible to do this in a comedic mode or idiom as it is a serious and ‘sober’ one. As programmes such as The Day Today (BBC series, 1994, UK) and Brass Eye (Channel 4, 1997/2001, UK) demonstrate, with their satirical mimicking of the conventions of television news reporting and current affairs, it is entirely possible to produce a programme that is both ludicrous and deadly serious. For instance, the episode of Brass Eye that ‘investigated’ the drug ‘Cake’ was castigated for joking about so serious an issue.4 This misses the point, as what is being satirised is a vital issue in relation to documentary: the fact that we live in a world where there is a super-abundance of information available to us, but that actually very little of this information is presented in a way that encourages analysis, reflection and intellection. Instead, things are presented as self-evident truths (for example, drugs are bad). Brass Eye takes that oversimplification to some sort of logical conclusion. What it ‘documents’ is simply that the level of debate on a number of serious issues is severely distorted by reliance on emotive and moralising standpoints (represented here by the eager celebrities queuing up to condemn the drug). As such, I would suggest that Brass Eye is actually a far more serious (and necessary) programme than even most of the people who praised it would allow. It does not just mock these people by pointing to their gullibility, but it asks us to see their gullibility as part of a broader context, a context that is informed and structured by the codes and conventions of contemporary current affairs programming, as well as an increased obsession with ‘celebrity’ culture (an issue is not important unless it has a ‘celebrity’ endorsement).
The tension noted earlier – between wanting to be taken seriously and wanting to be funny – is something that rears its head in relation to the work of Mark Thomas. A stand-up comedian, always politically committed, he has more recently moved towards the world of political activism and direct action. His programme for Channel 4 began life as The Mark Thomas Comedy Product in 1996 but was soon renamed as The Mark Thomas Product to perhaps underline the greater emphasis on investigative journalism rather than comedy. However, the show remains a potent combination of stand-up routines, on-location interviews and pranks and a clear, committed transmission of information on a topic; it is an interesting hybrid of detailed reportage and satire – in effect, a form of documentary ‘investigative comedy’. What we eventually decide to call such a programme (‘investigative comedy’? ‘documentary stand-up’?) matters less for the moment than recognising that there is no logical reason to set up and maintain a ‘dividing line’ between the ‘discourse’ of comedy and the ‘discourse’ of documentary. It is possible for a programme to ‘do’ both. Indeed, the comedy of such a programme is firmly rooted in a recognition by the audience that things that were previously swept under the carpet are being brought out into the open, much to the discomfort of politicians, arms dealers and unscrupulous businesspeople. The programmes set out to reveal previously hidden issues and situations, they gather and present evidence, advancing an argument about the real social-historical world, they have a recognisably didactic/argumentative voice running throughout – all of these are characteristics of certain types of documentary. The techniques used link Thomas’s work to other satirical activists, such as Michael Moore in the US, whose TV Nation (1994–95, US) programme (and his subsequent film work) featured similar scenarios, where Moore would confront perpetrators of social injustice.
Although Thomas has by now become well-known to the people he challenges, there is still a sense that he uses their own discourses against them. Far from the strident, megaphone-toting activist, Thomas often uses careful and detailed research, and a quiet yet insistent tone when questioning people. He often appears in such sequences wearing a suit and tie, playing the part of the respectable (and respectful) interviewer. Purposeful disruption is never far away, though. In one 1998 episode of the series, Thomas and some supporters ran amok at the Harrods sale, ruining the dramatic ‘10, 9, 8…’ countdown to the opening of the doors, and generally making a nuisance of themselves. This framed an investigative piece about Harrods owner Mohammed El-Fayed’s questionable record as an employer. One of Thomas’s most effective campaigns was an investigation into the Conditionally Exempt Works of Art scheme (CEWA). In exchange for ‘deferral’ of the Inheritance Tax on certain artworks, land or buildings (worth 40 per cent of the item’s value), people who have inherited notable items have to maintain them and allow the general public ‘reasonable access’. Thomas revealed that many rich people were using this as a tax dodge, a loophole where they avoided paying the 40 per cent tax, but then kept the item as if it were their own ‘private’ property. The terms and conditions of the CEWA scheme mean that the item in question is not ‘private’ property in the commonsense meaning of that term, as ordinary people can view the item. The programme not only outlined this previously well-hidden state of affairs but was instrumental in starting a campaign of direct action, to encourage as many people as possible to force inheritors to make items available for viewing. In many cases, the owners simply paid the tax that was due and removed the item from the CEWA list, rather than have to comply with the rules on public access. This particular segment was typical of many in the Mark Thomas programmes: offering a detailed exposition of a scandalous misuse of taxpayers’ money; outlining in some detail (during the stand-up routines) the figures involved; then showing evidence of what can be done to change this situation for the better. As well as being very funny, and demonstrating Thomas’ highly accomplished live comedy technique, the programme is a sharp campaigning documentary, using the discourses of grass-roots activism and direct action to show that ordinary people can make a difference.
Another example of the mixing of comedy and documentary modes is Osama and Us (Jamie Campbell and Joel Wilson, 2003, UK). Osama and Us was clearly inspired by the irreverent ‘door-stepping’ techniques of Michael Moore and Mark Thomas (see, specifically, his Mark Thomas: Weapons Inspector (Channel 4, 2003, UK)), as well as the absurd and surreal immersion in the language of news-speak that we see in the work of Chris Morris (Brass Eye in particular). The film is on one level a parody of certain models of investigative journalism: the two journalists (Campbell and Wilson) take as their cue the $25 million reward that was offered by the US for the capture of Osama Bin Laden, and they travel around seeking clues as to where he might be, speaking with people who have associated with him. If this was all they did then the film would be of limited interest. However, the intention of this documentary is to reveal the absurdity of some of the claims of President Bush and Prime Minister Blair and their allies, by taking these claims completely at face value and pursuing them to their logical conclusion. At various points in the film the main investigator muses that perhaps the US were not that interested in finding bin Laden. The satirical suggestion is that, despite their statements to the contrary, it is very much in the allies’ interests to keep bin Laden ‘out there’ as a bogeyman, capable of anything. At one point, the investigator joins a melee of reporters at an airport, to meet Hans Blix, just arrived back from Baghdad. Wishing to discover whether bin Laden was in Iraq, the investigator calls out ‘I just wanted to rule it out: he wasn’t there?’ Blix’s reply is ‘I saw the Iraqi government…’ Once he hears this, the investigator says ‘OK, thanks for that’. Giving a businesslike nod and perusing a piece of paper, he walks off, then looks straight into the camera and says ‘He’s not in Iraq.’ The clear suggestion here is that an off-the-cuff remark or soundbite can be taken at face value, particularly if it fits with an already-sanctioned view of things (and especially if it comes from a recognised ‘expert’). Blix says one thing; the reporter takes it to mean something else. The satiric intention here is to highlight the way that many reporters can have a fixed agenda, but also to suggest that the authorities actually expended limited effort to find bin Laden, as he was more use to them as a fugitive. No evidence of something leads inexorably to an emphatic, certain answer. The reporter’s ‘investigation’ as to bin Laden’s whereabouts therefore satirically critiques the self-serving investigations carried out by the US and her allies.
From the simplest of spoofs of certain types of information films, to parodies and satires that ironically critique the apparent objectivity and certainty of documentary as a cultural practice, the inter-relationship between modes of documentary and comedy is as extraordinarily complex as it is rich and diverse. Central to this area’s importance is the role assigned to the viewer: the ability to recognise and interpret material that is mimicking, mocking and faking for all manner of reasons. The mock-documentary is currently the prevalent form of documentary-comedy, and raises all sorts of questions about authenticity, plausibility and audience belief. However, there have been some interesting recent developments: hybrids of comedy and the serious discourses of investigative journalism and activism; and comedic critique of conventional historical accounts of events. What these developments demonstrate is that documentary need not be shackled to the notion of a ‘discourse of sobriety’, nor does documentary-comedy have to mean spoofs or mock-documentaries alone.