Mockumentary Case

A mockumentary can be a movie, video or a television show in which fictional events are portrayed in way that makes it look like spoof or a parody. Most mockumentaries are comic in nature and others dramatic to emphasize on the parody. One of the first examples of mockumentaries would be “ the Swiss spaghetti harvest”, aired on bbc entertainment on April fool’s day which actually explained how spaghetti grew on trees! Having found that out I was very tempted to watch it an I actually found the video on YouTube, it was hilarious. I can imagine the look on the people’s faces when they came to know it was a joke. Other than that, out of the thousand mockumentaries that showed up on the YouTube search page I watched two, the janoskians vs. wild and the majestic plastic bag. The first one was a spoof on the show man vs. wild. I have to admit, it was quite funny at first but then it got really disgusting and I had to stop watching cause my four year old sister was also watching with me. The second one was a much better mockumentary and made a lot of sense even though that is quite the contrary of the actual objective of mockumentaries.

The majestic plastic bag was my favourite and all the credit goes to the voice that narrates the entire journey. The voice was just perfect and sounded all serious and intense where as the intended meaning was the exact opposite. Its pretty amazing how they managed to make fun of the whole documentary thing an yet ended up conveying a message in the form of a YouTube video. And you know they’ve succeeded in making their point when you actually start feeling for the plastic bag. Every time they compare the plastic bag to a living creature in the jungle not only is it funny but also ironical in the way they make the dog and the garbage cleaner and the fish look like the antagonists. The ending is the best part, by saying the plastic bag can now live forever they are actually trying to convey the hypocrisy of the entire “happily ever after” concept that has been drilled into us since childhood. Overall it’s a very different, educating and yet entertaining mockumentary.