When imaginary cartoon worlds get the "documentary look": understanding mockumentary through its animated variant

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dc.contributor.authorFormenti, Cristina
dc.date.accessioned2018-04-24T11:27:38Z
dc.date.available2018-04-24T11:27:38Z
dc.date.issued2014
dc.description.abstractDue to their clearly imaginary narratives and to the presence of animation itself, animated mockumentaries make the viewer aware of their fictionality from the start. Therefore, these animated works constitute the clearest example of mockumentary being not a genre, but rather a narrative style capable of transcending the boundaries of genres, media, and individual poetics. Through the analysis of Ash Brannon and Chris Buck’s feature film, Surf’s Up (2007), and of The Simpsons’ episodes “Behind the Laughter” (Mark Kirkland, 2000) and “Springfield Up” (Chuck Sheetz, 2007), in this article I argue that the mockumentary style does not consist solely in the adoption of documentary aesthetics and structures, but also in the deployment of elements (such as booms left “accidentally” in view, glances in the direction of the camera and so on) that I will call fictionality clues. I will demonstrate that, whereas in hoaxes or credible live-action mockumentaries the presence of these hints might be dismissed as due to the need of alerting the viewer to the film’s effective ontological status, in the case of animated mockumentaries they would be redundant, if used just for this purpose. Thus their occurrence in these works suggests that they are central to the mockumentary as a form.en
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.description.versionPublished Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationFormenti, C. (2014) 'When imaginary cartoon worlds get the "documentary look": understanding mockumentary through its animated variant', Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, 8. https://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.8.03en
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.8.03
dc.identifier.endpage59
dc.identifier.issn2009-4078
dc.identifier.issued8
dc.identifier.journalabbrevAlphaville
dc.identifier.journaltitleAlphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Mediaen
dc.identifier.startpage41
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/5857
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherFilm and Screen Media, University College Corken
dc.relation.urihttp://www.alphavillejournal.com/Issue8/HTML/ArticleFormenti.html
dc.rights© 2014, The Author(s)en
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
dc.subjectMockumentaryen
dc.subjectThe Simpsonsen
dc.subjectSurf’s Upen
dc.subjectFictionality cluesen
dc.titleWhen imaginary cartoon worlds get the "documentary look": understanding mockumentary through its animated varianten
dc.typeArticle (peer-reviewed)en
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Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media. Issue 08: Animation at the Cutting Edge