Mockumentaries are so damn watchable!

By Ross Hawkes on April 9, 2008 8:54 AM | Permalink

OK, so it might be a spoof, but there's a lot of truth in Mitchell and Webb's fake documentary above.

Channel four and five (and even the BBC's One Life) have been awash with these modern-day circus freakshows for quite some time.

But the worrying thing is that you just can't help watching them.

Take The Elephant Man the other night.

Even the title tells you that this isn't the sympathetic documentary it's made out to be. Following the fortunes of a 31-year-old Chinese man with shocking facial disfigurements, The Elephant Man was meant to take viewers on a journey with the person in question.

Only it didn't.

Instead, it showed us a pig being slaughtered (I've still no idea why), lots of shots of the disfigurement, some doctors panicking as blood showered them on the operating table and that was it. We didn't find out whether the surgery made a difference to his life or even what the final result was.

Proof if ever that the show was nothing more than voyeurism masquerading as a documentary.

Still, you couldn't help but watch it, could you?