Is The Mockumentary Dead?

Y'all think about this little film crew I brought in here

Distracting, makes our jobs harder. But exciting, we're about to be on TV. Because they are covering underfunded, poorly managed public schools in America

Abbott Elementary debuted on December of 2021, and when it first became clear the show was a mockumentary

it was hard not to be skeptical. Series like The Office, Parks and Recreation, and Modern Family

had long since run the format into the ground, and it was difficult to believe there was still anything worthwhile

left to ring from the genre's tired cliches. But much to everyone's surprise

Abbott Elementary didn't feel tired or cliche. It changed up the formula in some subtle but important ways

and in the process, it saved the mockumentary sitcom. Oh, don't ever come out with me and Finchie

No, I won't. Oh, you gotta go for it. There's guys my age, and they look 50

How old do you think I look? 30. 30, yeah. Yep. The original British version of The Office

debuted in 2001, and though it didn't invent the mockumentary sitcom, it was arguably the first

show to perfect it. Using the hallmarks of documentary filmmaking, including talking head

interviews, moments that break the fourth wall, and a cinema verite-ish style of shooting, The

Office blurred the line between fiction and reality in a way that highlighted its themes

and heightened its comedy, which was largely of the cringe variety. The UK Office wasn't a huge

success in its initial run, but it was genuinely different from most other sitcoms of its era

and that eventually earned it a big following, as well as an American remake. That series debuted

in 2005 and ran for nine seasons. Noting its success, Hollywood predictably started cranking

out more mockumentary sitcoms, including now-classic shows like Parks and Rec, Reno 911

and Modern Family. Of course, as the number of such series increased, the novelty decreased

it was also hard not to notice that the shows themselves placed increasingly less importance on their documentary aspect

Both Parks and Rec and Modern Family, for example, regularly strained their audience's credulity when it came to the omnipresence of the film crews

and neither series even bothered to explain who was doing the filming, or why

or why they kept filming for years on end. We lost our baby in the car and people are judging us

I swear to God, I'm going to break it! Those shows never dealt with those questions because they didn really matter to the stories being told But the more apparent it became that the documentary framing was just a stylistic affectation the more the whole conceit began to feel unnecessary The tropes of the mockumentary

calcified into cliches and audiences lost interest in the genre. Producers kept trying to milk the

format with series like Zack Stone is going to be famous, which debuted in 2013, as well as the

Comedians and The Muppets, both of which dropped in 2015. But none of them lasted more than a season

so when Modern Family ended its run in 2020, it felt like the end of an era. And had it followed

the traditional blueprint, Abbott Elementary, which debuted just one year later, easily could

have gone down as just another name on that list of failed office wannabes. Created by Quinta

Brunson, the series focuses on idealistic second grade teacher Janine Teagues, played by Brunson

herself. Along with her colleagues, she fights to make things work at the criminally underfunded

titular school, which is located in a low-income and largely African-American area of Philadelphia

Pennsylvania. Melissa, how is Jalen Hurts on your screen right now? Because sometimes God has favorites, Janine

Originally conceived as an animated show, Brunson decided to switch it to live action

after partnering with office director Randall Einhorn. But even before he came on board

Brunson wanted Abbott to be a mockumentary. Given the state of the format, that decision

was something of a risk. And in its early days, the show did have to struggle

with the deflated expectations left behind by previous entries in the genre

But it didn't take long for audiences to start to notice what Abbott was doing differently

Of course, sitcoms set at public schools are nothing new, but Abbott is among the first

to apply a mockumentary format to the setting. Right off the bat, that set it apart from both other school shows

and other mockumentaries, and it made it feel fresh. Abbott was also very upfront

about the reason behind its mockumentary conceit. That's because, according to Brunson, she's a fan of the format and considers it ideal for jokes

but only if there's a real reason to use it. As explained in the pilot, the camera crew is there to document America's underfunded

and poorly managed public school system. It's a far more believable subject matter for a long-running documentary

than a boring office in Scranton or some random family living in suburban Los Angeles

And as such, it serves as a far better justification for the mockumentary format

At the same time, the series didn't want to get too meta when it comes to that format

Yes the documentary crew is occasionally mentioned The show for example lampshaded the months of the school year they missed due to a writer strike with a joke about how the camera crew got robbed and lost their equipment So they got robbed because they thought it be cute to walk around West Philly at night with all

this camera equipment. Anyway, here we are five months later because that's how long it takes for

three people with art degrees to save up for new cameras. But otherwise, the focus is overwhelmingly

on the teachers and fans of The Office need not fear anything like what happened with Brian

the sound guy. Moreover, the visual template set by Einhorn, who directed the series' first four

episodes, also serves the format more than the usual mockumentary cinematography. On Abbott

the cameras move around a lot more than they tend to do on similar shows, lending more credence to

the idea that you're watching footage that was spontaneously captured on the go. And the talking

head interviews only rarely feature the characters sitting comfortably and talking to the camera in

a perfect shot. Instead, the cameras do things like subtly tilting down for shorter characters

and up for taller ones. It's an imperfection that furthers the illusion that these interviews

are being conducted on the fly with busy people in a busy environment. But the more realistic use

of the camera is really just the beginning. Abbott also shakes things up through its choice

of Janine as its main character. Most other successful mockumentary sitcoms centered on a

singular, larger-than-life personality, like David Brent, Michael Scott, or Leslie Knope. And that's because the format risks feeling boring without having someone like that around

to constantly drive the action, especially when the setting is something as dull and

low stakes as a paper company or a local parks department. If they had gone with the usual model, Janelle James' egomaniacal principal Ava Coleman would

be the natural main character. Come on, hurry up. Who knows when those kids will start arriving

They get here at 7.30. Every day? That's wild. But Janine is cut from the same cloth as most traditional sitcom protagonists

Compassionate and down-to-earth, she's the kind of main character who functions as a relatable proxy for the audience

and an ideal anchor for an eccentric ensemble. It's the kind of thing Abbott can get away with

because unlike most other mockumentary sitcoms, its setting comes with some almost all-too-real stakes already built right in

Starved for budget, the school is literally falling apart. The future of hundreds, if not thousands of children

are on the line and few faculty members who weren't driven off by the poor conditions

spend their days struggling to provide them with an adequate education. As a result the series regularly engages with education issues like overcrowded classrooms school supply shortages insufficient accommodations for disabled students and the financial fallout of charter schools low salary for faculty

conflicts between parents and teachers, racism in the classroom, and the toll all of these problems can take on a teacher's mental health

That willingness to tackle the kind of real-world problems that are usually reserved for dramas

is yet another quality that sets Abbott apart from other mockumentaries. At the same time, it frees the series up to differentiate itself through its tone and mode

of humor. Taking their cues from The Office's cringe comedy model, many of the most successful

mockumentary sitcoms found their laughs by reveling in the typically uncomfortable moments

of an average workday that everyone, in one sense or another, has been forced to endure

But thanks to its real-world stakes, Abbott Elementary earns most of its laughs through

its character's seemingly unconquerable sincerity. Oh, do you hear that? Optimism wins again

It's easy to be amused when Janine decides to fix one of the school's broken toilets by herself

only to be sprayed with a jet of toilet water, or when she blacks out the whole school while trying to repair a light fixture

But in the end, she's a character we can relate to who's fighting the good fight

and that makes her hard not to root for. The same goes for Janine's colleagues who, like most of the school's student body

are mostly African American. It makes Abbott the incredibly rare mockumentary that focuses on Black characters and Black perspectives

One episode in season one, for example, features Janine teaching her class a lesson

using African-American vernacular English, which Janine calls Philadelphia slang, and recognizes as the language her students speak

within their day-to-day lives. Okay, let's move on to Ard. Ard! Right, which means all right

They're all relatively small touches, but put them together. The fresh setting, the superior use of the format

the more relatable main character, the willingness to engage with real-world issues

that have recognizable stakes, the reliance on sincerity rather than awkwardness, and the representation of a community typically underserved by the genre

And you have a show unlike any other of its kind. Why are you breathing so hard

I'm excited. Well, it's weird. You should get that checked out. Okay

The point is, Abbott Elementary managed to breathe new life in the mockumentary sitcom

by subverting much of what we've come to expect of it. It successfully refocused the whole format to tell a different kind of story

about different kinds of characters. And for everyone who thought the format was dead, it turned out to be a real lesson