Mockumentaries

Punishment Park

Fear of a Black Hat

Thanks to a generously helpful genre suggestion, and my recent viewing of Drop Dead Gorgeous, I realized that we were long overdue for some mockumentaries. A category that is just as malleable and diverse as the documentary genre from which it parodies, mockumentaries often tell fictional stories that are just as likely, or in tonight’s case, just as familiar as actual written history. While some of my all-time favorite films and mockumentaries come solely from Christopher Guest’s Spinal Tap extended universe (Waiting for Guffman, A Mighty Wind, Best In Show, For Your Consideration, Mascots [all of them must-see(s), but in that order]) I’ve realized that these films are just the tip of the mock iceberg. Before viewing To Die For and Drop Dead Gorgeous, I had no idea that these were told in the style of a mockumentary, and I can confidently say that this vehicle of storytelling made those films even more unpredictable. There are, in fact, too many incredible mockumentaries to list, but I must also mention What We Do in the Shadows, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, 7 Days in Hell, A Hard Days Night, and the forgotten penguin Point Break known as Surf’s Up (am I the only who forgot that Surf’s Up was a mockumentary?) The mockumentary style lends itself well to comedy, particularly with subversively comedic films like Borat—that dares to mix its mockery with real-life figures who are unaware that they’re the butt of the joke—but tonight’s viewing of Punishment Park reminded me that there’s plenty of room for sincerity within this category, and much is revealed about our reality as we examine, exaggerate, and mock it. In an appropriate follow up to the cynicism of Escape From New York, Punishment Park delivered its succinct commentary on our capitalist, sometimes fascist, perpetually racist, eternally classist American government but in a more matter-of-fact way. Punishment Park was a mockumentary with little hyperbole or humor, just a terrifyingly believable premise. Director Peter Watkins transports us to a Nixon-era nightmare wherein U.S. prisons are at capacity and new inmates must now choose between a jail sentence or 3 days in Punishment Park: where federal authorities will use them as target practice as they traverse 50 miles of desert to freedom. This film follows a group of social activists, draft-dodgers, and various other nonviolent “criminals” involved with the anti-war movement who are viewed as a threat by the conservative majority and must now survive heat, exhaustion, and an armada of radical policemen. We get to hear these prisoners—most of which are played by actual activists and protesters—testify and defend themselves to a court of various conservative leaders and personalities, and every word they preached was more salient than the last. The most painful parts of this film weren’t just its depictions of violence and the ambivalence toward it, but in the fact that in the 50 years since Punishment Park was released, nothing has changed. How eerie it was to hear these hippies and activists speak about the pervasiveness of racism, police brutality, and class inequality in the U.S. in 1971 while living in the same reality, currently, in 2021. Between the passionate, mostly ad-libbed testimonies of the individuals fighting for their lives against the fascist powers that be, and the footage of other inmates narrowly escaping violence as they cross the formidable desert, this film is as painful as it is plausible. As we follow along with a British film crew, tasked with documenting the journey of a band of pacifists, the feeling of heat and danger and dread is impossible to ignore—along with the constant echoing of gun shots in the distance. So much of the discourse that takes place between the committee of conservative leaders and the prisoners could easily take place in the present day—with every mention of insurrection, overzealous leadership, capitalistic failure, violently militaristic police forces, and a general lack of empathy from authority, I felt more and more disappointment with the progress, or lack thereof, that we’ve made. For any concerned American or bleeding-heart leftist, Punishment Park is as difficult as it is essential to watch. It’s one of the most realistic and uncanny mockumentaries I’ve ever seen and given the fact that these were real social activists and real conservative policemen playing these roles, I’m actually shocked that there wasn’t more brutality. This one’s a doozy, much like the username of the individual who uploaded this film to Youtube, but it’s worth the watch. In the same vein of “wow nothing has changed”, but told in the music doc style of Spinal Tap, Fear of a Black Hat was a brilliant and hilarious palate cleanser to follow up the hopelessness of Punishment Park. From its title (parodying Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet) to its end credits to its costuming to its not-so-subtle references of every rapper from the eighties and nineties, Fear of a Black Hat was both a love letter and a sublime roast of the hip hop music industry. Written, directed, produced, and starring Rusty Cundieff, Fear of a Black Hat documents the rise and fall of the fictional rap group N.W.H. (N—With Hats) which consists of the rappers Ice Cold (Rusty Cundieff), Tasty Taste (Larry B. Scott), and Tone Def (Mark Christopher Lawrence). Psuedo-sociologist Nina Blackburn (aka Kasi Lemmons of Silence of the Lambs fame) follows N.W.H. as they embark on their first major tour, spitting lyrics that were as clever as they were stupid throughout. The references to several rap-related controversies were too dense to count, and so specifically funny that I hesitate to spoil them for you here. While filled to the brim with puns and slapstick comedy, Fear of a Black Hat also showcases the toxicity of the music industry, the hypocrisy of white rappers, the inclination toward lyrical misogyny, and an overall disdain for The Man. This movie is simultaneously ludicrous and lucid—effectively detailing certain struggles of black entertainers, and of black people in general, while still managing to be charming and humorous. Dealing with stuffy music producers, censorship, the police, the mysterious deaths of all of their white managers, and the Yoko Effect, the story of the N.W.H. chronicles a tale as old as music itself, while still remaining unique and timeless. The songs in this film were genuinely good, and the performances here were just as dedicated, albeit more light-hearted, as those in Punishment Park. For any mockumentary fan, I would say that both of these films must be watched, and though Fear of a Black Hat was easier to stomach than Punishment Park, these films are both time capsules of the eras in which they were created, while still closely resembling the reality we’re currently living in. After all of the mockumentaries I’ve seen and obsessed over, these two starkly disparate films managed to blow me away and kept me engrossed long after the credits stopped rolling. While I could go on and on about the brilliance of both of these films, they really must be experienced yourself—if you’re looking for realism and intrigue in your mockumentaries—you’ve found it.