Documentaries are increasing in popularity as a genre of film and television. More and more, we see people recommending documentaries to each other, and deliberately searching for them to the point that large streaming platforms have designated sections for them. It's a genre that has existed just as long as any other type of film - people love documenting things, and film (and cameras) have made that easier than ever.

Documentaries are a great way to learn new things, but the increasing popularity of them concerns me a little. Specifically, the way people treat them as a substitute for real learning. This is a pattern with people around my age (Gen Z loosely), where we are so taken in by information supplied by someone saying it with enough confidence. I see it at university, where someone will make a claim in a seminar and their only source of information was a documentary, or a youtube video essay, or a TikTok. My problem with people taking documentaries so seriously is that they aren't.

Don't get me wrong, there are absolutely some documentaries, or docuseries, that are well researched, nuanced and good sources of information. The danger lies in the fact that aren't obligated to be reliable sources of information. For this reason, anyone can create a documentary, especially when we have means to film anything, anywhere with our phones.

Filming in public spaces has become almost common practice for a multitude of purposes. Being able to film with an easily accessible device is a good thing, as it can keep you safe, but it also becoming too normalised. The dissemination of information is so widespread, its too difficult to trust anymore.

Treating documentary as a substitute for journalism poses problems, largely including the fact that they aren't bound to journalistic code in their creation. This code outlines practices that ensures journalism remains balanced, truthful and as unbiased as possible. It's impossible to remove bias, but there are measures that journals and news sources take to ensure fairness that the creation of documentaries don't have and aren't required to adhere to. Take the documentary about MH370 on Netflix, which is about the plane that went missing in 2014. It is a platformed version of elaborate conspiracy theories, exploiting the tragedy while offering nothing tangible to the families of people who were involved.

All types of media follow a narrative. But, people tend to forget that documentary can be just as fictive as any other type of media. It follows a biased perspective, is meticulously constructed to tell a particular narrative just like any other. The idea that documentaries are fictive is so relevant for genres like true crime, where the telling of these stories is exploitative to the real people involved, and the trauma they might still be experiencing and healing from, whilst inadvertently glorifying and marking those involved in the crime as interesting/ fascinating and making people invested in a criminal (like the “Conversations with a Killer“ documentary on Netflix).

The rise of the mockumentary, which are fake documentaries, points out how the conventions of a doumentary are easily manipulated. You may be most familair with the term in association with SitComs like Modern Family and Parks and Rec, but it is largely a genre that is made to parody how easily manipulative the format of a documentary is. An example of this is Cunk on Earth, though the humor of it makes it clear that its not supposed to be taken seriously. Despite this, just because something seems true or authoritative doesn't mean it is.

This blog isn't meant to dissuade you from enjoying documentaries, just point out that watching one is the same experience as watching a film, and we should be just as, if not more critical of them and their content.

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