F Is for Phony

Fake documentaries mimic documentary genre expectations, unraveling the documentary’s authority and dismantling understandings of identity, history, and nation. The interdisciplinary essays in F Is for Phony discuss a broad scope of works and explore issues raised by “fake docs” such as the fiction/documentary divide, the ethics of reality-based manipulation, and whether documentariness derives from form or reception.

Defining the borderline between fact and fiction, the contributors reveal what fake documentaries imply and usually make explicit: that many documentaries lie to tell the truth, and that the truth is relative.

Contributors: Steve Anderson, Catherine L. Benamou, Mitchell W. Block, Luis Buñuel, Marlon Fuentes, Craig Hight, Charlie Keil, Alisa Lebow, Eve Oishi, Robert F. Reid-Pharr, Gregorio C. Rocha, Jane Roscoe, Catherine Russell, Elisabeth Subrin.

Alexandra Juhasz is professor of media studies at Pitzer College. She is author of Women of Vision: Histories in Feminist Film and Video (Minnesota, 2001).

Jesse Lerner is associate professor of media studies at Pitzer College.