Australian
Screen

Clip description

Mr Jonathon (Ben Miller) explains his theories about dance, competitions and how to give the audience a rabbit punch. Miss Elizabeth (Jane Hall) explains her completely different approach, based on discipline and abuse. In class, Mr Jonathon begins an improvisation about multinational corporations enslaving their worker ‘ants’ in a sneaker factory.

Curator’s notes

As ridiculous as Mr Jonathon’s ideas are, it’s clear that his students have a lot more fun than Miss Elizabeth’s, who have to submit to a weigh-in each week. Under the influence of American films such as Waiting for Guffman (1996) and Best in Show (2000), mockumentary has tended to concentrate on enclosed communities of special interest where performance is an integral part – amateur theatre or dog shows, in the case of those two movies – or, in this case, dance schools. The suggestion is often that these groups become isolated from reality and riven by rivalries. This could be seen as an inversion of the kind of high stakes ‘masculine’ dramas that television usually features. There is often an absence of overtly masculine characters in mockumentary and Razzle Dazzle fits that type. Mr Jonathon’s sexuality isn’t explained but a later scene makes clear he’s uncomfortable when two openly gay men appear to cheer on one of his dancers. Mockumentary is thus often a branch of ‘camp’ comedy. That’s one of the reasons that Kenny, another Australian mockumentary, was so unusual. It was a blokey mockumentary.