News in Fake Sports: Mike's Mic covers 'Surf's Up' (2007), and some thoughts on the mockumentary genre


Obviously, I'm a huge Mike's Mic fan, a follower of MCU, if you will.

He does a fantastic job breaking down the movie, as always. And he's so right to question whether or not humans exist in the universe of Surf's Up.

But I want to shine a little bit of an extra light on one of my favorite aspects of Surf's Up. It is a mockumentary.

The mockumentary is an underappreciated and, frankly, under utilized style of film-making in general but in fictional sports?!?!

Why are there not more sports mockumentaries??? Sports comedies are ubiquitous, and yet the best Surf's Up is actually one of the best in this subgenre.

I can hear the naysayers now, dividing themselves into two camps. The first, those who claim Surf's Up is not a sports movie.

Shut up, you are so dumb, Surf's Up is literally about a sports competition, how are you this stupid. I don't care that birds are surfing, they are surfing!! Surfing is a sport!!

The second camp of naysayers, the readers with discerning, well-cultured tastes, are reminding me of the existence of Best in Show and Strictly Ballroom. And you are so right, and beautiful, and cultured, and smart. I do think both of these films should be categorized, technically, and very, very technically for Best in Show, as sports movies. For those who would keep to a tighter definition of what is and is not a sports movie, Best in Show likely does not make the cut.

I can respect that point of view, I can. But Best in Show also has a much tighter focus on the central competition than many other pieces of sports fiction about actual sports that meet the strict, traditional definitions of what makes a sport.

I would also like to take a moment to make a suggestion that some of the best examples of mockumentaries in sports are not movies at all. I am, of course, talking about the "This is SportsCenter" ad campaign that ran from 1995 to 2018.

 

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