ABSTRACT

This article is a study of the critical potential and ethical implications of encounters between fictionalised characters and unsuspecting real people. Through the case studies of Borat, The Ambassador, and the Yes Men’s media hoaxes, I aim to show how the use of fictionality as a performative strategy creates a liminal interaction that possesses a critical force which cannot be created in either classical documentaries or fiction films. The article brings together theories of fictionality as a rhetorical strategy and theories of unruly documentary artivism to investigate to whom the guise of fictionality refers and to which risks they are exposed. It is argued that the practice of unruly artivism can be characterised as a specific type of metamodernist art, and that encounters between fictionalised characters and real people (which I term ‘unruly fictionalised encounters’) constitute a subgenre which is characterised by the ethically-complex deceit of the unsuspecting real people.

摘要

本文是对虚构人物与毫无戒心的真实人物之间相遇的关键潜力和伦理意义的研究。通过大使博拉特的案例研究，以及《是的男人》的媒体恶作剧，我的目的是展示如何将虚构性作为一种表演策略来使用一种横向互动，这种互动具有一种古典电影或小说电影都无法创造的临界力量。本文将虚构作为一种修辞策略的理论与不守纪实的纪录片主义的理论进行了综合，以研究虚构的幌子指向谁以及他们所面临的风险。有人认为，不守规矩的手工艺品的实践可以被描述为一种特殊的超现代主义艺术，虚构人物与真实人物之间的相遇（我称之为“不道德的虚构相遇”）构成了一个以伦理复杂为特征的子流派。毫无戒心的真实人的欺骗。