It’s important for voices from different backgrounds and communities to be represented in documentaries because documentaries help inform the world of cultural understanding. When underrepresented people or minorities do not have the opportunities to speak for themselves and show the rest of the world how they function, misrepresentations and harmful stereotypes become the norm, and people could have a falsified view of their realities and cultures. Having representation in documentaries helps counter the stereotypes placed upon them, and helps them feel like they have more of a place in the world. It also helps people outside of the underrepresented communities gain more empathy and understanding for the people in these cultures and may help them act less prejudiced in the future.

 

Docs that use the performative mode emphasize personal expression, emotional truth, and subjectivity rather than aiming for giving objective truth or statistics. They intend to bring situated experiences to a heightened state rather than try to invoke some sort of change to happen. Performative docs invite us to experience what it feels like to occupy the subjective position of different kinds of people. Performative docs are also often made by minorities or underrepresented groups. Because they have a better understanding of how their communities work than anybody else, they can typically make these personal and affective docs that accurately gives the rest of the world a glimpse of their communities. 

 

A good example of the performative mode doc representing different communities is Paris is Burning. The documentarian tried to not act as a character in the film. When watching the movie, you can feel the subjects’ shared experiences. When you learn that Venus Xtraveganza was strangled to death, presumably because she was trans, you can feel the hardships that people in the trans community face. But you can also feel the joy these people experience as they perform in ballrooms and be drag queens.

 

The participatory mode centers on interaction between the filmmaker and the subjects. The filmmaker may appear on screen, conduct interviews, and collaborate directly with community members. This makes it so participatory documentaries are less focused on the emotional truth of the subjects and can be more grounded in objective reality. The audience may get to learn about these communities through hearing about the people’s experiences, rather than feeling like they are living the experiences with them like how the performative mode does. The active acknowledgement of the filmmaker also makes the audience able to tell the motives and biases behind making the film better, which could be helpful or harmful depending on what those are. Since people outside of the underrepresented communities could more easily make a participatory documentary about the communities rather than a performative documentary, they often do. This can lead to misrepresentations and harmful stereotypes getting reinforced in these films if not done correctly.

 

A good example of the participatory mode is Minding the Gap. The filmmaker has a very active role in this film. But as we see him talk to Keire and interact with Keire, we can see underlying issues that Keire has to deal with on a day-to-day basis and also hear about experiences he has faced in interviews. Like When the filmmaker sits down with Keire and talks to him about his dad and about people saying racist things around him.

 

Both modes provide similar but unique ways of highlighting the experiences of underrepresented communities. The performative mode captures the internal and emotional truths of these communities' lives, while the participatory mode uses more direct views and interactive interviews. Together, they show why it’s important for people to make documentaries about diverse groups of people.