Not a mockumentary whaaaaaaaaat

First off, I definitely agree that the American Teen's narrative structure in a documentary definitely throws off putting, which is part of the reason for it's criticism.  I think it was American Teen's goal to make a documentary with a narrative based structure on a (or at least the director's idea of a) stereotypical American high school.  That said, I think this film achieved its goal.  They found a high school in the midwest and zeroed in on students who fit the stereotypes and/or and stereotypical problems, and then used those students to drive the story.  While that high school happened to (not surprisingly) be an almost all white high school in a conservative area.  Even though it would have been nice to be a little bit more representative of different types of people, I think that the director did an excellent job in finding and picking a school that fit those stereotypes.  The fact that when we first started watching the film many people (myself included) originally thought it was actually a mockumentary and my not wanting to believe (read freaking out) that these were real people (partially) shows this.

Now having said that, I think that more specifically it was the director's goal for American Teen to show how the stereotypes and issues that we often come to associate with high school really do exist and aren't as exaggerated as many people to assume them to be.  In this case, while certainly headed in the right direction, I think the film's apparent lack of authenticity really hurt it on the way to achieving this goal.  Part of the reason I thought it was a mockumentary at first was because of how well the characters (see I can't stop thinking about them as characters rather than subjects) fit the stereotypes.  The other reason however, was that the film indeed did seem much too polished.  While the idea that teenagers can't be extremely intimate on camera is bullshit, even if the director actually was in all the right places at the right times, she should have made it feel less structured like they really just happened to be there to retain the feel of authenticity that is necessary to a documentary.  While it is totally okay to influence what you are filming in a documentary a little bit as long as that is to portray a more accurate representation of your subject (I will give American Teen the benefit of the doubt on this), it certainly could have done a better job on making it feel like they were only capturing events and nothing more in order to maintain it's documentary feel. Many scenes' authenticity is certainly questionable (reaction shots, phone calls, etc.)

I would have left out the animated sequences, but that is more a personal choice.