A day late but important nonetheless.
“There’s nothing to say off camera,” goes Warren Beatty’s famous roast of Madonna in the 1991 documentary Truth or Dare. “Why would you say something if it’s off camera? What point is there existing?”
I was reminded the other day how important this post might be; did you know many people born in the late 80s and early 90s have never seen Madonna’s Truth Or Dare documentary? Even if you are not a Madonna fan (mine waivers), this documentary was transformational. This may have been the one time Madonna truly was the zeitgeist incarnate. Madonna dusted off cinema vérité; she proved documentary didn’t have to be boring – they could be fun, trashy, a long form music video. Echoes of this move can still be felt today in reality TV, fashion documentaries and of course, every music artist documentary.
Madonna told Good Morning America that with Truth or Dare, she aimed “to explode the myth that we raise up on a pedestal people we turn into icons. We make them inhuman and we don’t give them human attributes so they’re not allowed to fail, they’re not allowed to make mistakes.” Not every star today cosigns on this level of invasion, but those who do (Dina Lohan, Paris Hilton) often talk about reclaiming their public image from the public, echoing Madonna. But in true Madonna form, even as she appears to be a showing us every facet of her personality, uncensored, we see a glint in her eye that suggests otherwise. Is she always playing us while playing herself? Her camera-awareness supersedes that of Snooki.
Truth or Dare is relic of when celebrities didn’t go through intensive media training to ensure no one was offended and their personalities were consumable by all. Madonna is one of those relics – she is totally honest. She is not afraid of the truth, and as Kurt Loder said, “Even a lie is telling”.
I suggest everyone watch or re-watch Truth or Dare if not to see how our current realty is echoed, if not predicted, in a documentary released 20 years ago but because it is also beautiful.
Truth Or Dare is available through Amazon.com