Truth or Dare (1991)

The documentary Truth or Dare chronicles the singer and dancer Madonna's Blonde Ambition tour. Madonna has always used sexual ambiguity to create her personal style and to market herself. She is a savvy businesswoman in the film, despite the simulated masturbation and S&M aesthetic during the show itself. Madonna's exhibitionism is part of her brand image, and on camera she can be seen lying on her dead mother's grave, talking about the one love of her life (Sean Penn), as well as wearing next to nothing. This is highlighted in an argument she has with Warren Beatty, who says that if it doesn't happen on camera for Madonna, it might as well not have happened at all.

This is the irony of a behind-the-scenes documentary about a musical performance -- for Madonna, the creation of the performance becomes just as much a 'performance' itself. Yet what emerges is not Madonna's personally rampant sexuality, but her calculated way of using her sexuality...

Madonna could be seen as anti-feminist in that she is 'selling herself' but it is she who is profiting off of the sales, not men. In fact, she keeps the men of her tour, gay and straight, under her beck and call. She also challenges local decency laws about what she can and cannot do on stage.
Although much of Madonna's fashion sensibility is provocative, because it is so controlled, it is anything but submissive. Madonna dresses herself like a blonde bombshell, but she is no Marilyn Monroe, entirely controlled by the male-dominated studio system or her desire for men. Instead, she controls her artistic output, her revenues, and even what snippets of her private life and self go into the documentary. She is always performing, and very little spontaneity creeps into this supposedly spontaneous documentary.

Works Cited

Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Directed by John Cameron Mitchell. 2001.

Truth or Dare. Directed by Alek Keshishian. 1991.