An emotionally effusive film, this – sometimes excitable and indulgent but watchable, and an interesting addition to a growing documentary genre focusing on New York City as the crucible of gay liberation politics. Film-makers Ester Gould and Reijer Zwaan seek out and reunite the backing dancers recruited by Madonna for her 1990 Truth or Dare tour and its accompanying documentary. This became a scandal for “backstage” footage of an all-male kiss, noted here as an under-remembered historical moment in gay openness. But it also became a cause of terrible legal acrimony as the men involved were not ready for it to be used in the film.
Some of the dancers reveal that, for all the tour’s emphasis on defiant openness, they had not revealed that they were HIV positive. One, Gabriel Trupin, died of an Aids-related illness. After this dizzying, dazzling reflected glory, many of the dancers had real problems adjusting. Some had to deal with illness and drink and substance abuse issues – although the film doesn’t quite spell out that a far more dangerous addiction was global celebrity, and the extravagant but capricious and short-lived love from the world’s most famous woman.
At the final reunion scene, this great star is She Who Must Not Be Named. These middle-aged men look like Madonna survivors.
