You know how some documentaries just happen and others ignite a cultural revolution in a cone bra? This week, Mandy reunites with her former roommate, award-winning author, screenwriter, and Madonna scholar-in-chief Abdi Nazemian, to talk about the pop documentary that practically reinvented fame itself: Madonna: Truth or Dare.
Abdi literary résumé is already Hall of Fame (Only This Beautiful Moment, Like a Love Story, Exquisite Things)— and he returns to Make Me a Nerd to nerd out about the film that shaped him, inspired his art, and very nearly ruined his high-school Spanish play. (That’s right: the man skipped Madonna for drama club.)
Together, Mandy and Abdi dissect the film’s legacy with the obsessive joy of two grad students armed with eyeliner. They talk about Madonna’s audacity, the film’s accidental queerness that became very intentional, and the moment every gay teen of the early ’90s realized: “Oh, so this is what freedom looks like—with backup dancers.” Abdi recounts how the documentary cracked open his world, how its fearless visibility still echoes in his own banned-book-era storytelling, and why he’s still chasing that mixture of defiance and grace three decades later.
Along the way, they tackle everything from Warren Beatty’s “human raincloud” energy to Madonna’s evolving accent to the question that divides all fandoms: “Can you be both bratty and brave?” The answer, obviously, is yes—if you’re Madonna. Or Abdi Nazemian.
Links & Notes
- Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991), dir. Alek Keshishian
- Strike a Pose (2016)
- Like a Love Story, Exquisite Things, Only This Beautiful Moment by Abdi Nazemian
- Dick Tracy soundtrack (I’m Breathless)
- Blonde Ambition Tour / Like a Prayer album
- Madonna’s Nightline interview on Justify My Love (1990)
Make Me a Nerd
- Website: makemeanerd.com/join
- Instagram: @mandy_kaplan_klavens
- TikTok & Bluesky: @mandymiscast
