At some point during Ariana Grande’s pre-show playlist for the Sweetener World Tour (or the Sweetener/Thank U, Next World Tour, if you prefer), Madonna’s “Cherish” is sure to come on. For those tweens–and even those unknowledgeable twinks who have no idea what M did for them–in the audience, the song will mean nothing to them. Will not register. Will go completely over their heads. Yet despite Ari’s bathetic reverence for Mariah Carey (which shows up notably in this “documentary”), she knows that Madonna, like, invented pop stardom (one supposes that’s why Grande saw fit to cast her as the voice of God in her “God Is A Woman” video). Not only that, but she invented the concept of a truly modern stage show, complete with major production value and theatricality–songs that told a narrative tale rather than just being sung lackadaisically into a microphone. Oh, and finally, she helmed the rockumentary that no other pop star has been able to top, Truth or Dare (known in Britain as In Bed With Madonna). Try as Lady Gaga might to compare (yet again) with Five Foot Two.
Whatever Excuse Me, I Love You is supposed to be, it’s not a documentary, so much as a structurally flawed attempt at intermingling concert footage and what amounts to Instagram stories. There’s nothing at stake, and no real arc to be noted. Grande herself reveals little about her personality, and maybe that’s for the best considering this is the girl who, in 2015, got candid while the camera was doing a cinéma vérité capturing of her licking donuts and saying, “I hate Americans. I hate America” (granted, it’s a sentiment everyone has gotten on board with at last this year). Here instead, she offers us “cute Ariana,” “sympathetic Ariana” and “best boss ever Ariana.” Practically everyone shown is given the caption “Best Friend.” But, as it is said (even by Taylor Swift), “A friend to all is a friend to none.” Nothing personal enters into it, save for an occasional cameo by her mother, Joan, who has decided Kris Jenner qualities. And, speaking of Taylor, the presence of Grande’s manager, Scooter Braun (no Freddy DeMann, mind you), doesn’t do much to lend a “personal” vibe either.
While Ari might not have been able to capture the same solid gold that Alek Keshishian did with Madonna (perhaps that’s what you get when you rely on shoddy direction from someone named Paul Dugdale), she did manage to borrow plenty from a later Madonna stage show, the Rebel Heart Tour, specifically during “God Is A Woman,” which emulates the religious positioning of “Devil Pray.” Ari even goes back to the Blond Ambition Tour era with a chair number for “Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored” that looks like a lazy reimagining of “Family Affair/Keep It Together” (ah, and there’s also more than a touch of Céline in the mix when Ari employs a giant moon to hover above her for “Tattooed Heart”–in keeping with the space theme of “nasa” before it. But true pop fans know Céline pulled that shit long ago in 2007 for “My Heart Will Go On” during her Vegas residency, A New Day…).
Alas, “subtle” re-creations of Madonna moments past cannot compensate for what’s fundamentally missing. Ariana’s sense of “emotional accessibility” is, at best, skin deep and, at worst, nonexistent. Madonna, on the other hand, was all too ready to discuss the psychological gut-punch of going from being surrounded by a tour family 24/7 to returning back to “normal life.” She says right at the very beginning of Truth or Dare, in anticipation of the final show, “It’s like when someone’s dying… you have to make your peace kind of before they die. I’ve done this with close friends of mine. It’s like I make my peace with it before it happens so I don’t get really hurt, and then when it happens, it’s like, I don’t feel anything. But I know I’m gonna feel something later, I just don’t know when that’s gonna be.” Ariana, it seems, looks forward to the moment she can take off her Rocky Horror Picture Show boots and Netflix and chill with her latest piece (now fiancé… because why not?).
Even the tour rehearsal section briefly shown proves to be banal, revealing no true testament to the rigorousness of the preparation that goes into a show of this magnitude. Madonna saw fit to take care of that elucidation as well in 2005’s I’m Going to Tell You A Secret–the “sequel,” of sorts, to Truth or Dare that instead covered her Reinvention Tour.
Throughout the course of the “documentary,” all that can be thought is: if one is going to release a concert video, just release it. Don’t bother trying to intersperse “little vignettes” that interrupt the flow of the show. Where Truth or Dare’s structure is concerned, there is no match for its well-timed incorporation of the following performances (contrasted against the black and white documentary footage by being paraded in color): “Express Yourself,” “Oh Father,” “Like A Virgin,” “Holiday,” “Live To Tell,” “Vogue” (the only song that does intersperse plenty of B&W scenes) and “Keep It Together.” All of these songs are very overtly hand-picked to coincide with whatever drama has been going on behind the scenes.
And since any pop star who makes a documentary (or tries to) of this nature is automatically paying homage to Madonna, they might as well go “whole hog” with emulation. At least in terms of structure. In Excuse Me, I Love You, the lack of color distinction between the concert footage and the “documentary” footage also heightens a general lack of, let’s say, specialness to the performances. Which already seem to rely too heavily on Grande putting on drag queen-approved costumes to mitigate the fact that these are not the glory days of choreography (the last time likely being Britney Spears’ era, with her slew of early 00s tours–including, of course, the Dream Within A Dream Tour). She “just sits there” for a large enough portion for her lack of dynamism to be noticeable (particularly during “R.E.M.”–the song from which the “documentary” title takes its name).
Then there are her random glommings on to pop culture “of yore” (as her fanbase will see it), as is the case with inserting a clip from The First Wives Club onscreen before leading into “Be Alright”–as though, just because they’re dressed in similar white getups from a scene that’s not even included in the “intro” to the track, it’s supposed to be relevant. Grande also wielded this costuming and background homage for her debut live performance of “thank u, next” on Ellen (before she was “exposed” for being a huge bitch). So clearly, it can be inserted into any old song, being that it’s a “non-concept” (just like ripping off her favorite movie scenes for the “thank u, next” video for no “meaningful” reason other than “I just like them”).
The setlist itself, packed with twenty-five “hits,” also seems to prove that, well, Grande has really released a lot of throwaway fluff (notably “sweetener,” “successful,” “makeup,” “Right There,” “You’ll Never Know” and “Tattooed Heart”). Maybe that’s, in part, why not a single performance comes across as something that you’ll necessarily remember afterward. Save for “7 Rings,” which sticks because it emulates the indelible imagery from the video (imagery that 2 Chainz was the one to make illustrious anyway, for he was the one to showcase a pink traphouse in Atlanta long before Ari).
Grande’s timing on the release of this “documentary” also seems to be geared at reminding people how much they miss concert-going. Taking the songs from one of her London tour dates at the O2 Arena, there is a notable bittersweetness to this geographical location considering that the UK in general and London in particular are at the epicenter of a new strain of coronavirus that has spurred stricter lockdown measures and more ostracism toward a country that really thought it just “vanted to be alone” (said in Greta Garbo accent). And now it really is. The barrage of phone screens and over the top fans singing along as though anyone came to the show to hear them does not, however, make one as nostalgic for pre-pandemic conditions in the live music world as would be believed when watching a concert of this nature.
There is no “cause” at the root of the documentary, with a mention of Trump’s impeachment thrown in for an attempt at being political, one supposes. And while LGBTQ+ rights have obviously come along way since the Stone Age of the Stonewall, the fact that gay and trans rights have been actively attacked throughout the Trump administration would have given Grande plenty of opportunity to discuss or feature it if she wanted to be more than cursorily “political.” In Truth or Dare, the political was at every turn. Not only because the period was more restrictive, but because Madonna’s entire raison d’être is to break down barriers and challenge so-called “social norms.” Ariana is someone clearly not totally sure that’s what she wants or needs to be doing–after all, so much of the legwork has already been done for her. Instead, it appears there’s a reason she gushes so hard about Mariah during one scene: she just wants to sing her little songs and not think too much at the end of the day.
If that’s the case, no need to bother waving some fuckin’ gay pride flags at the end of the final song. Such a gesture does not an “activist” make–nor does it even seem to serve as anything other than a non sequitur. At the same time, maybe that non sequitur nature is just a reflection of the present epoch. But regardless of such a notion, it doesn’t change the reality that, the more the years pass, and the more pop stars try to release this sort of content, the more Truth or Dare reigns supreme in a league of its own for this genre.
