FILMS
Yinka Olatunbosun
Tina, a 2021 American-British documentary film, directed by Dan Lindsay and T. J. Martin. Produced by Erwin Bach, it trails the life and career of rock and roll legend, Tina Turner and it is not the first documentary of her life. This version is particularly interesting because the focus is not just on a grass-to-grace story but on the trauma that trails the success story of a sexual violence survivor and the role that the media plays in building the box around a survivor, making freedom a mere wishful thinking.
By all means, Tina’s story is agonising and the 2021 documentary was consciously done not to retraumatise Tina. Though she is still the protagonist in the story with her husband Bach within earshot, Tina wasn’t made to recount the days she was beaten or raped by her husband and mentor, Ike Turner while her son was watching. All those gory episodes were played on audio with footages from the 1993 biopic, ‘What’s Love Got to do with it’ starring Angela Bassett as Tina.
Tina must have thought she had escaped the woes of her life when she left Ike Turner after 16 years of collaboration as performing artists in rock and roll. Tina was everything to Ike: a student, a wife, a babysitter, a lead vocalist, a sex slave. Tina felt a sense of loyalty to Ike who brought her to music. She was Anne-Mae Bullock with a raspy voice. Her stage persona was inimitable. Ike knew this and promptly gave her his last name which Tina cherished till today.
At the end of their tumultuous marriage in 1975, all Tina asked for was her name. Although she has no royalty from the body of work that produced some of the greatest rock and roll hits of the 60s and early 70s like River Deep Mountain High, Nutbush City Limits and Proud Mary, she left with her name and only 36 cents. Tina revealed that it was not easy to get that name but she got it anyway. She needed a new life and even though all the American recording companies rejected her music, she persevered. At last, she had to tell her story to People Magazine not because she craved public sympathy but so that the media would quit asking about Ike and whether they still talk and other awkward questions. Shortly after this story, precisely in 1982, she signed a deal with Capitol Records and her ground-breaking record Private Dancer was released which had the hit song, ‘What Love’s Got to do with it.’ The iconic image of Tina on the album cover drew media attention to her hot legs.
‘What’s Love Got to do with it’ won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year, and it became her first and only No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100. At age 44, she was the oldest female solo artist to top the Hot 100. She set a then-Guinness World Record for the largest paying audience (180,000) for a solo performer with her Break Every Rule World Tour in 1988. But the media never stopped asking about Ike at every interview- an unnerving daylight nightmare. After the 1993 biopic, she told the press why she would not want to watch the movie. Even though Ike took to cocaine and alcoholism and eventually died, the media still questioned Tina about it. Ike and Tina Turner era was an indelible imprint in rock and roll history but does anyone still ask Diana Ross about the Supremes? Or Michael Jackson about The Jackson Five? The media felt Ike and Turner was ‘the story’ even as Tina continued to build an intimidating solo career, acquiring luxury properties and yes, finding love in the arms of Erwin Bach.
Even as she was enlisted for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021, there was an argument as to whether she would be accorded the honour as Tina Turner or alongside Ike Turner. As the first woman of colour to break into the rock music industry, Tina’s commercial success cannot be watered down by always tying the name Ike to every honour that she deserves. While Tina was belting, dancing and sweating in heels, her ex-husband was controlling the whole spectacle and the business of music. Would Tina ever forgive the media for making her life all about Ike? Time will tell.
This documentary film ‘Tina’ which had its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival on March 2, 2021 features Angela Bassett, Oprah Winfrey, Kurt Loder, Katori Hall, Erwin Bach, Carl Arrington, Jimmy Thomas, Le’Juene Fletcher, Rhonda Graam, Roger Davies and Terry Britten.[2] The film drew 1.1 million viewers and it is regarded as the best ratings for an HBO documentary since Leaving Neverland (2019), which had 1.3 million viewers tune into part one.
