9 x what you want your daughters to learn from Tina Turner
‘Mom, I think I just heard Tina Turner on the radio.’ ‘Mom, that hairdresser is called Tina Hair, could you get hair like Tina Turner cut there?’ Ever since I went with my girls to TINA – The Tina Turner Musical half a year ago, before the last lockdown, she comes up every day. And that was exactly what I hoped for. When something touches me deeply (I was already crying during the first song in the performance), I get an incredible urge to share it. Everyone I love must see this, especially my girls. I briefly doubted whether the fight scene would be too intense, but they are 9 and 12 and see every day on the news that life is more than just rainbows and unicorns. So off we went. They are now just as in love with Tina as I am and have learned a lot from this fantastic musical (I have been three times and will definitely go again to see the other actresses playing Tina).
1. Keep believing in yourself
Tina was divorced from Ike, had no money at all, she worked during the day and performed at night to earn money for her sons, and yet, she seized the opportunity to record an album again when it came along.
2. Renewal is allowed, but stay true to yourself
Tina certainly felt that some songs might not fit the new era anymore. She embraced Phil Spector's Wall of Sound and other synthesizer music. But when a trendy choreographer wanted to impose a dance on her, she refused. Her moves were her unique moves, which distinguished her from the rest, and everyone stayed away from that.
3. Friends can come from unexpected places
Tour manager Rhonda Graam, who takes on Ike Turner (and with whom he also has a romantic fling), eventually becomes one of Tina's best friends who stays with her when she has almost nothing left; no fame, no money. But friends are forever.
4. Keep believing in love
Tina had to sacrifice one love for Ike. Then she fled after sixteen years of misery from Ike. At that point, she was done with love until, when she least expected it, suddenly Erwin Bach appeared, with whom she eventually married at the age of 73 (they had been together for a long time, you know).
5. Sisters are forever
Tina's mother and sister left when Tina was just a little girl, and Tina went to live with her grandmother. Years later, when she moves back in with her mother and sister, everything with her sister is just like before. Laughing, partying, and dancing together. When Tina becomes a singer and has to be in London for recordings and performances for a long time, her sister takes care of her children. Because that's what sisters do for each other.
6. The struggle for racial equality was not long ago
We live in a time where we do our best to treat everyone fairly and where we find inclusion very important. Everyone has equal rights everywhere. That doesn't always succeed, but that is the goal. In Tina's time, people of color were sometimes not allowed to sleep in a hotel, even if there was room. For a poor girl of color, and later in the story for a divorced black woman, it was incredibly difficult to break through in music. It is important to know how severe the racial inequality was and to understand the history. We sometimes say that it doesn't matter whether someone is white or of color and, however well-intentioned, that overlooks this terrible period that people of color have gone through and often still go through.
experienced and often still experience.
7. There are always good people
I find this the most poignant scene of the performance: Tina runs away from Ike. Dressed in a satin top, barefoot and with a bloody nose from their last fight, she runs into the street. All she wants is to get away. You see headlights, hear honking, and eventually, she arrives disheveled at a motel. “My name is Tina Turner and I urgently need a room for tonight and I would like to pay you, but I only have 36 cents with me, that is all I am worth right now...”
8. Freedom is worth more than money
When Tina got divorced, she didn't want any money. ‘It’s blood money,’ she said. She wanted her name and that was it. The rest she would rebuild herself. How she would do that she didn't know yet, but it was certain that she would succeed.
9. Earn your own money
That might be the most important lesson: make sure you are independent and remain so. Love should be beautiful; you should not become a possession of a man.
If I can give you one piece of advice, it is this: go see this musical. You will be uplifted by the craftsmanship, the music, the dances, and especially by the story of that strong Tina Turner.
