Black Cinema Matters

This is the infamous Ike & Tina biopic in which Laurence Fishbourne beats the shit out of Angela Bassett for 2 hours, although Bassett looks like a She-Hulk and could possibly rip Fishbourne in half if she got really upset.

As far as musical biopics go, this one is a bit of a standout since it plays more like a domestic abuse drama than a celebrity tell-all. It doesn’t fall victim to the tropes that would end up spoofed in Walk Hard. Nor do fans have to get caught up in the inaccuracies since the career side of things are irrelevant.

But the subjects are robbed of context, which is why both Ike and Tina disowned the movie. As Dracula could tell you, Ike Turner wasn’t just some random dude that Tina Turner ran into at a club. He is credited with writing and recording what is widely considered the first rock n roll song, Rocket 88, in 1951. He collaborated with titans of R&B and Blues: B.B. King, Otis Redding and Howling Wolf. When Tina met Ike in 1957 he was already a hall of famer. But like many black artists of the era, his success was stolen by white artists such as Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis. He was already very resentful by the time Tina came along.

Initially, Ike and Tina weren’t even a couple. She originally dated his saxophone player (and her sister was dating the drummer) and she gave birth to a son from that relationship. Tina became a vocalist for the band when a singer didn’t show up for a recording. It wasn’t till 1960 that Ike and Tina started a relationship. And it wasn’t till 1962 that they formed a common-law marriage (they were never legally married) and adopted each other’s children.

By the mid-to-late 60’s, Phil Spector came knocking and that’s when Ike and Tina broke into the mainstream. By then, Tina was already disillusioned with the marriage and wanted to leave. But Ike, by then a full blown coke addict, and still angered by his career injustices of the past, would not allow Tina to destroy their success. That’s where a lot of the smacking around occurred. Ike maintained that he never “beat her up.” There’s also a rape scene in the movie which Ike denies having occurred. Tina complained the movie made her look weak. She wasn’t a rag doll. Tina, like many people, stuck around for 20 years cause of the children and all the financial entanglements. This is the nuance the movie is sorely lacking. One would think Tina got beat around for two decades and one day decided to fight back and leave. That’s not at all what happened. By the 70’s, Tina was carving her independence. She did four solo albums. She was in the Who’s Tommy movie. When she divorced Ike, she was her own woman. Yeah, it took till 1984 for her solo breakthrough to occur, but a lot of the delay came from legal and financial fallout from the divorce.

Objectively, the movie is fine. No real complaints. But it shouldn’t be seen as the big statement of Tina Turner’s career.