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Farewell, Queen
The year was 1984. I was an awkward, depressed, 14-year-old middle schooler, and every day, after another shitty day at school, I’d escape into the magic world of MTV, until my mom came home from work.
There were so many artists I loved fiercely— Cyndi Lauper, the Eurythmics, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Duran Duran… I could go on and on. But I will never forget the first time I was exposed to Tina Turner. The song was “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” and when it hit the airwaves, Tina Turner exploded all over MTV and radio. She was everywhere. Her song was everywhere. You couldn’t escape her, and I didn’t want to.
“The comeback of the century,” is what they called it, kids, but I didn’t identify with that whatsoever because I was a naïve Midwestern white girl who had never heard of the Ike and Tina Turner Review. All I knew was Tina Turner was maybe the coolest, most powerful woman I had ever heard and seen, and I desperately wished I could be her.
The next year she broke out on the big screen in the summer blockbuster Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, and we learned that not only could Tina sing, she could command the silver screen as well. There was no disputing it —she was a beautiful badass in the role of the villain Aunty Entity, and the perfect match for Mad Max.
