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Empowerment, individual strength and the many facets of love: why I fell for Tina Turner

<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/leigh-carriage-456522">Leigh Carriage</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/southern-cross-university-1160">Southern Cross University</a></em></p> <p>For singers – amateur and professional alike – the name Tina Turner evokes instant reverence: Turner is a singer’s singer and perhaps the performer’s performer.</p> <p>A highly successful songwriter, the consummate dancer and fittingly ranked as one of the <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/100-greatest-artists-147446/">100 Greatest Artists of All Time</a> by Rolling Stone magazine, Turner was the ultimate entertainer.</p> <p>Upon hearing of her death, I was deeply saddened. I immediately recalled the intoxicating power and timbre of her voice, her mesmerising energy and her commanding performances.</p> <p>I started singing sections of songs such as <em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2T5_seDNZE">Proud Mary</a></em>, <em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9Lehkou2Do">River Deep Mountain High</a></em> and of course iconic original songs, such as <em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I07249JX8w4">Nutbush City Limits</a></em>. This was an intimate, sentimental, nostalgic and danceable song celebrating Turner’s roots growing up in the small town of Nutbush, Tennessee.</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">Tina Turner was raw. She was powerful. She was unstoppable. And she was unapologetically herself—speaking and singing her truth through joy and pain; triumph and tragedy. Today we join fans around the world in honoring the Queen of Rock and Roll, and a star whose light will never… <a href="https://t.co/qXl2quZz1c">pic.twitter.com/qXl2quZz1c</a></p> <p>— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) <a href="https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/1661514993383120896?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 24, 2023</a></p></blockquote> <h2>Fierce hard work</h2> <p>My first encounter with Turner’s brilliance and might was hearing her hits of the mid-1980s, with songs like Graham Lyle’s <em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGpFcHTxjZs">What’s Love Got To Do With It</a></em>, Al Green’s <em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rFB4nj_GRc">Let’s Stay Together</a></em> and – love it or hate it – the powerful rock ballad <em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gcm-tOGiva0">We Don’t Need Another Hero</a></em>, the theme song to <em>Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.</em></p> <p>Once introduced, I immersed myself in her extensive back catalogue, soaking in her early 1960s soul, funk and emerging rock tracks.</p> <p>Today, I flashed back to memories of the physical energy and technical focus and practice it took just attempting to sing any Turner songs in my 20s.</p> <p>The degree of difficulty required to perform as Turner did cannot be understated.</p> <p>To sing with such consistency in such high registers, belting out song after song live with impeccable pitch, breath control, fitness, articulation and rhythmic precision is one thing. To do all of this while dancing with intense pace to highly choreographed routines throughout each show is on a whole other level.</p> <p>Her performance practice exemplified fierce hard work – with an immense energy and vitality in live performance.</p> <p>Try singing any of her songs at a Karaoke bar. Very quickly you gain some insight into the technical demands her songs require.</p> <h2>Making songs her own</h2> <p>For every singer, selecting a repertoire to cover is an ongoing quest.</p> <p>In a sea of the world’s great songs, Turner selected songs she could make her own. She remodelled every song she sang - realigning them so much that we now think of them as hers first.</p> <p>There are so many examples. My favourites are Turner’s formidable versions of <em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIPoC6JlP38">I Can’t Stand the Rain</a> </em>(originally by Ann Peebles), <em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GC5E8ie2pdM">The Best</a></em> (Bonnie Tyler) and <em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4QnalIHlVc">Private Dancer</a></em> (Mark Knopfler).</p> <p>A great deal of the songs Turner was known for through the 1960s were covers. Turner’s forceful and expressive vocal delivery gave new life to these songs, realigning them with her uniquely identifiable sound and choice of vocal register, her phrasing choices and her punctuated rhythmic delivery.</p> <p>Turner is perhaps less known as a songwriter, but her diverse songwriting demonstrated her skill and thoughtful, well-crafted lyrics. On her 1972 album Feel Good, nine of the ten songs were written by Turner. From 1973 to 1977, Turner composed all the songs on each album.</p> <p>One of my favourites of her original songs is the power ballad <em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l__zi3OtrQ0">Be Tender With Me Baby</a></em>. It speaks of a request for understanding, of her loneliness and vulnerability, sung with Turner’s intensity.</p> <p>Across her original songs and covers, Turner’s repertoire spoke of empowerment, individual strength and the many facets of love. Beyond performing, Turner represented inner strength, spiritual depth and resilience against adversity.</p> <p>In 1996, when Turner was 57, she recorded her ninth studio album, <em>Wildest Dreams</em>.</p> <p>One track, <em>Something Beautiful Remains</em>, may not be as familiar as many of her other hits, but it is the song I have kept returning to today. In the chorus, Turner’s lyrics are sadly perfectly fitting:</p> <blockquote> <p>For every life that fades<br />Something beautiful remains.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206395/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p> </blockquote> <figure><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1uXLFtXpeFU?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0" width="440" height="260" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></figure> <p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/leigh-carriage-456522">Leigh Carriage</a>, Senior Lecturer in Music, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/southern-cross-university-1160">Southern Cross University</a></em></p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> <p><em>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/empowerment-individual-strength-and-the-many-facets-of-love-why-i-fell-for-tina-turner-206395">original article</a>.</em></p>

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“I like looking in the mirror”: Justine Bateman on ageing in the public eye

<p> Justine Bateman has gotten candid while discussing the reality of ageing in the public eye, and her experience with negative opinion on her surgery-free complexion. </p> <p>The actress turned director - and sister of actor Jason Bateman - was chatting to <em>60 Minutes</em> when she confessed she didn’t know anyone was that interested in her looks until she happened to be googling herself for her book and encountered a popular autofill suggestion. </p> <p>“I needed to google something, and I googled my name Justine Bateman, and an autocomplete came up which said ‘looks old’,” she explained, before adding that it’d taken her aback. </p> <p>After browsing the pictures that the search provided - those Justine believed the internet considered “evidence” - she couldn’t see what it was that they were talking about. Her face was a natural face, not an ‘old’ one. </p> <p>And Justine had one very clear message for anyone who had any different to say - to her, or to anyone else embracing the ageing process - when she said, “I just don’t give a sh*t. I think I look rad, I think my face represents who I am, and I like it.”</p> <p>That isn’t to say Justine has never considered what cosmetic intervention may do for her, with the 57-year-old admitting that she has wondered how she might look - though she’s never followed up on it, too happy with how she’s evolving to risk losing any part of herself. </p> <p>“You can certainly look in the mirror and you can go ‘oh, well, if I just had like a lower face lift, I would get rid of this skin that catches the light, and then I could have that operation where you go in to the eyelid - or you know - take some of the skin out, and this that’s hanging over now over the eyelid, you can get that removed’. Sure, you can do all of that,” she explained. </p> <p>“But even then I would just be like ‘okay, so now I look like this’, and then I would erase … I feel like I would erase not only all my authority that I have now, but also I like feeling that I’m a different person now, than I was when I was 20.</p> <p>“I like looking in the mirror and seeing that evidence.”</p> <p>Many took the opportunity to thank Justine for her words, and her stance during the interview, with some even opening up about their own experiences while commenting on her social media. </p> <p>“It was a powerful share. Ageing in a culture of anti-aging isn’t particularly easy, but it’s heartening to hear from other women who recognise that our worth is not determined by our appearance,” said one. “We’re objectified in our teens and twenties, only to be discarded by society by the time we reach our forties for the ‘crime’ of ageing. Aka staying alive. It’s patriarchal BS and we deserve better. Thank you for your voice.”</p> <p>“Thank you Justine. I just wish your interview segments were longer,” wrote another. “I appreciate you so much for speaking out about this issue and know you will be helping so many women navigate all of the distractions. So much oppressive ageism [is] wrapped up in teaching women to hate and fix their ageing bodies.”</p> <p>“Those lines, wrinkles and grey hairs are details to a rich and storied existence,” someone else declared, “wear them like badges of honour.”</p> <p>And as Justine herself put it, “forget about your face! That is what I’m saying. Get rid of the fear that your face being wrinkled is going to ruin a bunch of opportunities for you.”</p> <p><em>Images: Instagram, Getty, Vimeo, 60 Minutes</em></p>

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“Your husband must hate you”: Doctor trolled for being too attractive to do her job

<p class="p1">Doctor Medina Culver is intelligent, attractive and is particularly annoyed at receiving hate comments for being a “pretty woman and badass doctor”.</p> <p class="p1">The physician who is based in Las Vegas posts her medical journey on her Instagram regularly in the hopes that it will help promote the profession to women.</p> <p class="p1">But her efforts are not always met with kindness, with people often telling her she’s “too attractive” to possibly be smart.</p> <p class="p1">Culver addressed the hateful words in an Instagram video saying that ever since she began sharing statements about “women empowerment” she’s received messages telling her that she is a “waste of time” and she should be her “husband’s property”.</p> <blockquote style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CGJ_BBDhKZk/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="12"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <p style="margin: 8px 0 0 0; padding: 0 4px;"><a style="color: #000; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CGJ_BBDhKZk/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank">Don’t spend all your time wondering what you are, or who you like, or whether it’s right for you or wrong for you. Just be yourself and be happy 👩🏼‍⚕️🩺</a></p> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;">A post shared by <a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/drculver/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank"> Medina Culver, DO</a> (@drculver) on Oct 10, 2020 at 1:17am PDT</p> </div> </blockquote> <p class="p1">Some have gone as far as telling her that her husband “must hate her”.</p> <p class="p1">"You don't love your husband, you're arrogant, you're selfish" one of the criticisms read.</p> <p class="p1">In response, Culver simply quipped, "women are here to stay and lead - we are partners, leaders and we are gorgeous and smart."</p> <p class="p1">"Women are damn strong despite all the negative comments."</p> <p class="p1">Culver also regularly shares her day-to-day life on her page, whether that’s lounging by the pool or engaging in hobbies outside of profession.</p> <p class="p1">But even the appearance of her “normal life” has been met with criticism, with people regularly telling her that she’s “too pretty to be a real doctor”.</p> <p class="p1">"Well thank you... pretty ambitious," she responds.</p> <p class="p1">"Pretty hard-working and pretty determined to achieve my dreams."</p> <p class="p1">"Pretty women can be more than pretty faces....we can also be badass doctors."</p> <blockquote style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CGVSqEwBZHq/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="12"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <p style="margin: 8px 0 0 0; padding: 0 4px;"><a style="color: #000; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CGVSqEwBZHq/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank">Strong women never give up. We might need a coffee, a cry, or even a day in bed but we always come back stronger 💪🏼</a></p> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;">A post shared by <a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/drculver/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank"> Medina Culver, DO</a> (@drculver) on Oct 14, 2020 at 10:40am PDT</p> </div> </blockquote> <p class="p1">The post attracted comments from other female professionals in the medical field, with one user revealing "I've been a therapist for 10 years and I get that and you're ‘so young’ all the time."</p> <p class="p1">"I get the ‘you're too young’ or straight up ‘you don't look like a doctor’,” shared another.</p> <p class="p1">Culver's statements were widely applauded by her 26,000 Instagram followers, with users writing, "Here's to strong women. May we know them, may we be them, may we raise them."</p> <p class="p1">"No truer words! ‘Cheer each other on’ Love it," wrote one user.</p> <p class="p1">"Just laugh at that crap, it's hateful and absurd. I guarantee you are fantastically inspiring to most people who follow you or come across your posts," said another.</p>

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