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Time & Perspective Quote by Tina Turner

"Movies are movies: they take you back in time, and how it still is for some"

About this Quote

There is a shrug baked into Tina Turner s line that doubles as a warning label: movies do not just entertain, they rearrange memory. "Movies are movies" sounds like a throwaway tautology, but it sets up the real point that follows - cinema is a time machine with an agenda. It can "take you back in time" with a seduction that feels personal: lighting, wardrobe, music cues that smuggle you into a past you never lived or a past you are trying to outrun.

Then she twists the blade: "and how it still is for some". That clause collapses nostalgia into social reality. The past on screen is not safely archived; it is ongoing for people still living under the same constraints, stereotypes, or violence that cinema can romanticize. Turner, whose life story includes public survival and reinvention, is uniquely positioned to distrust glossy narratives. She understands how culture packages pain as spectacle, and how audiences can mistake a dramatized era for "history" while ignoring who remains stuck inside it.

The line also reads as a comment on representation. Film frequently sells a version of the past that flatters the present - progress as a completed project. Turner punctures that comfort. Her phrasing is plainspoken, almost casual, which is why it lands: she is not lecturing, she is side-eyeing. The subtext is accountability. If movies can send you back, they can also freeze someone there.

Quote Details

TopicMovie
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Turner, Tina. (2026, January 15). Movies are movies: they take you back in time, and how it still is for some. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/movies-are-movies-they-take-you-back-in-time-and-169752/

Chicago Style
Turner, Tina. "Movies are movies: they take you back in time, and how it still is for some." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/movies-are-movies-they-take-you-back-in-time-and-169752/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Movies are movies: they take you back in time, and how it still is for some." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/movies-are-movies-they-take-you-back-in-time-and-169752/. Accessed 11 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

Tina Turner

Tina Turner (November 26, 1939 - May 24, 2023) was a Musician from USA.

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