Video: Proud Mary spoof aims to set Margaret Court straight
Former tennis champion Margaret Court came in for a lot of backlash after her comments on homosexuality around the time of January’s Australian Open.
While it’s been some time since her last controversial statement on being gay, a new effort by Scott Dawkins and Sheona Urquhar of Melbourne’s ‘TV Live on Stage’ sending Court up through the magic of Tina Turner’s Proud Mary deserves a mention for its comedic value.
‘Proud Margaret’ is an unrelenting look at 69-year-old Court’s stance on homosexuality and selective reading of the scriptures through the lens of a Creedence Clearwater Revival classic.
Believing being gay to be a choice, and saying gays were “aggressively demanding marriage rights that are not theirs to take”, Court wrote in January: “Let me be clear. I believe that a person’s sexuality is a choice. In the Bible it said that homosexuality is among sins that are works of the flesh.
“It is not something you are born with. My concern is that we are advocating to young people that it is OK to have these feelings.”
Mimicking Tina Turner’s sultry introduction to her cover of Proud Mary, Urquhar begins: “You know, every now and then some old bat comes along stinking of hate and ignorance / But’s there’s just one thing. You see, we never ever put up with hate and ignorance.
“We always value love and logic / Now we’re gonna take the beginning of this song, and do it… with hate… / But then we’re gonna do the finish… with love.”
What follows is a six-minute re-write including a variety of equality-loving couples, a drag queen with more than an impressive resemblance to Tina Turner and lyrics like: “Stopping your morals declinin’ / Proud Margaret’s direct lining’ / To the Father, love one another, but not if your bits are matchin’.”
Proud Mary ranked #155 on Rolling Stone’s 2004 list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
The video does come with a caveat by Dawkins and Urquhar: “We mean no disrespect to people of the Christian faith.”
