Brains Only Get You So Far and Luck Always Runs Out
Thelma and Louise is a 1991 film about two good friends who set out on a road trip to relax from their hectic lives, but find themselves anything than relaxed. They are tired of their boring, routine lives, and find excitement on the road, although not in the way they would have liked. Thelma is a push-over house wife with a controlling husband and Louise is a stressed waitress with a boyfriend who is unwilling to commit. In an attempt to rescue Thelma from a potential rape, Louise shoots and kills a man named Harlen. They then set out in Louise’s ’66 Thunderbird for the adventure of their lives. Throughout the movie, there are times in which you find yourself wondering what in the world the character is doing and how they could possibly be so naive, but Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis are both so vibrant, funny, and sweet that you can’t help but feel for them. Many people view this film as sexist, attacking the male gender.
However, I have quite the different outlook on it. Although it is overall empowering to women, that does not have to automatically mean it must be downgrading to men. There are some positive male roles, such as the police detective, Hal, and Jimmy, Louise’s boyfriend. When Geena Davis was asked about Thelma and Louise being considered a male-bashing movie, even she commented, “Most guys don’t relate to the truck driver or the rapist, and if they do, their problems are bigger than this movie.” My analysis of Thelma and Louise discusses the friendship between the leading characters and their different personalities, how males are perceived in the movie and their relationships with the women, and the controversial ending of the movie.
Thelma and Louise have opposite personalities but are together in the same risky undertaking. Thelma is passive, allowing her husband to dominate her life. This affects the story because Thelma is so used to having her decisions made for her, that when she finally gets the chance to make them on her own, she acts rather juvenile and does not fully think of the consequences of her actions. Louise, on the other hand, is more confident, independent, and in control of her life. These different characteristics are very important to the story, sculpting the decisions each character makes and how they both react to the same situation they are in. They portray this throughout the movie with both actions and words. One example from the beginning of the movie is that Thelma is afraid to ask her husband, Daryl, if she can go on a road trip with Louise. Furthermore, although they are both riding in the convertible, Louise is the one driving and Thelma is the passenger. When the girls and Harlen first meet, he comes off as very charming and flirtatious. Although Thelma is quickly swept away, Louise is suspicious from the moment she hears him say, “Kewtee pies.” Thelma was the helpless victim being sexually assaulted while Louise was the worthy hero holding the gun.
Their friendship was so close, however, that by Louise being the hero and saving Thelma, they both fall into being victims of a society based on the power of men. You could even transition out of their relationship being solely friendship and say that Thelma and Louise had a mother-daughter bond. In numerous times throughout the movie, Thelma behaves as a child and Louise acts as the parent. For example, when Thelma asks Louise to pull over at the bar, she initially says, “No”, but eventually gives in as Thelma continues to beg. Also, at the bar, Thelma orders many drinks off the bat, while Louise remains more conservative. This is where we transfer back over to friendship, as Thelma pressures and convinces Louise to order a couple of drinks. Even after rescuing Thelma and having just shot and killed a man, Thelma is the frantic one while Louise tries to rationally think about what to do, telling Thelma alongside that it was going to be okay and attempting to comfort her. Louise fully thinks about the situation and what would happen if they went to the police, and decides that going to Mexico would be the best option. Thelma makes stupid decisions throughout most of the movie due to her open and trusting nature, like allowing J.D. to hitch with them and leaving him alone in a hotel room with not only thousands of dollars, but their only hope of escape. Louise even tells her, “Thelma, we’re fugitives now. Let’s start acting like it.” Thelma and Louise go back and forth between a friendship and a mother-daughter relationship until they finally become equals. This happens when Thelma matures, puts survival as her main focus, and takes matters into her own hand, robbing a market for money. She was solving the problem she had put them in, as an adult would do. In addition, in the scene where Thelma is packing for her trip, you can see her loosely putting the gun into her suitcase.
She is afraid to even touch it. Nevertheless, by the end of the movie, she is in full control. She returns Louise’s favor, and saves her from the cop when they get pulled over. She even tells Louise to shoot the cop radio, showing that she is now thinking ahead. This can be seen as Thelma growing up and becoming more like Louise, like a daughter does with her mother. Towards the end of the movie, Louise reveals to Thelma that she had been raped in Texas. Although I didn’t find this completely unpredictable, it made me more fully understand Louise’s actions. It also made me wonder if Louise would have still shot Harlen if she had not been raped. Maybe it wasn’t merely an act of protection for Thelma, but an act of protection, vengeance, and security for herself.
Men are ultimately portrayed as selfish, insensitive, overpowering control freaks that can make women jump and roll with a simple command. One big example is Thelma’s husband, Daryl. This is evident from the beginning of the movie, when Thelma sweetly calls for him to hurry up, only for his benefit of not being late to work. He inconsiderately snaps at her, telling her not to “holler”. Thelma is so afraid of him that she would rather leave without notice than ask her husband if she could go. In a way, this just added on to her excitement. I mean, how many of us haven’t wanted to just throw a couple of clothes into a suitcase and leave for wherever without letting anyone know? In the movie, it shows Thelma calling home at 4 A.M. from a payphone. It then shows an empty house, revealing Daryl is not yet home. Later on, Daryl screams at Thelma for leaving and commands her to come home, revealing a double-standard between men and women. He does not even seem the least concerned for how she is doing, causing Louise to again ask Thelma, “Is he your husband or your father?” When Thelma calls Daryl again, his tone is quite the opposite, doing what the police suggested. “Be gentle. Women love that shit.”
Thelma immediately realizes the police are there, proving how awfully Daryl had treated her before. J.D. is a dream boy. Although making a quick appearance and not having much screen time, he is very important for the way the story turns out. Every woman dreams about a bad boy to protect them and sweep them off their feet, from their dull and pathetic lives. Thelma was so unused to receiving loving attention from a male that she was blind to the fact that he would rob her, even as he explained to her that he has violated his parole for robbery. He steals all their money, causing Thelma to later rob a market. Still, she would not have been able to do successfully do this if he hadn’t explained to her his methods of robbery. Even we, the viewers, aren’t able to fully dislike J.D., showing how women look for excitement and fall easily under the spell of a pretty face and pretty words. Louise’s boyfriend, Jimmy, is unlike Thelma’s husband. However, Louise mentions, “Jimmy’s like any other guy, he just loves the chase.” When Louise finally calls him, he sounds concerned and asks if everything is alright. When Louise asks if he loves her, he says, “Of course,” but not before a long pause that undoubtedly worries Louise. He comes to Oklahoma City and asks Louise to marry her, but she refuses because of the circumstances. This only serves as evidence to Louise’s comment to Thelma. Jimmy was finally willing to commit to Louise, but only when things started getting mysterious, exciting, and it felt as if he was about to lose her, showing another stereotypical role men play. The obscene truck driver appears constantly throughout the movie. In one scene, they are trying to pass him as he is yelling and making rude and inappropriate gestures. They have difficulty getting ahead and run into him again and again, showing that men can at times be like road blocks in how far a woman can go. In another scene, the tables are turned, as Thelma and Louise give him a chance to apologize.
The truck driver’s safety is now dependent on Thelma and Louise, but because he is incapable of a simple apology, or maybe incapable of having a woman in control, the girls shoot up his truck, leaving him stranded. One of the more positive roles in the movie is Hal, the police detective. He always believed that there was something more to the story, and wanted to help Thelma and Louise, while everyone else just focused on arresting them. I think him running behind the girls’ car as they are about to drive off the Grand Canyon shows how men push women away with their mentality of them having to be in control and always be right, but most of the time, find themselves lost and want the women back once they are gone. There is also not one female cop shown in the movie, adding to the injustice. Moreover, if you pay close attention, there are no real goodbyes between the men and women in the movie. Thelma never says goodbye to Daryl, as she runs off without acknowledging him.
As Jimmy leaves the diner, he says, “I’ll be seeing you Louise.” J.D. secretly runs off from the hotel as Thelma is in the diner. I believe that this was intentionally done with the purpose to show that men and women need each other to survive in life, but each must learn to be independent without the other. The ending for Thelma and Louise has established a name for itself. The film ends with Thelma and Louise driving into the Grand Canyon, choosing death over surrender. Many people feel like they deserve to see something more than a car fading to white after more than 2 hours. However, this does not mean that the ending is weak. I think this is a very fitting ending for the movie. Of course it would be much more thrilling to see the car crash into a million pieces and explode into a blockbuster fire, but the ending was trying to show you much more than that. It was trying to steer away from the fact that their lives were about to end, and show that their memory will live on. Thelma and Louise are surrounded. The police ultimately give them two options; to surrender or to be caught in gun fire. Be that as it may, the two chose another option, which once again shows their resistance to doing what they are told by men. “Let’s not get caught,” Thelma says to Louise, moments before they ride off into the Grand Canyon.
What makes the scene even more powerful is how they embrace each other, smile, and hold hands as they are driving to their death, knowing they were together and undefeated. As the police detective runs behind the car, the dirt and smoke blurs his vision of the girls, and he knows it’s over. There were hundreds of cops on location, and just one wanted to help the girls. This can also be interpreted as a final message that men are in ways holding women back from their full potential. This movie made me wonder what I would do if I was in their situation. I mean, would I be a Thelma or a Louise? Would I be the helpless victim or the courageous hero? Would I choose to end his life with a gun or attempt to with the law? Would I regret my decisions, and most importantly, would my best friend stick by my side through it all to the very end? I think everyone has a little Thelma and Louise inside of them. That’s what makes this movie strike a nerve. They’re opposites, meant to show the two stereotypical personalities of a typical American housewife in those times. It could have even been directed towards the younger generation, showing them what they were expected to be, encouraging them to break free. They want you to relate, put your feet into their shoes, and think about it all. The storyline sounds far-fetched, but the scary thing is it’s not too far from events that occur even in the modern day world, perhaps as I type. Thelma and Louise were running from their problems from the beginning.
The road trip was initially to get away from the simple problems of their life that suffocated them nonetheless. Next, they were running as fugitives from the law, until they ran straight into the Grand Canyon in the end. This shows that you can’t run from your problems because problems aren’t some kind of outside force that stays in one place. Problems are inside of us, and they go wherever we go, and demand confrontation. It was definitely not in the best way, but they both got some kind of closure by the end of the movie. Although I don’t think men and women will every truly be recognized as equals, women have come a long way from what once was. We are no longer seen as useless, or only useful for specific things like house-keeping. There are women in politics and medical fields and winning Nobel Peace prizes and becoming revolutionary scientists and traveling to space. The possibilities are infinite, and it is because of movies like this that make women feel strong and empowered.
Thelma and Louise is a building block in the staircase leading to the rightful appreciation of women. All the elements of this movie, like the friendship between the girls, the way society forces them to react to their situation, and the relationships between men and women, fall perfectly into place to send the captivating message of this movie that many are afraid to understand. We could all use a friend like Thelma and Louise but how many of us are willing to be a Thelma or a Louise for someone else? It all goes together so nicely because the movie uses humor and havoc to show how we all want to break free from the chains society binds on us while also symbolizing the indecisive conflict in the battle of the heart and brain between both genders.
