Analyzing Gender-Power Hierarchy and Gender Relations in Thelma and Louise
We live in a country where, without argument, the male character dominates almost everything in Hollywood. Sadly, women are forced to adhere to a certain type of ideology (most of the time created by men) and not have a voice of their own, to say the least. In analyzing Thelma and
Louise, we will be comparing it to two movies; a similarly themed movie made during the second-wave feminism period, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), and a movie made the year before Thelma and Louise, Pretty Woman (1990). The goal of this is to see how strikingly
different Thelma and Louise is to the two and also analyze the male characters in relation to the female characters in all.
Thelma and Louise, a film made in 1991 as third-wave feminism projected through American ideology is a film that was written initially out of frustration on the part of the screenwriter, Callie Khouri. Callie Khouri was a former music video producer who after years of this practice,
got fed up with producing music videos as a result of its sexist narratives as she puts it. She states that she wanted to present women whom “viewers would identify with” yet were unpredictable.
Her main reason for coming up with Thelma and Louise was that she “wanted to bust out of [her] life” and was the “product of a lot of wasted years and bad relationships and ennui and frustration at not really knowing what [she] wanted to do”.
Thelma and Louise, a hybrid film that has characteristics of Western, Action/Suspense, and Buddy films, is a movie that sought to seek change in Hollywood as women were typically stereotyped in the roles they played and uses the genre conventions subversively as Western/Buddy films are generally led by male characters and almost always never have a female character of any importance. Thelma and Louise in this case can also be seen as the first time women headlined the categories of Western and/or Buddy films. If we look at Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, for instance, we see similar themes throughout Thelma and Louise. First of all, we can notice the similarity in the names of both films as they both employ
the individual names of the protagonists and an “and” in-between.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid tells the story of two male friends who after being notoriously known for robbing banks and getting away with it were finally being sought after by people they could not avoid. They travel through similar Western landscapes as shown in Thelma and Louise and are more or less playing hide-and-seek throughout the movie. In the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, however, the few women shown in this Western/Buddy film have the stereotypical wife and prostitute roles and never have their own say. In the scene where Sundance Kid forces Etta Place, who is later revealed to the audience as his girlfriend, to strip off her clothes in what looks at first to be a rape case about to happen. It is
evident throughout the movie that Etta does whatever to please her boyfriend. Butch Cassidy also gives us an eye into the brothel where he and Sundance Kid usually hold refuge when in predicaments. The prostitutes in this brothel were obviously there to do what they were there for, thus again having no say as to whether or not they wanted to spend the night with Butch for example. It is interesting to see that the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid ignored the second-wave feminist movement (early 1960s–1980s) which addressed sexuality, marital rape laws, and de facto inequalities just to name a few.
Third-wave feminism which began right after second-wave feminism in the 1990’s sought to challenge the media’s portrayal of women as well as the language used to define a woman. Thelma and Louise (1991) did exactly that as it was a movie that differed from all the rest in its representation of the female form and plot. The film employed the use of average American
female characters with common names and began as a not-so-special storyline of two friends who planned to go on vacation. Unpredictable as Thelma and Louise were throughout, one thing was evident — Thelma and Louise sought to react to the gender-power hierarchy in this country
(also relatable in other countries) as it seemed to portray the many things about men that frustrate women the most in society. It is clearly shown that every single male character in the movie had some effect (mostly negative) on Thelma and Louise’s flight and that every action Thelma and Louise did was directly related to a male character with whom they had a close relationship or a male character who just happened to be in their lives for a short time.
Firstly, we are introduced to Darryl, Thelma’s husband, whom Thelma had known at a young age and married and who shows no respect or affection for her. Thelma, knowing very well that Darryl will refuse Louise’s short vacation idea, leaves a note, food, and beer behind and “escapes” imprisonment. One does get a hint while she packs Darryl’s gun that this will be a trip in which the gun will come in handy but this is not talked about enough to actually keep in mind.
Next, we are introduced to Harlan, who seems to be charming and friendly at first but has other motives than assumed with his interests in Thelma. Thelma, having a naïve and childish character, follows Harlan into a dark parking lot and almost gets raped in the process. Louise comes to her rescue and shoots Harlan subconsciously but being women, they both know going to the police with the story/truth will not be a good idea. They flee, aiming for Mexico, and come across J.D. who Thelma gets interested in, has sex with, learns new skills from (robbing banks, shooting), and who eventually steals the money they got from Jimmy, Louise’s boyfriend at the
time. Jimmy is the first character who supports them in the film. One might say this is because he hoped that Louise would return and marry him while others will disagree with this since he did know Louise was not interested in marriage then and will most likely never be. Another
character who sympathizes with them is Detective Hal who tried at all costs to save Thelma and Louise from creating more trouble by asking them to surrender. His actions are somehow always overshadowed by what the FBI wants and thus Louise does not see the point in trusting him.
Two other characters Thelma and Louise severely dealt with are the policeman and the truck driver for being nuisances to them on the road.
Thelma and Louise uses gender in creating power and calls for empowerment and this is something that pleased third-wave feminists when it was released as it had never been done before in a movie in such a way. Let’s take the movie Pretty Woman (1990) for instance which is
notably degrading to women as it tells the story of a prostitute Vivian (played by Julia Roberts) who eventually falls in love with Edward (played by Richard Gere), a businessman, as she spends a whole week being his escort. Better explained by Carina Chocano, “Pretty Woman was condescending and gave America a wrong notion of what it is to be a girl”. In comparing both Pretty Woman and Thelma and Louise, it is evident that one called for positive control and portrayal of a woman’s image and was a warning to men everywhere to watch how they treated women while the other ended with the usual stereotyping to say the least from the male
perspective. …[continued]
