The Female Gaze of Ridley Scott's Thelma & Louise (1991)

 THELMA & LOUISE

Directed by Ridley Scott

Written by Callie Khouri

‘Thelma & Louise’ apart from being a pioneer of feminist cinema, is at heart a coming-of-age comedy-drama about two women. Thelma, played by Geena Davis, is a naive & indecisive woman, or she is forced to be so, rather. One of the apparent restricting factors is her controlling husband as she herself declares later in the film, but it is not just him if we start tracing the roots of her problem. Louise, played by Susan Sarandon, on the other hand, is a much active personality even at the beginning. She is the one who plans and makes things happen. She is the main decision-maker of the two and forces Thelma (who needs a break from her day to day life) to join her on a fishing trip as she wants her musician boyfriend to miss her when she isn’t home while he returns from his tour, and not talking to her in 3 weeks. A tough Texan woman, now working as a waitress in Arkansas, who hates to talk about her past spent there.   

When we first get to see Thelma “hollering” for her husband from her untidy kitchen, with messed up hair while she is terrified to ask him about joining Louise for a fishing trip during the weekend, it is hard to expect how she is going to “change” over the course of that weekend i.e, by the end of the film. I think it is inaccurate to describe her arc as a “change”, it is more of embracing her inner self or letting herself out to be fair. We initially see glimpses of her true self though, like when she decides to go on the trip anyway, without her husband’s permission. Even Louise is surprised at this move from Thelma and they share a laugh about it in the car. By the time they pack their stuff for the trip, decide what to pack & also how to pack it, the characters are almost established.

And over the next few minutes, as they spend a brief but scarring time at a nightclub, the character establishment is complete. Thelma, intoxicated by her newfound freedom which she believes to be temporary, gets carried away and ends up being a victim of a womaniser who almost rapes her. But, thanks to Louise who stops him by using the gun Thelma decides to pack in case of “psycho killers, bears or snakes”. It is when we get a glimpse into the past of Louise, as she shivers in shock, anger & disgust while pointing the gun at the perpetrator, reliving a nightmare while she tries to stop that traumatic incident from repeating itself. She ends up shooting him. They flee from the scene of the crime and try to come out with a plan. Thelma, who is completely shaken by what she went through and already tired of it, suggests that they go to the police and explain the situation. “We don’t live in that kind of a world, Thelma!”, Louise reasons. Her experiences from the past deny her from believing that they would get out of it clean. But Thelma is still panic-stricken and is yet to understand the world as it is. After finally coming to terms with what they went through, over the course of that night, Louise plans on escaping to Mexico and tries to put some cash together. This forms the external goal of our main women, to make it to Mexico and escape the American judicial system.

Louise manages to gather the money that would be enough for them to cross the border with help from her boyfriend, who is unaware of the reason behind him helping them, but soon lose it and their path to Mexico isn’t exactly a very pleasant one either: they choose not to take the direct route, the terrains are harsh, the police try to track them down, and they have to grow resistant to toxic masculinity on the road.  But even to their surprise, the women are incredibly resourceful and are much more than what they thought of themselves, or ever allowed themselves to be, rather. It is the world vs. them and they choose to take on it rather than surrender to it. We see them change. Particularly, Thelma. When they lose their money because of Thelma’s carelessness, Louise is all shattered that they might not make it to the border, but Thelma soon makes up for it. Not because she is guilty of losing it, but because she has realised that she underestimated her capabilities all the time, and also during the time when Louise is almost arrested by a patrolling police officer, it is Thelma again who saves the day. They have always been two gritty women, but now this part of their’s is forced to take over and dominate. The freedom that the women gain is even communicated through the location of the shoot, the claustrophobic kitchen of Thelma & the crowded coffee shop of Louise at the film’s start is now replaced by the barren lands of Southern USA.

There is an argument about the futility of the judicial system in bringing justice to women like Thelma & Louise as well. The injustice Louise experiences in her past is the reason behind her point of view and that is justifiable, it is hard to believe in the system when you yourself are a victim of it. And even in the case of Thelma, it is almost impossible for them to prove that they are innocent and that it is an act of self-defense. The perpetrators get away with unlawful offenses just because of the way we accept the norm to be. And what about the trauma that is inflicted via offenses that not judicially punishable such as the toxic male gaze & the obscenity. There is no law against that, but it scars them the most. The film’s tragic end is a reminder of this condition we ourselves in. Thelma & Louise are armed and on the run from the law for sure, but we who have traveled with these women over the runtime know what they have to go through, but a whole battalion of armed police corner them at the edge of a cliff in the name of “standard procedure”. For us, it is clearly disproportionate. All they ever did was stand up for themselves. After all, laws are objective and are no good in guarding the subject aspects of life, our emotions.