Thelma and Louise

[OtterInDisgrace]

It’s a film I love and can watch over and over. Is it a great film? Well that’s my question. It’s become a kind of feminist Anthem film yet it fails the Bechdel Test. And it could be argued it’s not particularly empowering given the only route left for these women is:

SPOILER ALERT KLAXXON! DO NOT READ ON IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN!

suicide. However, I’d argue that it’s their choice that’s key. They refuse to be constrained by patriarchal mores and seeing no other option want to be free at any cost, hence they ‘just keep going’.

Anyway, I love it. Am I being unreasonable?

This. Although there is a fan theory that they didn't die so I go with that.its a great film which I've not seen in ages.

Hold on, sorry, actually think it was Geena Davies who was interviewed about Brad Pitt!

Wasn’t a fan when saw this, except for brad pitt, and hated the ending.

doesn’t pass the bechdel test, really?!!! That’s terrible.

My friend too insisted that they didn’t die!

It’s an excellent film — not just the performances (and everyone is excellent, from the leads to the guy playing Thelma’s awful husband), but the writing, the soundtrack, the settings, the cinematography. And it absolutely passes the Bechdel test! I think you’d need to be pretty obtuse to argue that the main characters talking about Louise’s rape in Texas, Thelma’s sexual awakening or armed robbery or their interaction with the crude lorry driver don’t count because they’re (kind of) ‘about men’.

I think Harvey Keitel was brilliant, but re. the ending, I occasionally fantasise that Francis McDorman’s Marge Gunderson shows up instead and manages to solve things by letting them slip across the border.

POINT BREAK FILM SPOILER.

T&L is similar to the ethos behind Patrick Swayze's character in Point Break. He is a defiant free spirit and won't be 'tamed' The ending is also inferred but leaves no doubt. It's sad but powerful in the same way.

I adore this film, showed it to my daughter when she was younger and she cried at the ending (she as mid teens)
It's a brilliant representation of the corners women are forced into by some men. The acting is incredible, and I think I'll watch it again this weekend.!

The visual symbolism is wonderful in T&L.

The evolution of their outfits as they gradually liberate themselves is brilliant costume design.

At the beginning of the film they drive through a very phallic landscape of huge trucks and oil pistons - their feminine car looks tiny and vulnerable. Then near the end, their moment of true freedom comes when they blow up a massive truck driven by a sexist pig, and metaphorically scalp him by taking and wearing his cap.

The fact is, two women can’t take down the patriarchy, but they can find their true selves and defy it. The suicide doesn’t make it any less of a feminist film, it adds to the subtlety of it.

It does. That was not true in the OP.

Love that film!

Thinking of watching it was ds 15- suitable?

It’s a film he should watch, maybe not this year, but anyway if I were your DS I don’t think it’s a film I’d want to watch with my mum.

To me the message is that the world, as run by men, has failed them. The only thing they trust by the end is one another.

urbanbuddha
Thanks, will hold off! (And I’m not sure he’d watch if I didn’t put it on😅) Trying to get him to watch things that make him see things from the woman’s side!!

I also find it exhilarating. They didn't have to die. But they preferred death to submission. They chose it, because to them there were worse things.

You could argue that Callie Khouri glamourised the ugly reality of their deaths in that final shot. And the alternate version that shows the car actually tumbling down into the canyon is harsh and brutal. But she knew what she was doing, and I understand why.

And of course it passes the bloody Bechdel test. They talk about so many things, and very few of them have much to do with "a man" in the sense that films usually fall down on the Bechdel test.

@stayathomer

It’s definitely a film you should watch if you haven’t seen it. Then you’ll see what I mean.
Time Out has this list of interesting films worth considering if you can find them.

The rape scene is truly horrific (as it should be)

The Geena Davis character is very irritating

All the male characters are dreadful (with the possible exception of Harvey Keitels cop character who tries his best to be half decent)

The ending is inevitable.

urbanbuddha
Saw it years and years ago but can only remember parts!

I love it. It’s one of my favourite films. The first female buddy movie. I too can watch it again and again.

They would be dead at the hands of men. Instead they chose to go out on their terms, together.

I don’t think it’s a - stand up to men, end up dead kind of moral.

it’s a stand up to men, end up dead because the world men built leaves women dead.

I think I have read an article recently saying the same thing. However, for it's time it was bloody remarkable. Women were just not represented that way in the media before (and still a long way to go). As for the ending, either you see it as bad women had to die or 2 women took control in the only way they could to fuck the patriarchy. It remains very relevant.

I agree with the poster who said it’s a nod to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - it’s the big dramatic ending that was needed.

It’s a film and I don’t think you should take it too literally - it’s two fingers up to the world that wants them to tow the line - literally freedom or death.

As you’ve probably guessed, loved it. I loved the script, the acting, the female friendship, the sexual awakening, Susan Saradon’s seen-it-all vibe, the sense of breaking out and freedom and the fab 80s/90s hair and fashion.

@SisterAgatha

I don’t think it’s a - stand up to men, end up dead kind of moral.

it’s a stand up to men, end up dead because the world men built leaves women dead.

Exactly so. The film could end with them escaping to Mexico and living happily ever after on a beach, but it would have said far less about the patriarchy if it had.

That ending was for the men, in Shawshank.

@MrsTerryPratchett if I'd scrolled down two more posts I would've seen yours and saved myself some outraged "it surely bloody does pass Bechdel" Googling 🤣

The ending is hardcore. Them sitting on a beach in Mexico would trivialise it and be too sugar coating of the whole film. It would make it more chick flick and less gritty and the overall point would be lost because "it was all all right in the end", and no way would it be the same influential groundbreaking piece of art that way. It's WAY more feminist as is.

I don't agree, I think the male equivalent would be Vanishing Point.

Spoiler Alert! if spoilers from a 1970 film are necessary.

A man who lost his girlfriend in a surfing accident and lost his career in the police because he stopped a colleague raping someone drives to get away from life. Alone, meeting people, but always alone nevertheless. In the end he ploughs his car into a bulldozer at a roadblock and that's that.

Whereas Thelma & Louise is about vehicular suicide to escape a world which they think is built for men, by men, Vanishing Point is about a vehicular suicide to escape a world that he thinks is built for nobody but perhaps a small powerful elite.

Also it's got the guy who played the elder Kunta Kinte in the original Roots miniseries.