Explore the Representations of Women in Thelma and Louise.

In an era dominated by action movies and impossible masculine performers like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jean Claude Van Damme, the 1980s and 90s offerred audiences little that was out of the ordinary. Hollywood set movies in patriarchal worlds with a predicatble male 'Hero' rescuing an even more predictable Female Princess character type(1). Just like the narrative of these blockbusters, Hollywood itself was male dominated and patriarchal, with very few women making their name onto the credits of movies in areas other than costume or make-up.

Thelma and Louise challenged many of the expectations of how to represent women in a Hollywood movie. Director Ridley Scott was no stranger to casting women in strong unconventional roles and portraying them as strong protagonists, most famously in Alien(2) where Sigourney Weaver's character Ripley is the only survivor of a spaceship torn apart by a terrifying monster, it is worth noting that: "The character was, however, originally intended to be male." (3) Arguably, the greatest influence in the representation of women in Thelma and Louise came from the screenwriter Callie Khouri. Indeed, Lacey suggests that if women are given an opportunity to create within film then patriarchal representations can be broken down:

"When women are given control to make texts then, potentially, they will offer distinctive ways of seeing that are normally stifled by the male dominated management of most media companies." (4)

Lacey's point is clearly proven through an analysis of the character arcs of both Thelma and Louise. At the start of the movie both seem trapped by men, or rather trapped into being stereotypical women. Thelma is the archetypal 'stay at home' housewife making cups of coffee and taking abuse from her arrogant husband. However this is clearly a position which she is unnatural to her. In the opening scenes we see Thelma pace around her dimly lit cluttered kitchen as if she were a caged animal, the use of handheld camera emphasising her nervousness as she walks back and forth, fidgeting as she removes and replaces the same bar of chocolate. Louise, on the other hand is stuck in her own stereotypical nightmare - the kitchen of a diner where she is forced to become a clone like the other waitresses in an over the top exaggerated pink uniform with a ridiculous bow. This is a clear attack on the patriarchy controlling women and the film's narrative explores what happens when women try to break free. Obviously capturing the imagination of the filmgoing public(5) and earning Callie Khouri an Oscar for 'Best Screenplay' (6)


Thelma and Louise can be read as a rejection of patriarchal dominance in society and uses various symbolic codes to promote its ideology. Men are often symbolically castrated throughout the film - if their sexual power is taken away then so is their dominance. After the rape scene Louise kills Thelma's assailant, ensuring that he will never use his sexual dominance over women ever again. The sexist truck driver cruises along making lewd gestures at them, trying to exert his sexual dominance, the fact that he drives a overlong cylindrical trailer is an obvious phallic symbol. To show him (and all sexist men) the error of their ways the two runaways destroy his truck, symbolically castrating him, removing his sexual powers leaving him literally on his knees. Ironically this castration is carried out by the two women firing at the tanker with pistols:

"The instrument of male power is the gun, represented as a phallic symbol... the insertion of bullets further suggests the equation of male (sexual) power and violence."(7)

In several occasions Thelma and Louise use these phallic symbols against men, turning the tables on them - sometimes showing them up as weak, for example the police officer who cries after his gun is taken or representing them as never learning from their mistakes; the truck driver still screams: 'You bitches' as they drive off past the inferno, leaving him in the dessert. Whilst these two scenes are comical to watch, this film  is no simple 'buddy' movie, this movie has a point to make:

"It smuggled its politics in under the guise of two happy-go-lucky gals taking a road trip together; the trailer did not even hint at its darker core. But this was no romp—it was revolutionary, the first film in a long time to tell the truth about women's lives."(8)










1. Vladimir Propp - Morphology of the Folktale
2. Alien dir. Ridley Scott (1979)
3. Nick Lacey, Image and Rpresentation, p214
4. Nick Lacey, Image and Representation, p203
5. The film took more than $45 million at the American box office - http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=thelmaandlouise.htm
6. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0451884/
7. Nick Lacey, Image and Representation, p217
8. Raina Lipsitz, Thelma and Louise, the Last Great Film about Women (2011)