When one watches Thelma and Louise, at least one of the cinephile persuasion, all that can be thought is: who is the woman that wrote this? From whose mind could this kind of genius have sprung? The answer is Callie Khouri. Before Diablo Cody, before Greta Gerwig–there was Khouri, who won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1992 as a result of her efforts (proving that sometimes writing on spec is the best and only way to create something great). As Khouri ruminated on what drove her (no pun intended) to write the narrative, she remarked, “I was struggling so hard to figure out what it was that I was supposed to be doing. I kept thinking I’m supposed to be doing something creative. I can’t believe I have such a knack for the vernacular and I don’t have anywhere to apply it. I felt I had not found my true path. And then a series of events occurred that led me to the point where I didn’t have anything to lose if I wrote a screenplay.” Her nothing to lose was our something to gain.
That Khouri’s birth of the script into the world at a time when Harvey Weinstein was steadily ascending in his omniscient power might have been an uncanny coincidence, but a prescient one nonetheless. 1991, the year of Thelma and Louise‘s release, was incidentally, the year that would lay the firm groundwork for Weinstein and Miramax to become unstoppable forces in the film industry, with the clout of executive producing Madonna’s Truth or Dare paving the way for other major coups in 1992, including Reservoir Dogs, cementing the lifelong partnership Weinstein would have with Quentin Tarantino, who really comes across as a sniveling toad in hindsight when considering all the yes man complacency he exhibited during this era of being well-aware of Weinstein’s behavior with women.
So here you have rapist and pig Weinstein starting to fulfill his self-made destiny as being at the top of the Hollywood food chain (will not make fat joke here) at the same time one of the most mainstream feminist Hollywood movies ever made decides to come along and metaphorically blow up movie theaters throughout America. That the entire motivation spurring on Thelma Davidson (Geena Davis) and Louise Sawyer’s (Susan Sarandon) crime spree is a result of a rape, one realized, one attempted, speaks to the sinister underbelly of the industry at the time, not to mention before and after and essentially since the dawning of the studio system. Whether or not this was intentional on Khouri’s part is not important, for the nature of the industry was clearly a subtle influence on the final product, directed by one of the most laddish directors in the game, Ridley Scott (this being his most out of character film, his bent usually of the sci-fi or historical genres).
That Thelma and Louise also reinvented the notion of what a road movie was (up to that point, it was always men who were permitted the luxury of ramblin’ around together, e.g. Vanishing Point and Easy Rider) by featuring two “rebellious” women in the lead roles additionally made its zeitgeist smoke signaling uncanny. As though to give women the inspiration they would ultimately need to say “fuck all y’all, we’re not taking this shit no more.” In short, to scream out “me too” as their form of gunplay with men whose threats could no longer scare them into submission.
To further solidify the movie as a bible of defense to turn to, Khouri conveys an honest portrayal of the idea that, more often than not, it is the relationship between two female friends that can withstand and endure all obstacles and passages of time, which shines through in both overt and implied ways. In the latter’s case, one scene in particular, during which Thelma runs inside of a convenience store to rob it, spotlights two elderly female friends who look as thought they’ve been through it all together staring back at Louise while she waits. And she will wait for Thelma no matter what the circumstance, a testament to the loyalty that is frequently lacking in non-platonic dynamics (though things do err on the slightly non-platonic in the final scene of the film).
As Thelma and Louise grow increasingly insular as they become rightfully more mistrusting of the male species, we can recognize that own recoiling in ourselves. For how many times can you be fucked over before you’re pushed to go on a violent crime spree? Looking over the narrative, it’s easy to see that the source of all their problems is the result of dick. It’s Thelma’s oppressive husband, Darryl (Christopher McDonald), that shifts her toward the decision of leaving without telling him, offhandedly taking the gun that he provided her with as a result of him being out of the house most of the time (which, yes, definitely means he had his affairs). Louise is stunned to learn that she’s brought it with her, but agrees to keep a hold on it since Thelma has no idea how to use it. And here we have misogynist Jean-Luc Godard’s adage, “All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun” (or something to that effect, since it’s a quote that’s been as mangled and rearranged as Warhol’s “fifteen minutes” one), coming into play right from the outset. Of course, Thelma and Louise goes beyond something so skin deep as that. Some would even say its profundity, in part, set off a chain reaction in Hollywood and throughout the U.S.–1992 would be billed as “The Year of the Woman” thanks to historic wins for female politicians in the Senate and House of Representatives (triggered, in many ways, by Anita Hill testifying against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas over her sexual assault by him).
What’s more, most women were no longer amenable to seeing female protagonists play the Passive Patsy waiting around for a bloke to save her by the end of Act Three. As Khouri explained, “As a female moviegoer, I just got fed up with the passive role of women. They were never driving the story because they were never driving the car.” And so Khouri put them literally in the driver’s seat. Thankfully, it was a seat that Weinstein had no ass in (for he still wasn’t quite at that omniscient level yet), as that would add some serious taint to the purity of this film.
Khouri’s subversion of what we had come to expect in movies also came in the form of J.D. (played by that sordid minx, Brad Pitt), a sort of male Jezebel honing in on the weaker link of the duo for his own devious purposes. Here, feminism is at its purest in proving that even women can be tantalized the same way a man can by genitalia attached to a hot body. And like men who have paid for being ruled by their dick, Thelma, too, must be subjected to the consequences of reasoning with her vag, as J.D. takes their money and runs after, at the very least, fucking her properly for the first time in her life.
So yet once again, Thelma and Louise are faced with the reality that men have no integrity (it’s like a chip they need to have implemented in them at birth or something, otherwise it’s not happening) and should essentially be avoided at all costs, lest you end up paying for your interactions with them by being pursued relentlessly by all levels of law enforcement. It is once they accept the truth about men that they are truly set free, bequeathed with the liberty to act however and say whatever they want without the fear women have historically been conditioned to have of men. Because they are the “stronger,” the “more powerful” sex. Well, it ain’t the fucking case once you don’t give that power to dick, something that has become apparent in the #MeToo movement. Thelma and Louise was the first and maybe only movie to really teach us this invaluable lesson. And that if your friend jumps off a cliff, you should too.
