Comparing/Contrasting Thelma & Louise and Set It Off
Why is Set It Off a road movie?
Set It Off uses the road in order to reach a different road. The women are on a metaphorical road to a better life. They are sick of struggling and like many other road films, the road is full of struggles. The women also use the roads within the city to aid their success. They drive to and from each bank they rob. This road is always very chaotic and uneasy. Like the road in many other road films, it is dangerous. There is also the road the women hope to find; the road out of the projects. For each of them, the probability of finding this road is different and Stoney is the only one that actually reaches it. This is the privileged road... the white male's road.
How are the endings similar/different?
Many elements of the end of Thelma & Louise and Set It Off were very similar... a kiss of friendship, a helicopter chase, the photo montage commemorating better times... But there were also stark differences reflecting the biggest aspect separating the films: race. In Set It Off, the final scenes take place at night within the confines of the city's skyscrapers. In Thelma & Lousie, the women are on the road with wide open spaces surrounded them and the sun in shining. Thelma and Louise seem free while the women of Set It Off are stuck in the projects; their mobility is very limited. In the end, Cleo is in a tunnel, it is very dark excluding a small opening at the end. This seems to be a metaphor for the entire movie. The women have very limited options when it comes to leaving LA's inner city; there is only a small chance/opening for their success... many are left in the dark. In Thelma & Louise, the women are given the entire ("God damned")Grand Canyon. Their deaths are romanticized unlike Cleo, Tisean and Frankie's. Viewers don't see their blood just a photograph and the idea that they will "keep going." The women of Set It Off experience brutal deaths; we see them hit the ground and aren't provided with the notion that their journeys will continue. They have no way out, no canyon.