Thelma and Louise/Set It Off Comparisons
The classic women's road film Thelma and Louise was reinscribed a few years after its release in the filmSet It Off. In T&L, the protagonists were two white, middle-class or working-class women from Arkansas, taking to the road first to escape the drolls of everyday life and then running from the law as they grow progressively more and more violent as their adventure continues. Set It Off features four (not two) black women, of lower economic status living in the projects of Los Angeles who never actually make it to their road to escape from the drolls they each experience every day. Though the settings are dramatically different, the characters themselves are similar and are closely bonded because of their experiences with men, work, and their position in society as a whole.
Sisterhood and loyalty are clearly esstablished in both films, almost immediately. In one of the opening scenes of T&L, the two share a comfortable, open, teasing playful phone conversation as they make their plans to skip town "for the weekend." Their closeness is demonstrated perhaps the most strongly when Louise kills Thelma's attacker in the parking lot of the saloon, changing the course of their lives forever. She offers a way out for Thelma, but the two choose to stay together and journey towards Mexico for freedom. They remain one another's closest ally for the rest of their lives, until they together choose to end their lives in a flash of adventure instead of turning themselves in to the law (represented by all male policemen).
The same is true of the four characters in Set It Off. They come from the school of Hard Knocks, and just their comfortable teasing of one another in their earliest conversations in the film demonstrate their openness and closeness. They fight together to rob a bank in order to get TT the money she needs to get custody of her son back. They fight together to get revenge/justice for Stoney's brother's untimely and unfair death. Their violent behavior is motivated by one another's struggles and they fight for each other, with each other, to the bitter end.
Violence is coded by gender and color in both films. It is seen as "masculine" - as T&L get progressively more violent, they begin to dress in less frilly clothes and wear cutoffs, sleeveless shirts, baseball hats and dirt on their faces. The four women in Set It Off assume a "tough" air when they are about to go into their next targeted bank, leaving behind any delicacy or femininity. When TT behaves feminine, it is demonstrated as fear, anxiety and wimpishness; on the other hand, Cleo is probably the most violent of the four, and she is a butch lesbian. In that way, violence is coded by gender. Color plays a secondary factor in Set It Off, because they are fighting the white cop and the injustice done to them by a primarily white police force. They are "thugs" from the projects, and therefore have a stigma associated with that (as the Mr. Right character demonstrates when he comments on how hard/tough Stoney is).