You go, girls.
"Something's crossed over in me, and I can't go back. I feel wide awake."
As far as feminist films go (and, more specifically, feminist road films), Thelma & Louise is where it’s at, the one that started it all. This film offers a very clear and very rousing critique of patriarchal society and women’s place, or lack thereof, in it; the initial ways in which these two strong, charismatic female characters are oppressed by men (dead-end or even abusive relationships, housewivery, rape, subjection to sexually scrutinizing gazes) and the ways in which they soon learn to fight back (even if they are, for example, the most polite robbers ever) establish a unwavering pro-feministic theme throughout the film’s portrait of oft-oppressive American culture. Thelma and Louise are women shown in a whole new way: capable, independent, trail-blazing, name-taking true-blues. It is their infallibility towards one another, an insistence that we all must stick together, that I find especially compelling. Furthermore, they are women on a male-dominated road for a very specific reason—to find themselves amid the mess. And because, as Thelma puts it, “no one would believe us” if they women claimed they shot that bastard at the bar out of self-defense. They and we know that Thelma would have been seen as “asking for it” because she was dancing with him, and that her victimizer would have gotten off clean. They are reborn on the road, free from restraint, free to (literally) give their lives to stand up for what they believe in. They “keep going” at the end because they wanted to be the only ones out of an entire misunderstanding world to choose their fate. To me, feminism is a demand for respect and equality, and a question of why so many institutions insist otherwise. It’s about women being proud of who they are, and it’s about creating your own path instead of trudging through the one already laid out for you.