Cars and Policemen
The landscapes in “Set It Off” and “Thelma and Louise” are differentiated by the main characters access to open space or safe space. One of the spaces these very different groups of women outlaws have is their cars. Thelma and Louise’s car belongs to them. It is a convertible and offers them access to a sense of freedom – wind in their hair, sun on their faces – that the women in “Set it Off” cannot access from their hydraulic-powered souped-up car or from the variety of stolen SUVs they use for their crime sprees. At the very end of the film after her three compatriots are dead Stony escapes via a bus to Mexico. Once there she sets off in a red open-top jeep and only at that point does she have access to the kind of road-freedom that Thelma and Louise have had throughout their entire adventure. Additionally throughout “Set It Off” the landscape that these characters work and live in is dark, cramped, and dirty (with the exception of Stony’s rich boyfriend’s apartment. Although they may leave these spaces for periods of time they always must return “home.” Thelma and Louise have escaped from their homes and never return.
The white (male) cop functions in each movie to act as a sort of “big brother” figure. He knows the illegal things the women have done, he intuits why they are acting outside the law. He presents a form of compassion or empathy for their situations and yet he is dedicated to bringing the women back within the confines of the male-regulated justice system and stopping their flights to freedom. This white cop has never been in the situation any of the women have been in and yet he is portrayed as knowing the best thing for them to do. Who is to say that in one of their situations he would not have behaved in a similarly unlawful way? But that is not a possibility in either “Set It Off” or “Thelma and Louise.” The white male cop also gives the film’s viewer an alternative to identifying with the women heroines. By being sympathetic to the women’s plights he is accessible to the audience as a possible friend to the women, someone to cheer for and hope he is able to help the women out of their situations. But does this potential identification with a character apart from the fugitive women defeat the righteousness of their struggle to escape?