So Much Oppression
Why is “Set it Off� a road movie?
How is auto-mobility achieved?
Race operates in tandem with class in both Thelma and Louise and Set It Off in determining how auto-mobility is achieved and what type of road film happens.
In Thelma and Louise you have a traditional road film in terms of the story arch, but the nature of the road film is disrupted by the gender of the people traveling on the road. Thelma and Louise’s gender is the force they are reckoning with throughout the film and the obstacles they face surround gender and money. Auto-mobility in this film is much easier to achieve, because although T&L are not wealthy, they have the benefit of small amounts of money that they were able to set aside. So, they can get on the road and have momentum in their journey without worrying about money for things like food or gasoline.
In Set It Off, the road film story is disrupted by race, class and gender, making it so much more difficult to get on the road. The obstacles and oppressions they face while on their journey (to the road) are based in their intersectional position as poor women of color. Set It Off is a road film because the characters are trying to get from one place to another – in the projects to out of the projects – and the narrative has them getting closer and closer to their destination. Auto-mobility and the success of their journey is classed, both in their need for crime to facilitate the departure and in the nature of their journey. They achieve auto-mobility (a car and the ability to physically and financially get out of poverty) through stealing, a tactic that is representational of the desperation of poverty and oppression. Some in the class have said that the violence was gratuitous, and I think that perspective fails to look past the acts that are being committed and see how the characters have been driven to those acts. The journey in Set It Off to get to the road is filled with so many obstacles and injustices, that by the end it feels as though the characters were acting purely through self-defense.