That didn't really end well.... did it.
The scenery in each movie really says a lot to me about accessibility of the road and just freedom in general. The white Thelma and Louise initially take to the road of their own choosing and set out across a beautiful southern landscape. Set It Off shows four black women unable to escape their grimy urban environment full of crime and racist/sexist law enforcement. While Thelma & Louise was controversial and revolutionary for women, when compared to Set It Off it restates the white privilege of making it to the road. I think it is significant to the scenery that the three black women die before making it to the road in Set It Off.
The function of the white cop in Set It Off versus in Thelma & Louise plays out to emphasize the classically known roles of white cops dealing with subdominant races. In Thelma & Louise the cop pursuing the white women, Hal, almost unrealistically relates to and cares about the women as they drive farther and farther into their outlaw status. Cinematically Hal is the white male who is allowed to have knowledge about Louise that even Thelma doesn’t know, cementing his power over them as a man; In Set It Off the same dynamic is found but with race and gender, obviously. Detective Strode does not have the calm ability to collect information about the girls the way Hal did about Louise, and he seems to feel no true remorse as he’s mistakenly ordered the killing of an innocent black boy. His function in this movie is to emphasize the themes of unjust treatment of women of color. Both cops however are astonished by the women’s ability to perform such crimes, and echo especially the shock that audiences got as they saw Thelma & Louise in the early 90s.