Agency and Gendered Violence in ‘Thelma and Louise’

Written by Jenny Lapekas as part of our theme week on Rape Revenge Fantasies.

The rape revenge subgenre, typically within the horror realm, is a topic I’ve thought about a lot.  Rape revenge offers catharsis, fantasy, and a feminist departure from the very real patriarchy, where rape is too often underreported or the victim is dismissed as “wanting it” or “asking for it” via her short skirt.  The avenger of the rape revenge film appropriates the criminal act for his or her own empowerment, hence swapping gender roles. Because rape is typically perpetrated by men, women who respond with violence in the form of murder or another rape represent a wonderfully complex hero/villain binary.  When male perpetrators are violated and/or killed by feminist avengers, what does their feminization mean?  That rape is inherently masculine and carried out on the helpless feminine?  The agency of violence is also in question within this discussion; how do viewers navigate feminine (feminist) violence?  These characters challenge our gendered assumptions about sex, trauma, and vengeance, which can make audiences uncomfortable.  I was likely too young when I first watched Thelma and Louise (Ridley Scott, 1991).  However, I remember the surge of adrenaline I felt when Louise shot and killed Thelma’s rapist, how incredibly good it felt to idolize these convict women who had had enough with their monotonous lives, at an age when I couldn’t possibly comprehend patriarchal oppression, the comforts of solidarity and sisterhood, or the concept of escapism utilized not necessarily to run away but rather to find your wildest, most genuine self.

 

Thelma and Louise seems such an obviously feminist movie, which is why I’d like to focus on Thelma’s rape scene, which galvanizes the pair’s journey thereafter.  I suggest that the film is constructed, then, around the rape narrative, amidst a postfeminist storyline of female bonding and spiritual awakening.  We can easily assess Thelma’s placement as a female character who initially lacks agency; rather, she soothes her husband’s temper tantrums and manages the household.  Like many unhappily married women, she hasn’t a clue what to do about her unhappiness or even how to fully recognize or own it.  The murder of her rapist unleashes a crime spree, but also the act of radical surrender, from which Thelma acknowledges she cannot and will not recover.  This theme of agency is birthed in the rape scene and then climaxes in the famous concluding scene of the women sailing into the Grand Canyon.  Both women make the choice to respond to violence with violence, which is the feminist agency found within the rape-revenge genre.  Women like Thelma and Louise who carry out these acts of violence in order to avenge a rape challenge our cultural understanding of violence as rhetoric and gendered behavior onscreen.

Thelma under the rule of her short-tempered husband and Louise involved in a complicated relationship, the duo plan their vacation with the most innocent of intentions.  We hear Louise call Thelma a “little housewife” in the film’s opening scene, where Louise is introduced to us in her waitress uniform and Thelma is a floral bathrobe.  As she’s packing for their getaway, we see Thelma toss a handgun into her bag as if she’s frightened or repulsed by it; she’s clearly aware of the power the classically phallic symbol boasts, even laying at the bottom of her bag.  When Louise asks her why she bothered to bring it, Thelma says, “Psycho killers, bears, snakes.”  Little do they know that Harlan, the man who attempts to rape Thelma, can be characterized as a “snake,” and they’re the ones who become killers as a result.

I have some trouble taking Christopher McDonald (who plays Darryl, Thelma’s controlling husband) seriously since he’s so incredibly convincing in his roles as goofy characters (see Happy Gilmore [Dennis Dugan, 1996] and Requiem for a Dream [Darren Aronofsky, 2000]).  However, the film’s portrayal of Darryl doesn’t inspire any respect for his character.

 

We’ve seen men act as the heroes who thwart rape and assault the would-be rapists (see Untamed Heart [Tony Bill, 1993] and Training Day [Antoine Fuqua, 2001]), but it seems important that in this film, the hero is a woman and a trusted friend who interrupts the crime and actually murders the man attempting to violate Thelma.  Their guns–one bought by Darryl to protect his wife when alone at night and the other stolen from a police officer–are clear representations of male power and privilege; however, the women become quite comfortable appropriating these as weapons in dismantling the phallocracy that governs their choices, their bodies, and their realities while on their infamous road trip.

The rape scene takes place during the first stop on their trip as the ladies are set to travel to the mountains for a getaway.  When Harlan insists that Thelma get some fresh air after a night of drinking and dancing, he tells her that he won’t hurt her, even after hiking up her dress and slapping her in the face.  The level of violence intensifies after she slaps him back, and he bends her over a car and begins to unbuckle his pants.  Louise holds a gun to Harlan’s neck as he puts his hands up and allows Thelma to collect herself and stand up.  It seems that perhaps Harlan will walk away unscathed and even learn a lesson from the experience.  However, he seals his fate when he’s compelled to say, “I shoulda gone ahead and fucked her.”  When Louise turns and asks him to repeat himself, he responds, “Suck my cock,” a fitting sentiment to preface Thelma’s phallic gun exploding and hitting him in the chest.  We gather throughout the film that something happened to Louise in Texas, and it quickly becomes clear that she was the victim of a rape.  Gender-based violence is turned on its head as Louise assumes a position of power, and thus a codified male position.  Thelma’s situatedness within this hierarchy is slow to align with that of the hot-tempered Louise, but when she does transition from “feminine” to “feminist,” she admits that she seems to “have a knack for this shit.”  Shortly before their deaths, Thelma tells Louise that she’s never felt so awake, alerting us that she’s reached a sort of nirvana amidst the mini liquor bottles and desert heat.

 

Immediately after the incident, Louise cradles the gun in her hands as the two ride away, as if she’s trying to grasp the power the small pistol carries.  The naive Thelma believes that they can safely go to the police and explain that it was self-defense, but Louise offers the reality that “we don’t live in that kind of a world.”  Rather, we live in a world that punishes women for attracting men and “asking for it” with our clothing or our smiles.  “If you weren’t concerned with having so much fun, we wouldn’t be here right now,” Louise accusingly tells Thelma.  Although Louise is the one to shoot and kill Harlan, she inevitably blames the entire incident on Thelma’s good looks and also acts as a surrogate Darryl, which Thelma even articulates early on in the trip.  Thelma is almost childlike in her naiveté, which calls for a guardian or a mother to constantly reprimand her and correct her behavior.  Louise maintains this role as she protects and guides Thelma for most of the film.

 

So, does Louise successfully avenge Thelma’s assault or does she have her own axe to grind?  Is Louise, a killer, any better than Harlan or any other rapist slithering through crowded bars or dark streets?  Thelma and Louise offers a feminist catharsis for women viewers, particularly those who are rape survivors, but also for all of us who have been cat-called as perpetual objects of the male gaze.  How many of us now fantasize about blowing up a semi because its driver was making lecherous comments or gesturing with his hands or tongue?  This film serves as a reminder that we deserve to live our lives in peace, free from harassment, and to stop apologizing for ourselves or assuming that our clothing is an invitation for men to put their hands on us.  While Louise makes the decision to repress the memory of her own rape, she actively chooses to avenge the rape of her friend.  Although a murderer, Louise is a hero as she likely prevents any rapes Harlan would have committed had she allowed him to live.

It’s gratifying to witness the transition of the pair’s feminine and feminist identities.  While Thelma makes the noticeable shift from a bored housewife planning dinner to a badass outlaw with a gun, Louise comes to recognize her companion as an equal and to surrender some of her power before the two fly into the Grand Canyon in a blaze of girl-power glory.  Louise identifies her friend’s rape as her own, and unlike Thelma, she is familiar with what some men are capable of in dark parking lots.  The dynamic that propels the plot of Thelma and Louise is friendship, even if that entails a sort of religious awakening on the road (Kerouac style), albeit it via gender equality by way of violence and its appropriation.  Notice that the women and their actions are met with disdain when they demonstrate traditionally “masculine” behavior, such as anger, aggression, and sarcasm.  When Louise initially orders Harlan to stop attacking Thelma, he ignores her; when Thelma finally tells Darryl to go fuck himself, he slams the phone down in disbelief; when the horny trucker discovers that the ladies expect an apology instead of a threesome, he calls them “crazy.”  The women’s actions, then, are met with resistance by most of the men they encounter on their travels, with the exceptions of Hal (Harvey Keitel), the kindhearted cop who longs to help the women, and JD, Thelma’s paramour for one rainy night.

 

I would suggest that these actions are not meant so much to heal or cleanse the two of their pain or their own crimes, but to “right a wrong” even if it means sacrificing their freedom; in this way, the women discover a new sense of liberation that transcends the pursuit of them in their beat up old Thunderbird convertible.  Toward the end of the film, Thelma shares with Louise that if Harlan had completed his assault against her, people would think that she was “asking for it,” and that she’s sorry it wasn’t her that pulled the trigger.  What we can conclude from this exchange is that any course of events post-rape would leave Thelma “ruined” in some way, but she explains that because of her friend, now she’s at least having fun.

Recommended reading:  “Descent”:  Everything’s okay now:  race, vengeance, and watching the modern rape-revenge narrative, ,  “I Wasn’t Finished”:  Divine Masculinity in Untamed Heart

 

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Jenny Lapekas has a Master of Arts degree in English, and she is a part-time instructor at Alvernia University.  Her areas of scholarship include women’s literature, menstrual literacy, and rape-revenge cinema.  You can find her on WordPress and Pinterest.