You said you and me was gonna get out of town and for once just really let our hair down. Well darlin, look out, cause my hair is coming down!
--Thelma in Thelma & Louise
Don’t tell my mother, but a year ago, hitchhiking through Glacier National Park in Montana, I got a ride from two women in a pick-up truck who introduced themselves only as Thelma and Louise.
"We’re from Atlanta," Thelma said, polishing off one of the seven Diet Cokes I saw her drink in the two hours we spent together, "but we’re heading west to get away from her boyfriend"--she nodded toward Louise--"and we’re not looking back!"
It made me happy to think these women had found some inspiration on the silver screen. For years, road movies have been all about male bonding. Think Easy Rider, Cannonball Run, Deathrace 2000, Smokey and the Bandit. It was until Thelma & Louise took America by storm in 1991 that women began to claim their rightful place in the genre.
A Quick History
A road movie is one in which the main characters are on the run, usually in a car, and the journey--not the destination--is what matters.
According to Halliwell’s Filmgoers Companion, the modern road movie actually got its inspiration from a novel, Jack Kerouc’s On the Road: "The form, in which cars often seem to be the main characters and the emphasis is on action, had an immediate appeal to the young of America and, to an extent, replaced the western as popular entertainment."
Road movies have given birth to several sub-genres, including car-race movies, the biker films of the 1960s, and young outlaw movies, such as Badlands, Natural Born Killers, and Love and a .45.
A Feminist Twist
The female road movies of the past decade have breathed new life into the genre by adding a feminist twist. Marginalized by a male-dominated society, women take to the road; their wanderlust is both an escape and a search. In most of these films, women feel trapped by their environments ? abusive relationships, disease, loss, and the gender roles that define their lives.
The outside journey parallels the inner journey many of these women travel, and it evolves through deepening connections and friendships with other women. The goal, is some form or another, is usually freedom.
For some--such as Thelma and Louise--this freedom comes only in the ultimate escape from society: death. For others, such as Jane and Robin in Boys on the Side, freedom comes from the strength of their friendships.
Here’s a quick primer on 3 female road movies you shouldn’t miss (and one you can skip).
Thelma & Louise (1991)
Thelma (Geena Davis) is a neglected housewife with an abusive husband in small-town Arkansas. Her best friend, Louise (Susan Sarandon) waits tables at a local burger joint. In an effort to break out of their doldrums, they jump in the car and hit the road. Their weekend trip, however, turns into a flight when Louise kills a man who threatens to rape Thelma. The women decide to go to Mexico, but the police are hot on their trail.
Along the road, Thelma and Louise come up against some tough male characters. Harvey Kietel is the cop who wants them in custody, but he’s also the only man who seems to understand what they're all about. Brad Pitt (in one of his earliest roles) is a charming bank robber who teaches Thelma a thing or two about love--and trust.
At the film’s climax, the women find themselves backed against a cliff by the cops. And faced with a life or death situation, they choose life--even though, for them, it means death.
Boys on the Side (1995)
When Jane (Whoopi Goldberg) finds herself out of work in New York City, she decides to try her luck in the Los Angeles nightclub scene. Robin (Mary-Louise Parker) responds to Jane’s ad for a traveling companion. As the unlikely pair heads west, they stop in Pittsburgh, where they rescue Holly (Drew Barrymore) from her drug-dealing, abusive boyfriend.
From Pittsburgh, the 3 women point their Dodge Caravan toward California, but they never quite get there. Robin is HIV-positive, becoming sicker every day. Jane is a lesbian whose singing career is down the tubes. Holly has just killed her boyfriend in an act of self-defense. Each woman is searching for a better life, and together they find refuge in their shared friendships.
Leaving Normal (1992)
Leaving Normal opens on a Greyhound bus, where Marianne Johnson (Meg Tilly) confides to a series of fellow passengers that she’s sure her life is about to take a turn for the better, even though she’s marrying a man she hardly knows. About two minutes later, she’s back out on the road, illusions shattered. Marianne bumps into her friend, a cynical cocktail waitress (Christine Lahti), who--after taking advantage of just about everybody who’s ever befriended her--is also ready for a change. So the two women head for Alaska, building a relationship along the way that will stand the test of time.
Normal, Wyoming, may be a fictitious town, but the oppressive nature of life in Normal feels all too familiar and true. From the director of Glory, Edward Zwick, this film is for everyone who loved Thelma & Louise but wished they didn’t die in the end.
Freeway (1996)
Not every road movie trumpets feminist liberation. Quite a few, such as Freeway, continue to patronize and objectify their characters. This flick has all the elements of a perfect exploitation film: teenage female juvenile delinquent, prostitution, drug use, sexual abuse, serial rapist/killer, gunplay, courtroom drama, prison riot, lesbian sex.
After her mom and step-dad are arrested, 15-year-old Vanessa Lutz (Reese Witherspoon) decides that instead of enduring another foster home, she’ll go in search of the grandmother she's never met, and they will live happily ever after. (Can anyone say Little Red Riding Hood?) But when Vanessa's car breaks down, she's picked up by Bob Wolverton (Kiefer Sutherland), a freeway rapist who’s all over the news. She shoots him several times and flees.
By some miracle, Wolverton survives, and the police charge Vanessa with attempted homicide. The papers make her out to be evil, while they portray Wolverton as a hero. Faced with an indifferent law enforcement system, Vanessa becomes a vigilante enforcer of her own brand of justice.
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