Thelma & Louise: The film that gave women firepower, desire and complex inner lives

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Get our The Life Cinematic email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. “Thelma & Louise is a turning point, I think in terms of the representation of women,” says Dr Shelley Cobb, associate professor of film at the University of Southampton. The wilful mix of genres in Thelma & Louise offers a crowd-pleasing blend of action and humour – and the original trailer wildly overplayed the latter, showcasing the movie as a sexy, screwy romp, with lashings of line-dancing, topless Pitt and one-liners: “We’ll be drinking margaritas by the sea, mamacita!” For feminist film historian Dr Maggie Hennefeld of the University of Minnesota, the film’s humour is one of its key strengths: “Thelma & Louise draws on both the more conservative tendencies of the romantic-comedy genre and the incisive absurdity of dark humour,” says Hennefeld. One woman recalls her own marriage, and states: “There are a lot more Thelmas out there than many people imagine.” Another, Christi, weeps as she says that rape culture has not changed since 1991. open image in gallery Geena Davis’s Thelma holds aloft a firearm in Thelma & Louise In the film’s brutal attempted rape scene, Louise interrupts the attack on Thelma. “There have been a number of times that movies have come out and people, ‘This is going to change things,’ and it didn’t.” open image in gallery ‘If you’re threatened by this movie, you’re identifying with the wrong person,’ said Davis Thelma & Louise isn’t a movie that encourages looking back, but the 30th anniversary of this film is a good enough reason to cheer for a film that smuggles feminist critique into a collection of Hollywood genres.