Thursday, October 07, 2010

You said you 'n' me was gonna get out of town & really let our hair down. look out 'cause my hair is comin' down! – Thelma in Thelma and Louise

The bad thing about stereotypes is that it is true at least 60% of the time.
So Thelma and Louise might be panned by many people as a movie with stereotype males like negligent husbands and molesters but, it is sad but true that life is filled with such men and 'Thelma and Louise' are not the only one who face them.

This flick is as much of a road trip story to women as ‘Sideways’ is to men.
Thelma(Geena Davis), a bored and neglected housewife and Louise(Susan Sarandon), a waitress at a small-town restaurant, want to escape their humdrum lives by taking a road trip to nearby county.
What starts as a fun trip turns adventurous as Louise kills a man, who attempts to molest Thelma and the two women take off to escape the cops.

While this might come across as a tale applauding two women taking to the gun, I tend to disagree. I think this is about friendship between two very different women; Louise is strong, has a firm head on her shoulders while Thelma is the demure and romantic one. A twist of events in which Thelma gets duped by a guy JD (Brad Pitt in a minuscule role) makes her realize her folly and she suddenly takes charge of the situation.
She starts a series of robberies to make up for their lost money and thus have police on their hot pursuit.
The way the wind blows their hair when they drive their Thunderbird, the carefree attitude as they try to frighten a truck driver who makes lewd remarks at them and the background music as they fly over the Grand Canyon is joy to watch.

So all you women out there and the men who are brave enough to watch a good flick about women, do rent this movie since I think this movie has more to offer than just American cultural stereotypes.

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