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Youve always been crazy. This is just the first chance youve had to express yourself. -Louise Somethings crossed over in me. I cant go back. I just couldnt live. -Thelma The film Thelma and Louise is the story of the heroic quest, but from a new and fresh perspective. This modern American adventure involves two women running from the law, their old way of life, and the very society in which they live in a quest that takes them ever forward with no hope of return. Unlike the stories found in ancient myth and the accounts of Joseph Campbells The Hero With a Thousand Faces, in which the hero returns or attempts to return to enlighten the world, the world of Thelma and Louise drives them away.
Thus, the film becomes the tale of the antihero. The call comes quickly to these two women. Living in a small mid-western town, these two very special friends are pressured to get away from their everyday lives. Thelma, stuck in a marriage that involves her being confined to the house with a husband who does not appreciate her, and Louise, an all night diner waitress stuck in a relationship that is going nowhere, embark on a what both believe to be a weekend fishing trip. Neither can realize the larger calling to each of them, but they unwittingly accept the quest without knowing where it will take them or the treasure that they seek. So far, the pattern is apparent and not unlike those we have seen in numerous other hero myths.
The hero finds that something is wrong in his world and seeks to renew it. He ventures into the unknown in pursuit of enlightenment. But Thelma and Louise meet the first threshold guardian and things change. The guardian comes in the form of a cowboy in a bar. Drunk, and looking to take advantage of the still innocent and nave Thelma, this cowboy attempts to keep them from their path. The cowboy attempts to rape Thelma in a parking lot but is thwarted by Louise and her gun.
The cowboy surrenders and is allowing them to leave but still verbally assaults the frightened heroines. Here is the point that departure from the heroic quest to that of the anti-heroic quest takes place for, in a fit of anger, Louise pulls the trigger and kills the verbally abusive, but now pacified guardian. The two women are now thrown into the world of the unknown, with all of society believing them to be outlaws. They are trapped in this new world without any idea of how to return, for if they do, they will be punished for an act that only they can recognize as self defense. As the women travel, they gradually begin to lose their inhibitions. Once, nave and innocent, Thelma continues to discover her repressed self.
She meets a lover who, as it happens, is also an outlaw on the run, and has a brief love affair. Stealing their money, this young outlaw pushes them further on the path. Louise, in an attempt to right their misfortune, robs a store. This is the shift for both Thelma and Louise.
Both had been separated from each other by the fact that only one was guilty of a crime. Now, with both guilty the bond between the heroines grows stronger and moves them forward on their quest. It seems that the women find they have a knack for committing crimes. In fact, Louise says to Thelma I believe you may have found your calling Maybe I have, replies the now grinning Thelma. The hero often has a supernatural guide that will give him the tools he needs to venture on and conquer the demons in his path. In the film, Thelma and Louise find this guide in each other.
Throughout the entire film, one always consoles the other and gives the other her courage when there is no hope in sight. Like Virgil to Dante, Thelma and Louise guide each other along the path to the very end. In the hero myths spoken of by Campbell, there are occurrences when the heros path home is blocked. In this case there is often a rescue from without in which the society seeks to bring the hero home and help him complete his quest. However, in Thelma and Louise, the attempt of society to bring the heroines back is not in order to aid their quest. Society seeks to punish the women for their crimes, not understanding the new found freedom and happiness the women have found.
There is one person, however, who recognizes the path the women are on, a police investigator. Unfortunately, his superiors overpower him and any true rescue for the women is lost. Ultimately the women are given a choice: they can give up their treasure which is their freedom from their old lives and return to face the society that has shunned them. Or they can continue on their quest. To continue in this world would be futile however. Behind them, there is a line of police cars.
In front: the Grand Canyon. If they choose to return to an ungrateful society, they face the magnification of the trapped lives they fled from in the first place. Thelma to Louise: Lets not get caught. Lets just keep goin. go.
The choice made, Louise throttles the car to full speed toward the mouth of the canyon. The line of police cars already a fading image in the dust cloud, Thelma and Louise rush full force towards their destiny; the only destiny allowed to them. Free at last, hair blowing in the wind and hands clasped together in a love that few will ever know, they plunge forward into the abyss and into legend. Bibliography:
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