Gender Stereotypes In The Film Thelma And Louise

The film Thelma and Louise puts an ironic twist on the traditional storyline of an outlaw adventure. The hidden curriculum accepted and taught to each individual by society that men and women are different therefore should be treated so, sends a wave of inequality between genders (Kimmel 190). This inequality embedded in our society essentially gives rise to the actions that ultimately lead Thelma and Louise to commit crimes that could have otherwise been prevented. The outlawed Thelma and Louise close the gap of inequality in all the wrong ways, but it is the sense of doing a wrong to correct a wrong type of situation. The self-ruling outlawed character portrayed by a woman makes Thelma and Louise an original blockbuster of the 90’s. Gendered …show more content…
Gender no longer being a stereotype, but now a role in society. The Gender Role Theory is a set of societal norms that both men and women must abide by in order to be socially accepted in par to their gender (Kimmel 117). An example of a desired norm for a married women is to exude delicacy and poise. In terms of society Thelma does not fit these characteristics. This is portrayed in the film when Thelma is getting Darryl’s breakfast ready before he goes to work and calls for him, where Darryl then replies by saying “Goddamit Thelma don’t holler like that, haven’t I told you I can stand it!” (Scott 91). He makes it clear to Thelma that he expects her to stop communicating in that way. This comes up again when Thelma and Louise stop at a bar for a couple of drinks where they make it a point to say a woman has to let her hair down in order to have a couple drinks, implying that this is not ordinarily accepted behavior for a woman. As opposed to a man who would have no problem being socially accepted due to having a drink whenever they please. On the other hand this movie also has its moments where it breaks gender role theory. When Darryl is on the phone with Thelma demanding that she return home, Thelma disagrees and finally takes a stand by saying “Darryl your my husband not my father” (Scott 91). Generally just like a father, a husband is symbolized as the leader or head of a household. …show more content…
Sexual agency can ultimately determine if you want to engage sexually with a person. Older films always showcased a man being in command of his sexual agency married or not. Although in this film the roles are reversed and Thelma portrays this despite being married by having sex with a hitchhiker named J.B. This is something that was extremely uncommon for a woman’s role and added more rebellion to the outlawed character. When Thelma expressed to her dear friend Louise that she had had sex with J.B she replied by saying “You finally got laid properly” (Scott 91). In this instance Thelma and Louise were sexually objectifying J.B. By objectifying him they were no longer looking at him as a person, but he was now being talked about as a mere object. She tends to do this more than once. Another example of this objectification is when they drop off J.B and Thelma makes a comment about his butt followed by saying “That’s him going… I love watching him go” (Scott 91). Humorously objectifying him to a sexual object due to his looks. It is openly more accepted for women to do this type of objectification as opposed to men expressing themselves in this way. When the roles are reversed women tend to take more offense to those comments. It just happens to be society’s general bias toward gender in this