摘 要

由雷德利·斯科特执导，苏珊·萨兰登、吉娜·戴维斯主演的电影《末路狂花》是女性主义电影的杰出代表。该影片围绕女主角路易斯和塞尔玛的一场旅程展开故事，他们因遭遇意外而杀人，无奈之下成为了亡命之徒，最终在警察的围捕中被逼向绝路。影片反映出社会整体对待女性的无知与偏见，男性对女性的压迫与主导等男女不平等现象，也体现出女性主义意识的觉醒和女权的抗争精神。本文旨在从女权主义视角来解析整部电影，分别从女权运动的迫切需要来探究电影的悲剧根源，从女权意识的觉醒与抗争这个角度来分析女性角色形象，从女权呐喊与呼救这个角度来解析影片主旨。本文通过对整部影片情节、人物形象和主题的分析，揭示了女权运动的迫切需要及女性主义精神的光辉，以此来呼唤人们对女权运动的重视与支持，并表达对女权运动前景的美好希冀。

关键词：《末路狂花》；女权主义；压迫与反抗；女性形象

Abstract

The film Thelma and Louise, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Susan Sarandon and Virginia Davis, is an outstanding representative of feminist movie. The film tells a story of two ladies, Thelma and Louise. They become fugitive criminals for murdering a man because of an accident, and in the end they are forced to commit suicide as a lot of policemen round up them. It has reflected some social injustice such as the ignorance of females and bias towards them, and male oppression and dominance. It also has embodied the awakening of feminist awareness and the spirit of feminist rebellion. This paper aims at analyzing the film from the aspect of feminism. At first, the root of tragic trend of the film is analyzed from the aspect of feminist demands. Then the female images are analyzed from the perspective of the awakening of feminist awareness. And the theme of the film is discussed from the perspective of feminists’ calling for help. This paper has disclosed the urgency of feminist movement and the elegance of feminist spirit by means of film analysis in terms of plots and figures, in order to appeal to the attention and support of the public for feminist movement, and to express best wishes for the prospect of feminist movement.

Key Words: Thelma and Louise; feminism; oppression and resistance; female images

Contents

1 Introduction 1

2. Analyzing the Film’s Tragic Trend from the Aspect of Feminist Demands 3

2.1 The Root of Tragedy——Darryl’s Negative Influence on Thelma 3

2.2 The Fuse of Tragedy——Harlan’s Infringement and Irritation 5

2.3 The Impetus of Tragedy——Other Men’s Disrespect for Women 6

3. Analyzing the Film’s Female Images from the Perspective of the Awareness and Rebellion of Feminists 8

3.1 Common Awareness of Self-identity 8

3.2 Louise’ s Feminist Awareness 9

3.3 Thelma’s Growing up and Rebellion 10

4. Analyzing the Film’s Theme from the Perspective of Feminists’ Calling for Help and Feminist Prospects 13

4.1 Feminists’ Crying for Help 13

4.2 Feminist Prospects 14

References 16

Acknowledgements 17

An Analysis of the Film Thelma and Louise from the Perspective of Feminism

1 Introduction

Feminism has long been discussed by scholars, as a controversial topic. “Feminism is a range of political movements, ideologies, and social movements that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve equal political, economic, personal, and social rights for women.”(Hawkesworth, 2006, p. 25–27) It has also been symbolized as a protest against the inequality in the society, and a prominent representative of outright human rights. In this sense, feminism is a common argument in many kinds of art works and is especially preferred by screenwriters. The films that reflect the social problems can attract attention of the public on account of the popularity through circulation so that they will probably lead to a resolution for the benefit of women to some extent. The typical work Thelma and Louise is a marvelous movie, receiving six Academy Award nominations and winning one for Best Original Screenplay for Khouri. The director Scott was nominated for Best Director, and both the stars Sarandon and Davis were nominated for Best Actress. In its limited time, Thelma and Louise tells us an impressing story about how two women are repelled to become fugitive criminals because of an annoying incident and finally be driven into a corner. Both Thelma and Louise, suffering from a series of male oppression, contempt, and discrimination in a trip, gradually recoup feminist awareness and the spirit of resistance in the form of rebelling against the male-dominated world, which remains us a deep thought about the state of social equality and demands of further feminist movement. In this paper, the ugly man images and beautiful female images, male objections and female defiance, feminist demands and prospects embodied in the film are all discussed from the perspective of feminism.

I choose the topic as my research target for the following reasons. Firstly, I intend to emphasize the urgency and essentiality of feminist rebellion against gender discrimination by analyzing the inequality between men and women that is ubiquitous in the film. Secondly, I intend to extol individual awareness in the movie. In the male-dominated world, women still have these glory spirits to live on, to endure plights and to struggle with the society. In the long term, there is no doubt that the spirit will contribute to realistic advances of feminist movement. Thirdly, I intend to call for the attention of the prospects of feminist movement. In the movie, Thelma and Louise choose to commit suicide together confronted with the roundup of policemen. The tragic and solemn ending brings us into contemplation of feminist prospects.

There are some dissertations with respect to this topic in China, most of which concern about feminism in the film. For instance, someone stresses on a feminist transition of Thelma and Louise that is caused by male oppression(钟丽茜，2007). And someone makes a point of the oppression in the male-dominated society(蔡海燕，2008). Those discussions emphasize the aspect of feminism rather than the film itself. Thus this paper will focus on the film analysis, specifically the details of the movies in terms of plots, characters and theme.

2. Analyzing the Film’s Tragic Trend from the Aspect of Feminist Demands

2.1 The Root of Tragedy——Darryl’s Negative Influence on Thelma

If we say the ending of Thelma and Louise is an irretrievable tragedy, then the origin, trigger and impetus of it are all related to the men in the movie who harm women’s bodies, despise their identity, undermine their confidence, insult their souls, and hamper their freedom. There are a lot of male characters in this movie, most of whom treat ladies scornfully and roughly, standing for a wide range of males in the society(巩坚，2014). What those men think and do exactly reflect the repression on women and the bias towards them, which can be considered as inequality between men and women. This kind of unfairness also explains the reason why Thelma and Louise are forced to live a hard life on the run and even commit suicide at last. Social awareness of women is in a critical situation, which is a signal of feminist demands. Consequently, this paper will firstly discuss the odious male images in the hope of illustrating males' brutal treatment of women that plays a fatal part in guiding the tragic trend of the two unlucky women’s destiny.

First at all, let’s take a look at Thelma’s husband, Darryl who is to blame for Thelma’s tragedy. The sleazy, ignorant, vulgar and apathetic man is a typical representative of male chauvinism. It is he who hinders Thelma's freedom and will, holding her down, and shows little respect and care for her. The long-term influence on Thelma’s personality makes her a person who is desirous for affection and passion from other men so that she is prone to trust strangers and willing to flirt with the man she falls in love at first sight. It also explains how she is brought to the crisis of being rapped and cheated. All in all, Darryl’s bad influence on Thelma’s personality is the origin of her miserable ending.

It is apparent that Thelma lives under pressure of Darryl who offers little respect and freedom for her. At the beginning of the movie, Thelma promises her friend Louise to go traveling together and ask for her husband’s permission. What’s inconceivable is that the simple thing cannot be completed by the poor lady in the face of the man she has lived with for many years. After breakfast, she wants to tell Darryl the message but lets it go twice, which reflects that Thelma fears of being frank to her husband even it is just a common request related to her own happiness. How and why is it so hard to tell the truth in front of Darryl? Seen from the words Darryl says, such as “I don’t give a shit what we have for dinner”, and “it's a good thing that you are not regional manager, but I am”, we can find the imbalance between the couple in terms of social status, household issues and means of communications. The theory of feminist movies suggests that the fact of women’s being oppressed lies in inequality between men and women in the male-dominated society(陈晓云，2009，p154).

Besides, Darryl shows little care for his wife, which can be exemplified from his reactions when Thelma says she is still outside on the phone. The complaints “Have you lost your mind? Is that it? Now I leave for work, and you take complete leave of your senses?” and “you get your butt back here, now, god damn it” fully exposes his indifference and impatience to Thelma. The husband even stares at TV that is playing a football game rather than listens to his wife explaining why she cannot go back. As a husband, he is supposed to show solicitude for Thelma who has not come back yet, instead, he behaves coldly and indifferently. As for the point, Thelma also knows and blames it, seen from her self-irony when she admonishes the cop to be sweet to his wife otherwise she may turn to be a criminal like herself.

Worse still, the husband is too childish to take care of himself and doesn't expect a child. There is no doubt that Thelma is discontent with it, judging from her embarrassed and sorrowful expression when she says, he “is not ready to be a father” and “kind of pride of being infantile” And she is aware of the constraint and abhors it, which is showed in her saying “you are as bad as Darryl” when Louise attempts to stop her from ordering some drinks. The long-term unequal relationship is bound to have a bad effect on Thelma. Isolated from the reality and treated badly for a long time, she lacks social experience such as the right way to refuse others or the necessity to be alert while meeting strangers. Nature and freedom constrained, she strongly aspires for adventure and affection.