Year 20 and Counting:

The Film That Doesnt Die

An In-depth Look at the Screenplay Structure of

Thelma & Louise
by
Jennine Lanouette

"One day I was walking down the street, minding my business, when this old guy in a
car starts talking to me. He's old enough to be my grandfather. I'm ignoring him,
which is what you're supposed to do in that situation; you know, I can't hear you, I
can't see you, you can say whatever you want, I'm not a human being. Then he said,
'I'd like to see you suck my dick, and I just lost it for a second. I pulled my sunglasses
off and I walked over to the car and said, 'and I'd like to shoot you in the fucking
face.'
Callie Khouri, screenwriter

Thus, was born Thelma & Louise.

Here is a rare instance of a screenwriter, and a first-timer no less, setting out to make a
heartfelt social statement and largely succeeding. In the end, Callie Khouri saw manifested
on screen a clear representation of her belief that women in this world must live under a soulcrippling double standard. Director Ridley Scott and lead actors Susan Sarandon and Gina
Davis certainly did great justice to her script. But the power of Thelma & Louise comes not
from its director, actors or production team. It comes from a key choice Khouri made right at
the beginning of the story.
Who can forget that defining scene in the roadhouse parking lot in which the slick and
smooth-talking Harlan, having plied Thelma with drink, has her pinned down on a car hood.
Suddenly, Louise appears, puts a gun to his head and demands he let her go. He does and
Thelma stumbles away. Louise slowly backs off and then turns and follows her. They are
both some distance from Harlan when he calls out, I shoulda gone ahead and fucked her!
causing Louise to turn around. What did you say? I said, suck my cock! And she shoots
him dead.
We are so outraged at Harlan, first for physically brutalizing Thelma and then for his
cavalier inference that Louise wouldnt have dared use the gun anyway, were not at all sorry
to see him get shot. But our outrage causes us to overlook a key factor in the incident. Louise
didnt kill Harlan in order to save Thelma from being raped. If she had, the ensuing story of
escape and pursuit would have had a clear-cut moral center.
c. Jennine Lanouette 2012

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Instead, Louise killed him because of what he said to her. She could have just kept
walking away. She could have taken the stance, as Khouri is quoted above, I cant see you. I
cant hear you. You can say whatever you want. Im not a human being. But Louise took a
different approach. She made a choice to, in Khouris words, shoot him in the fucking face
as retribution for his insults.
Louises practical choice is also Khouris creative choice, one which sets up a discussion
of gender politics that hovers over the rest of the story. Was Louise justified in atttacking
Harlan because he insulted her? Is sexual insult a predictor of direct assault? Does it condone
or promote sexual violence? Is it, in fact, another form of sexual violence? Lets just assume
for a moment that the answer to these questions, at least to some degree, is yes. Then is it
acceptable for women to respond to male aggression with aggression of their own?
These are the questions Khouri is confronting her audience with. She wants to take us
beyond the simple justice of self-defense and into an uncertain moral ground where we must
grapple with the more complex issue of how much abuse one individual can be expected to
tolerate before they strike back. She is saying, Sometimes I get so angry, I just want to shoot
somebody!
Callie Khouri is an avowed feminist. So the thematic aspect of this film was not
accidental. But she is also an artist, which tells us her choices were not always entirely
conscious, either. In interviews, she describes her initial idea as being two women on a
crime spree. It was an image that popped up into her head, which is how things work with
artists. Then the feminist in her said, I like that! because the image challenges conventional
notions of what women can and should do. She toiled with it for a while, going down some
dead end paths, until she had an encounter with a lecherous old man that provoked in her the
spontaneous urge to shoot him and Bingo! theres her triggering event for the crime
spree. She knew, without doubt, that this was the right choice for the story she wanted to tell.
She was already seeking expression of her anger in her story of two women on a crime
spree. But that was about what it means, more generally, to be a woman in this world. This
incident zeroed in on a much more specific anger, sparking an Aha! moment. I got it! The
two women are on the lam because they killed a man for assaulting them! Louise act of
shooting Harlan in the roadhouse parking lot is a perfect metaphoric outlet for Khouris anger
at the old man in the car, giving her a much better revenge than actually shooting him in the
face. If Khouri had actually shot the man, she would have been vilified. She wants people to
know this, too: Men are allowed to act out all their base impulses towards women, whether
verbally or physically, with little to no accountability. If, on the other hand, a woman assaults
a man in response, she is a dangerous threat. There is no consideration of extenuating
circumstances. And there is no mercy. This is the picture she wants to portray.
So how does a woman channel her anger without hurting someone or getting herself in
trouble? Louise uses a gun to get her point across, but Khouri expresses herself in a language
that men will hear cars, guns, sex, violence and the chase. Thus, she has created an actionpacked, tension-filled romp that is also a thematically rich metaphor.
Since Louises act of shooting Harlan is the trigger, so to speak, for a plot about two
women on the lam, you could say the story is driven by Louise. Meanwhile, however,
Thelma is undergoing a radical awakening. She travels an emotional and psychological

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distance that far outstrips the miles clocked on Louise odometer. She enters the story as a
sheltered, dependent, submissive housewife, but makes her final exit as an empowered,
independent, self-directed woman no longer willing to surrender to paternalistic forces. To
progress her internal journey forward in an incremental fashion, a parallel story structure is
woven in, complimentary to the plot, in which the character transitions have their own
function while also operating in concert with the plot transitions.
Thus, we find here an elegant mix of an easily recognizable, action-packed plot, combined
with an underlying character transformation that, together, create a powerful metaphor. But,
its Thelmas incremental progression toward self-empowerment, rather than Louises action
story of escape, that both determines the films structure, and supports its thematic resonance.
I always like to start my analysis of a film with the opening image to see what major
themes of the story can be found there. In the case of Thelma & Louise, it is an image from
the films ending the wide, open expanse of the American Southwest. It starts in black and
white and then turns into color, suggesting a dull drab existence that comes to life. It shows
us the open road, suggesting freedom, and a natural, almost spiritual, beauty. We are being
shown where we will end up, literally. But we are also being shown an unworldly,
transcendent place. Khouri was very clear in her own mind that, when Thelma and Louise
take off over the cliff, they are not committing suicide, as some people have accused her.
Rather, they are going to a spiritual freedom that, for Khouri, is the only kind of freedom that
is available to these women. This image is giving us an encapsulated foreshadowing of that
freedom at the outset of the film.
Then, from this soaringly awe-inspiring place, we are brought crashing down to a very
earth-bound opening scene in a crowded, noisy, claustrophobic diner. This is our introduction
to Louise and her world. She refills a young womans coffee, telling her she shouldnt smoke
because its bad for her, and then goes into the back and lights up a cigarette. We learn from
this that Louise likes to play a big sister role with other women in a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do
sort of way. Then she calls Thelma to make plans for their weekend getaway. But she learns
that Thelma hasn't asked her husband yet if she can go.
When looking to uncover the structure of a films story, one of the first questions that
must be asked is, Whose story is it? The implication being that it can be only one persons
story, and there are certainly exceptions to this rule. But Thelma & Louise is not one of those
exceptions. In class, when I tell students this is Thelmas story, someone invariably protests
that it is both of their stories because Louise is just as important as Thelma. So I have to
explain that this is not a value judgement favoring Thelma. I am not taking anything away
from Louise. It is a purely pragmatic way of identifying which character the storys structure
will be built upon.
In answering the question, Whose story is it? another question must be asked: Who is
the sympathetic character? When entering a story, a viewer needs to be provided with a way
to become engaged, to get on board and to stick it out to the end. This is done by inspiring an
attachment to the main character, and the easiest way to create that attachment is by showing
that character at a power disadvantage. There is something in our human psychology that
makes us irresistibly attracted to underdogs.

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In this film, so far, we have seen Louise chastise a young woman about smoking and then
chastise Thelma for not having asked her husband yet if she can go away for the weekend.
Neither of these are showing Louise at a power disadvantage. So what about the scene in
which we are introduced to Thelma?
In a suburban kitchen, a bathrobe-clad Thelma calls out to her husband Darrell that he
better hurry up or hell be late for work, in response to which he bursts into the kitchen
yelling at her for yelling at him. She apologizes demurely and then tries to ask his permission
to go away for the weekend twice and chickens out each time. The second time, she
instead derails to, Want anything special for dinner tonight? He tells her no, and adds the
vinegary retort, I dont give a shit what we have for dinner, topping it off with, I may not
even be home for dinner. When she says, Funny how many people want to buy a carpet on
a Friday night, insinuating her suspicions of infidelity, and then adds, Youd think theyd
want to forget about it for the weekend, he responds with puffed-up condescension. Well,
then, good thing youre not regional manager and I am.
There are several things happening in this scene that are designed to show us Thelma as a
woman in an unfulfilling marriage with a guy who is a buffoon and a boor. Shes trying to be
nice, telling him hell be late for work, asking what he wants for dinner, and he is
unresponsive and abusive. We see her suspicions and his condescension. We also see this
heartbreaking vulnerability when she plaintively says, Hon? but then is too afraid to ask
him her question. She is clearly at a power disadvantage. Thus, she becomes for the viewer
the sympathetic character.
Thankfully, along with all her power loss, we are also shown a ray of hope when, after
getting rebuffed on her question about dinner, she makes a wisecrack about the implausibility
of people wanting to buy carpet on a Friday night. She can assert herself! With this, a little
tiny seed is planted for whats to come.
After Thelma calls Louise back to confirm shes going, we are given a little more
character extrapolation in a montage of preparation for their trip. Louise calls her boyfriend
Jimmy, but gets his answering machine. So she places his picture face down on her bed table.
She then packs her things, very neatly, in plastic bags. Thelmas packing, on the other hand,
is a chaotic mess. And among the clothes and shoes and undergarments she dumps into her
bag, she is careful to also bring her gun.
Of course, this is a necessary plant of the gun, so that when Louise conveniently shows
up with it at the critical moment of danger, it doesnt look contrived. But whats nice here is
how Khouri utilizes the technical business of planting the gun to also further delineate
Thelmas character. In the screenplay, it says, She picks up the gun like its a rat by the tail.
So while we are learning that Thelma has a gun, we are also seeing that she doesnt know
how to use it.
This plant could have been accomplished by making it Louises gun. We could have seen
her packing it in the montage instead of Thelma. But that would take her savvy, cynical
nature and tip it towards something slightly paranoid and aggressive. It would almost suggest
she goes out of her house looking for trouble. Putting the gun in Thelmas hands makes it
more innocent. She brings it because she is not used to going places without a man to protect
her and she feels vulnerable. It is standing in for a man. We learn later that Darrell bought her

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the gun for when he is not home at night.
Then Khouri has to get the gun into Louises purse. So she has Thelma, in her
helplessness, asks Louise what she should do with it, reaffirming the power differential
between them. Louise readily takes charge, Put it in my purse! Khouri now has the gun
where she needs it and we feel better since we would rather have it in Louises purse than in
Thelmas inexperienced hands.
To be sure, there is a degree to which Thelma and Louise are stock characters. Thelma is
the oppressed housewife and Louise is the independent single woman who cant get a man to
commit. But they each have a distinct personality. Thelma is flighty and girlish, but also has a
slightly nutty edge. Louise is organized and competent, except when it comes to her
relationships with men. We also see a life philosophy in Louise when she says, You get what
you settle for. She is struggling against settling for a boyfriend who is physically and
emotionally absent at least half the time. Thelmas life philosophy, on the other hand, is
evolving, as when Louise says, Ive never seen you like this. Youre usually so sedate. And
she responds, Ive had it up to my ass with sedate. Thelma wants to break out of her
stultifying mold. She wants to get out from under her husband to experience the world and
have more fun.
There is, however, another level on which each of these characters function, embodying
the larger meaning of the story. Louise is the one who already has the knowledge of how
dangerous men can be and the limits of what women can do to protect themselves. Thus, she
embodies female rage at having to live in a sexually and economically oppressive society.
She expresses that rage by blowing a guy away for insulting her and then taking off for
Mexico instead of turning herself in.
Thelma, on the other hand, embodies female denial, the segment of women who cant
acknowledge the oppression they are subject to because its too painful. So Thelma is the
unconscious one. Shes asleep, the powerless housewife who has simply adapted. This story
is about her process of waking up, to finally access her own rage. In a sense, it could be said
that Louise is carrying the latent rage within Thelma.
Thelmas blissful slumber is given its first jolt when she is confronted with a brutal reality
in Harlans attempt to rape her. Louise then kills him and we have arrived at the first
structural marker, which I call the Point of Attack. Others call it the Inciting Incident.
Regardless, it is the moment that begins the story we were brought in to see. Thelma &
Louise is not a film about two women on a weekend jaunt to a cabin in the mountains. It is
about what happens when a woman confronted with sexual violence topped by sexual insult
expresses her anger to its most extreme degree. That story begins with Harlans attempted
rape of Thelma and Louises subsequent murder of him. Thus, these events, together, qualify
as the Point of Attack.
In the scenes leading up to the attempted rape there are some nice examples of tensionbuilding, such as when the waitress says, Good thing, theyre not all as friendly as you,
Harlan. She is letting us know hes well known to be kinda slimy. So we are made uneasy
by Thelmas openness to his flirtations. Then we see how much Thelma is drinking, which

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increases her vulnerability to a slimy guy, and our feeling of danger.
Luckily, Louise has a sober nature and knows a slimy guy when she sees one. We can rest
assured that shell keep an eye on things. But, wait! Louise has just come to Thelma on the
dance floor to say, Thelma! Im going to go to the little girls room and then were out of
here! Uh oh! This means Louise is not around when Thelma is led out to the parking lot by
the slimy guy. Then, when Louise comes out of the ladies room and asks the waitress if shes
seen Thelma, she is erroneously told Thelmas still on the dance floor, throwing her off the
trail, one of the oldest tension-building devices in the book. So, as Harlan is getting more
aggressive with Thelma, our sense of alarm is increased by knowing that Louise is removed
from the scene and being given wrong information.
All this carefully constructed tension heightens our relief when Louise shows up at the
critical moment and puts a gun to his head. Hooray! Louise has saved the day! Then, a
moment later, when Louise pulls the trigger, our euphoria carries over, helping us overlook
the fact that she has just shot a man dead for the legally unpunishable offense of insulting her.
One thing I like about this Point of Attack, from a story structure perspective, is that it is,
literally, an attack. Two attacks, in fact. Harlan attacks Thelma and Louise attacks him. The
story starts off with a bang (so to speak) and were off on a wild ride.
But this tension-filled Point of Attack also goes beyond mere action-driven sensation
because it launches Thelmas internal journey. Thus, it fulfills the character function of the
Point of Attack, which is to confront the main character with a serious challenge to his/her
assumptions about life.
We all operate under certain assumptions: the sun will rise in the morning; your partner
will be there when you wake up; if you do good work, you wont lose your job. But, once in
a while, something happens that challenges those assumptions. Despite commendations from
your colleagues, a person with power has a vendetta against you and gets you fired. You
panic, you scramble, you try to figure out what you did wrong. Then, you pull yourself
together and start looking for another job. Your search turns into a several month odyssey,
with many false starts and dead ends. Finally, the new job materializes, with better pay and
nicer people. And you have developed a new set of assumptions: you could lose your job at
any time, but you will survive and, very possibly, be better off for it.
This example is a generic story, it could happen to anyone. Good drama is when a specific
character is challenged in a very individual way.
Thelma lives her life under the assumption that men are necessary and, in fact,
indispensable as protectors from the worlds dangers, the psychokillers, bears and snakes
lurking in the shadows. She cannot conceive of having to protect herself from these unseen
threats so she must stay in a state of unconscious denial about the compromises she makes in
order to have that security. But then she experiences a man, whom she assumed was of the
protector type, as violently assaulting her. This poses a grave challenge to her bedrock
assumptions. The threats are not as removed as she had thought. Even men who represent
themselves as safe can be very dangerous and do great damage. Over the course of the story,
she will have to find a way to integrate this new information into her world view and come
out with a new set of assumptions.
Thelma and Louise speed away from the scene, in a heightened emotional state. Thelma

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wants to go to the police, but Louise says no one will believe it was rape because they saw
her dancing with him. They stop at a coffee shop and fight over what to do. Then they get a
hotel room and bicker some more. Finally, Louise sends Thelma out to the pool so she can
think. Now we are on our way to the End of the First Act.
Each time I analyze a new film, I find that the function of the End of the First Act is
remarkably consistent. When looking for an event that brings the first act to a close and
launches the second act, suddenly there it is again: A decision on the part of the main
character. I wont say always, but I will say that often, most often, very, very often, in fact
almost all the time, somewhere right around 25 or 30 minutes into the film, I will find a
moment where the main character either makes a decision or chooses a course of action that
becomes the focus of the second act. Its not necessarily an explicit statement. Sometimes its
implicit in an action they carry out, or a new course they embark on.
In Thelma & Louise, the End of the First Act is Thelmas decision to join Louise in her
escape to Mexico. This defines the task of the Second Act to get to Mexico. I prefer the
word task over goal to keep things more open ended. For the characters, the goal may be
to get to Mexico, but the writer who makes it his or her goal to get them to Mexico is
obstructing the possibility of any number of other, unexpected, outcomes to occur. On the
other hand, to consider it the characters task to get to Mexico, doesnt mean theyre going to
get there. And, indeed, Thelma and Louise dont.
Of greater importance for the storys structure is the fact that Thelmas decision to go to
Mexico is a significant moment in her progression towards independence and selfdetermination. This is the progression that began with her decision to go away for the
weekend without asking her husband. The next point on the way was when Thelma
pleaded with Louise to stop at the roadhouse. Come on, Louise, lets have some fun! Shes
breaking out of her normal routine. But this new decision to go to Mexico represents a
critical juncture because its a decision she doesnt have to make. Louise is the one who
killed the guy. Thelma could just say, This is your problem. Im out of here, and take the
next bus back to Little Rock. Instead, shes deciding to make herself an accomplice.
However, it is also important to note that Louises decision to go to Mexico comes before
Thelmas. This may seem rather fundamental, but one of the most helpful tools in analyzing
story structure is to not take anything for granted. A useful technique for understanding how a
given element is functioning is to imagine the story without that element, or with it
rearranged. For example, what if Thelma were to say, You know, Louise, Ive been thinking
and I cant see any other option for us but to go to Mexico. And Louise says, Im not sure I
want to do that. Wed have to go through Texas to get there. Or some such thing. And then
finally Louise decides, Okay, okay. Lets go to Mexico. Imagine it that way in your head
and see how that changes the story.
For starters, it makes Thelma way too pro-active at this point. Her character just isnt
there yet. But, more to the point, you want to be presenting events in the story in the order of
their increasing intensity. Louises decision to go to Mexico is lower intensity than Thelmas,
because its more expected. Shes the one in trouble. Plus, shes a doer. Shes not the type to
just sit around, and shes certainly not interested in being a victim. So it is not so surprising
that she would go this way. She has to do something or they will surely catch up with her.

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For Thelma, on the other hand, this decision represents a much bigger stretch of her
emotional and psychological being. She has barely ever been out of Little Rock, or out of the
house, even. Neither is she accustomed to making big decisions on her own. This is what
gives Thelmas decision a greater intensity as a dramatic event and why you want it to come
second, after Louise.
Given that these decisions must be made separately and in a certain order, Khouri uses a
very nice sequence of cause and effect relationships to accomplish it. Alone in the motel
room, Louise calls Jimmy and tells him she's in trouble. She is in a state of emotional
turmoil. I did it and I cant undo it! And hes there. Sure, baby, Ill help you. So she asks
him to lend her $6700 against her life savings and, to her relief, he says he will. Then, against
her better judgment, she blurts out, Jimmy, do you love me? And what does he do? He
hesitates. Um . . . yeah. Suddenly, shes reminded of all the same old problems with him.
Shed have been better off if shed just settled for the $6700. So she says, with barely veiled
disgust, Never mind. Just send the money. In the next scene, she announces to Thelma that
shes going to Mexico.
Her hope of having a committed relationship with Jimmy is the only thing standing in the
way of her flight. While, on a rational level, she has little other choice, this vestige of hope
still has the potential to hold her back emotionally. But, once again, he disappoints her. So,
now, she is emotionally free to go. We can surmise her thoughts: What is there to stick
around for if this guy is such a slouch he cant even say he loves me?
However, as pointed out earlier, Louises decision is the easier one to make. Shes is in
trouble with the law, she isnt married and she has this loser boyfriend. She is clear now
about what shes going to do, but shes gotta know what Thelmas going to do. So she asks
her, Are you coming with me or not? But Thelma doesn't know.
They make a stop and Louise tells Thelma to call Darrell and tell him she'll be home the
next night. Thelma makes the call and, when Darrell answers the phone, he immediately
starts yelling at her, insisting she come home right away. She tries to reason with him, but he
becomes threatening. So she tells him to go fuck himself and hangs up. Having just been
through an attempted rape, Thelma is in no mood to put up with threats from her husband.
Back in the car, Louise asks what Darrell said and Thelma gives a perfect husband parody
of his response. Then she announces her decision with the question: How long until we get
to god-damned Mexico?
Despite the emotional and psychological stretch that this decision represents, it is
facilitated by the fact that there is actually much less substance left to the relationship
between Thelma and Darrell than there is between Louise and Jimmy. Whereas Louise and
Jimmy are, each in their own way, grappling with how to be together, Thelma and Darrells
relationship has broken down to such a degree that they are, by this point, merely cohabitators. We get little indication that there is any real love left between them. So, while we
can see what a big step this is for Thelma on a personal level, we dont have to feel that she is
losing much of anything by leaving Darrell behind.
This sequence of scenes, then, adds up to a nice clean cause and effect progression:
Jimmy is a non-committal slouch. And Louise decides to go to Mexico. Then, Darrell is a

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bullying pig. And Thelma decides to go to Mexico. We are now at the end of our first act, and
we know the task ahead trying to get to Mexico.
One thing that fascinates me in this work is how often, while studying a film that appears
to have a seamless and organic flow on screen, I will stumble upon distinct underlying
structural patterns that are almost mathematical in nature. The cause and effect progression I
just described is one such example. Another is the appearance in this film of two separate
parallel action sequences in the first half of the second act.
The first is a traditional tension-building use of parallel action. Scenes of Louise and
Thelma barreling down the road, coming upon the drifter J.D., then stopping to give him a
ride, then careening off road to evade a couple of cop cars, are alternated with scenes of Hal,
the police detective, beginning his investigation into the murder. He breaks into Louises
house, he visits where she works, and then he goes to see Darrell and tells him Thelma is
being sought by the FBI. They are on paralled tracks but tension is mounting.
Then Louise goes to pick up her money in Oklahoma City and finds Jimmy waiting for
her instead. Jimmy gets motel rooms and J.D. is sent packing by Louise. She gives the $6700
to Thelma for safekeeping and then retires with Jimmy. This begins the second use of parallel
action, a very compact sequence of three scenes each.
Scene 1: Jimmy confronts Louise about what's going on, but she refuses to tell him so he
turns over a table. She threatens to walk out, and he is remorseful. He gives her an
engagement ring, but she questions his motives. Parallel Scene 1: J.D. shows up at Thelma's
door. She somewhat shyly lets him in. Scene 2: Jimmy tells Louise he doesnt think she loves
him anymore. She insists that she does but says its time to let go of their relationship. Chalk
it up to bad timing. Parallel Scene 2: Thelma and J.D. play games and jump on the bed. She
asks who he really is and he tells her he's a robber. She asks how he does it and he shows her.
Then he moves in on her and they kiss. Scene 3: Louise and Jimmy sit across the room from
each other. She asks if he remembers when they met. He told her she had nice eyes but when
she closed them he couldnt tell her what color they were. She covers his eyes and asks him
to tell her what color her eyes are. He says, Brown. They kiss. Parallel Scene 3: Thelma
and J.D. have passionate sex.
Notice here the use of the aesthetically sound number three, giving each little story a
beginning, a middle and an end, to contrast two different types of relationship: a substantive
discussion trying to find an emotional resolution and a wild ride of flirtation, seduction and
consummation. Louises relationship is internal and emotional and Thelmas is pure
rollicking fun.
The nice thing about Jimmy, in character terms, is that while he does have more of a soul
than the other male characters (he is a musician, after all) he is, nonetheless, capable of
losing his temper and turning over a table. Even Jimmy, who Louise loves, can be violent.
There is male violence all over the place. But, interestingly, this particular choice does not
appear to come from Khouri. In the script, all that happens in this scene is Louise spills her
champagne. So someone else (my guess would be Michael Madsen) said, Lets be real here.
Lets have him turn over a table.
The idea of men as abusers of power is consistently shown in Thelmas experience as

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well. Her husband Darrell is so over-controlling that the only way she can go away for a
weekend is to leave without telling him. At the roadhouse, she sees in Harlan an opportunity
to have a new experience, to flirt, dance, and have a little fun. But she almost gets raped for
it. Then she meets up with J.D., he worms his way in and she does have a new experience.
She has good sex for the first time in her life. But it comes at a great cost when he steals all
their money. So we are seeing here another structural pattern as Thelma repeatedly looks to
men to fill the void of her unfulfilling life and, each time, she is betrayed in a very serious
way.
All of which brings us to the mid-point, one of the most interesting structural markers and,
potentially, the most helpful. When you chart out a well-structured drama on a timeline, you
see all this activity at the beginning that is designed to get us invested in the characters, get
oriented to whats going on and understand whats at stake. Then at the end, there is another
bunch of activity designed to resolve the story, give a sense that something has happened and
give an idea of where the characters will go from here. I like to think of the beginning and the
end as being like the take-off and landing on a cross country flight. There are very concrete
tasks that must be done in order to get the thing off the ground and then to smoothly bring it
down again. But theres also that loooooonnnnnggggg stretch in the middle when youre
pretty much on your own. To be sure, there is much opportunity for creativity in the second
act, since youre not so concerned with all those take-off and landing tasks. But the challenge
is in how to organize it.
This is the source of that oft-heard lament among screenwriters, My second act is killing
me! Well, there is good news. While air travelers must simply endure, screenwriters can
gain the help of a very useful guidepost if they develop an understanding of how the Midpoint functions.
The standard, plot-based, view of the Mid-point function is that it is the first culmination
of the second act, where there is an initial attempt to solve the problem that either partially
succeeds or fails. This is highly effective for the action-driven story. But a character story
needs to go a little deeper. So what youll typically find in a character-centered Mid-point is a
nearly cataclysmic external event that causes an internal shift in the main character.
A nearly cataclysmic event in Thelma & Louise? Thats easy. Its when J.D. steals all their
money. And lets take note that the amount we are talking about is $6700, which speaks to
what I mean by nearly cataclysmic. Obviously, the event cant be completely cataclysmic
because that would put an end to things, like when Bambi meets Godzilla. But it does need to
be very nearly cataclysmic, like losing $6700 that you scraped together from years of
waitressing for nickel and dime tips in a diner in Arkansas.
In fact, this event is so close to cataclysmic, Louise has the entirely appropriate response
of completely falling apart. She becomes a pile of mush wailing and moaning on the floor.
Thelma, meanwhile, knows shes responsible for this horrific loss. She curses her bad
fortune, and then leaps in to take the reins. This is where we see her internal shift.
If we look at the Mid-point as a sort of a fulcrum, we can see how the actual balance of
the story is shifting at this point. Lets say A is zero percent of B, and were trying to get to B,
which is, obviously, 100%. Now, weve all seen these movies where the character is at 0%,
0%, 0%, then 5%, then 10%, then 90 and 100. This kind of progression doesnt make for a

12
very convincing character transformation because we know that people dont change that
way. People change incrementally over time, and portraying this step by step process is one
of the big challenges in creating drama. So we want to make sure that at about a quarter of
the way through the film, the character is at about 25% of who they will become by the end,
halfway through, theyre at 50%, and so on. Indeed, when Thelma leaves for the weekend
without asking permission, shes at about 5% of becoming an empowered, self-directed
woman. Then she agitates for stopping at the roadside caf, and thats about 9 or 10%. Then
she makes the decision to go to Mexico, and, actually, thats probably about 25%. So, thus
far, we have been seeing an incremental progression.
Now, to consider the point where the character goes from, say, 24% to 25% to 26%, what
is the cumulative difference between those increments? Not all that much. However, if we
look at where the character goes from 49% to 50% to 51%, there is a huge cumulative
difference. Its the difference between becoming president of the United States or fading into
obscurity. So we are seeing here an actual tipping of the balance.
Another way of looking at this is: If we were to stop Thelmas story somewhere before the
50% mark if she were to say, Ive had enough of this. Im going back to Little Rock.
Good luck, Louise, then what can we assume? We can assume she would go back to
being who she was at the beginning of the story. Maybe not that shed go back to Darrell. But
shed get involved with some other guy who shed relate to basically the same way. We know
this because, in fact, shes been relating to Louise this way, as a surrogate for Darrell.
Thelma, do this. Thelma, do that. Call Darrell and say this, this and this.
But after the 50% mark, due to the nearly cataclysmic event, Thelma has experienced a
shift causing her to begin taking charge. The balance has tipped and she is being pulled on a
downhill slide towards her ultimate transformation. She had a bitter lesson about the
consequences of being a follower, and of putting blind trust in men, such that from this point
on, we dont see her making those mistakes anymore. Her subsequent encounters with men
show a different power balance. First, she imitates J.D.s technique to hold up a roadside
store. Then, a few scenes later, she takes a state trooper hostage. And, not only that, she
makes him cry.
This Mid-point shift then becomes a critical marker to help the writer organize story
events into a plausible progression. Lets say, for example, that Khouri, in her first draft,
came up with the scene of Thelma taking the cop hostage. She likes it so much she puts it
very early in the story. But then she cant get the rest of the second act to work and the copin-the-trunk scene just doesnt feel right. By identifying the mid-point as the marker before
which Thelma is a follower and after which she begins taking charge, Khouri can take a step
back and say, It doesnt make sense for Thelma to be so bold this early. This scene should
go after the mid-point when shes starting to take charge. Whew! Thats better.
However, there is a distinction worth noting here: Dont mistake the crossing of this 50%
mark as making the ending inevitable. If it were inevitable, the story would be over. The
writer must still continue to progress the characters internal growth in small incremental
changes. What the 50% mark does is make the ending possible. Without the external event
that prompts Thelma to start taking charge, it would be hard to imagine her getting to where
she does in the end all tanned and sweaty, and wearing cut-off sleeves, like Linda

13
Hamilton in Terminator 2 especially if you think back to how she was at the beginning
all frilly and flirty and batting her eyelashes. But having seen her cross over this point, it is
now much more believable that she could go that distance.
Now we are into the second half of the story where stakes are raised and tension is
increased at every opportunity. Whereas, up until this point, we have seen Hal, the police
detective, working solo, now he is surrounded by FBI men. Whereas, up until this point,
Thelma was a dead weight carried by Louise, now she is becoming an effective partner-incrime, thinking on her feet and not afraid to take risks. Louise has barely a moment to
wallow in her misery before Thelma comes running out of a roadside store yelling at her to
Drive! as she hops in the car waving a bunch of bills just raided from the cash register.
Id like to make a little side note here about the surveillance tape scene: The device of
cutting to the surveillance tape playing in the police station has the obvious benefit of
immediately showing the shocked reaction of Darrell and the cops, as well as being an
interesting way to reveal her heist. But lets not overlook that it is, in fact, a flash forward, at
least the next day if not a couple of days later, in an otherwise linear timeframe. They have
had time to get the tape, examine it, figure out that its Thelma and then bring Darrell into the
station. But, its also a flashback because were seeing something that has already happened.
How do they do this? A scene that is simultaneously a flashback and a flashforward and the
viewer is not completely and utterly confused?
Actually, this scene illustrates a crucial point about how to transition into time jumps,
whether back or forward. You want to motivate it by bringing up a question in the viewers
mind, as when Louise, in her utter astonishment, says, Well, what did you . . . ? How did
you . . . ? What did you say? Louise is articulating what the viewer is thinking: Wait a
minute, you just skipped over a whole thing back there about what Thelma did when she
went into that store. I want to see that! So the film obliges by going back and picking up that
scene, on the surveillance tape, giving us the opportunity to also see the shocked expressions
of Darrell and the cops. And the reason we are not completely jolted out of the story in a state
of extreme temporal disorientation is because the question being answered by it What did
she do in there?! is so imperative, we dont care about picky little details of
chronological time. Then, having sufficiently answered that question, we can cut back to the
two women charging down the road, mere moments after the hold-up, whooping and
hollering.
Thelmas robbery of the store has pulled Louise out of her funk and soon she is bossing
Thelma around again. She tells her to call Darrell and, if he sounds at all different, to hang up
because that means the police have tapped the phone. Meanwhile, the police have questioned
Jimmy and picked up J.D. They make the connection between the $6700 Jimmy gave Louise
and the $6600 J.D. has in his pocket. Then Hal gets J.D. to talk. When Thelma calls Darrell
and he answers sweetly, she immediately hangs up. But Louise calls back and talks with Hal,
who tells her shes not going to make it to Mexico. She then blows up at Thelma for telling
J.D. where they are going.
Again, a cause and effect progression: First, Thelma discovers she is responsible for
losing the money. So she holds up a store. Then she learns she made another mistake by

14
telling J.D. their destination. So, when theyre pulled over, she makes up for it by putting a
gun to the cops head to prevent him from reporting their identity on the police radio.
Here is a situation in which Louise is, finally, at a loss. The best strategy she can come up
with is to hope that the cop just gives them a ticket and lets them go. So Thelma takes him
hostage and locks him in the trunk. She is the one giving orders now as Louise struggles to
keep up. Thus, Thelmas helplessness in the first half of the story, brutally assaulted and then
callously robbed, is reversed by her own calculated acts of robbery and hostage taking. And
all done in a very tidy symmetrical pattern.
Louise, meanwhile, is playing a little cat and mouse game with Hal, calling him back all
the time. The plot justification for this is that shes trying to get information out of him.
Ostensibly, she wants to find out what they know. But she also knows they can trace her if
she stays on too long. Why would she take this risk by continuing to call Hal? She is usually
so strategic and levelheaded.
Whatever the plot justification, the actual reason is that its more interesting that way.
Louises phone calls to Hal are a dramatic device to create a connection between them and
keep it going. Then the question becomes: Why do we accept it? Why do we stay in the story
instead of being distracted by a voice in our head saying, That doesnt make sense! The
answer is because we like seeing her play with Hal. She makes contact and he tries to bond
with her while she keeps a calculated distance. Interaction between characters is always more
interesting than having them go along on parallel tracks independent of each other. Its fun to
see them banter.
Interwoven with all this cat-and-mouse activity between Louise and Hal, and Thelmas
process of discovering her wild side, is a series of dialogue scenes that return to the gender
politics discussion about the exploitation, insult and abuse women must endure without
recourse.
The discussion begins soon after the store robbery when they are washing up at a water
trough. Louise tells Thelma that Darrells phone might be tapped. Thelma wants to know
why they cant just tell the authorities it was self defense. Louise points out that they were
walking away when it happened. Thelma suggests they bend the truth anyhow and Louise
explains that there is no physical evidence to prove that he did it. At this point, we are
beginning our descent towards these characters tragic demise, so we are being reminded of
the fact that the system is stacked against them.
A few scenes later, Thelma breaks into giggles, sort of deliriously, about the moment when
Louise shot Harlan. The look on his face! she says. He sure wasnt expecting that! Suck
my dick! Bang! Louise admonishes her. Thelma, its not funny. And Thelma sobers right
up. I know, she says. For all their swaggering glee, these women also know the gravity of
what theyve done. Vengeance may have its thrills. But the truth is a man is dead. Of course,
theyre not about to allow themselves to be judged by a system that puts little judgment on a
man who behaves the way he did. But in an ideal world, he wouldnt have been allowed to do
those things and they wouldnt have killed him.
Then Thelma asks the $64,000 question. It happened to you, didnt it? In Texas, thats
what happened to you, isnt it? You was raped. To which Louise pulls over, stops the car and

15
leans into Thelma threateningly. Im warning you. Drop it. Im not talking bout that.
Understand? Thelma immediately backs off, repeating Its okay, its okay, as if shes
patting the hand of a lunatic. Previously, we were shown how the system is stacked against
rape victims. Here, we are shown the magnitude of the trauma those women must live with.
Louise cant even talk about it with her best friend.
Thelma then takes the cop hostage and another discussion scene follows. Louise has a
moment of doubt. I think I fucked up. I think I got us in a situation where we could both get
killed. Damn. I dont know why I just didnt go to the police right away. Louise, who is
usually up, is now down. But Thelma provides the counter balance. You know why. You
already said it. Whatd I say again? asks Louise. And Thelma lays it out. Nobodyd
believe us. Wed still get in trouble. Wed still have our lives ruined.
Weve come back to the triggering event and were reiterating the debate: Is it or is it not
justifiable for women to respond to male aggression with aggression of their own? Now we
get Thelmas perspective. Know what else? she says. What? That guy was hurting me.
If you hadnt come out when you did, hedve hurt me a lot worse. And probably nothin
woulda happened to him because everybody did see me dancing with him all night. Theyda
made out like Id asked for it. My life woulda been ruined a whole lot worse than it is now.
Least now Im havin some fun.
Then Thelma gives her final pronouncement on the matter. And Im not sorry that son of
a bitch is dead, she says. Im just sorry it was you that did it and not me. And, with this
statement, Thelma takes on the murder once and for all. First, she was being rescued by
Louise, which led Louise to commit a crime, then she was helping Louise escape from her
crime, then she became a criminal very much like Louise, and now she has actually adopted
Louise crime as her own.
In a plot-based structure, the End of the Second Act is the point when things become just
about as bad as they can be. Then, at the Climax, they get worse, stretching the tension to the
highest possible intensity, before the big release that provides a resolution. But in a characterbased story, a release of tension is not the only thing were going for. Were also working
towards an internal transformation. Thus, in character-based structure, the difference is that at
the end of the second act there is a statement of transformation and at the climax there is a
test.
A quick example to illustrate: Lets say you have a friend with an irritating habit of
making big promises and then not coming through. One day, this friend, having promised to
pick you up at the dentist, doesnt show. All zoned out on painkillers, you have to scramble
for another ride. Later, your friend turns up with yet another lame excuse. So you say, Ive
put up with this crap from you long enough. I dont know if I can be your friend anymore.
And your friend says, Youre right. I screwed up. Then she says, Please dont give up on
me. I promise from now on I will not let you down. What, in and of itself, is that promise
worth? Nothing. When does the promise become worth something? When it is proven to be
true through action. When she actually does what she says shes going to do.
So, while life circumstances will, from time to time, motivate us to declare our intention

16
to change, our transformation is not complete until that statement has been put to a test. And
the audience, on some deep level, knows this. If the test is not there, they know, instinctively,
somethings missing. They wont buy that the main character has truly transformed. The
function of the Climax, then, in the character-based structure, is to present this test. And it fits
perfectly with the plot model because in order to motivate the statement, Ive changed!
things, indeed, have to be about as bad as they can be. And then, in order to present an
effective test, things surely must get worse.
Now, one of my fascinations with this work is, having laid out a generic model, then
discovering how the artful films will apply these principles in different ways. Certainly,
Thelma & Louise has its own distinct variation on it.
Louise calls Hal from a general store. He tries to get her to come in for questioning, but
she refuses. He tells her then he has to charge her with murder. She won't come out of this
alive. Louise is being all tough and confident with him, citing the alternative
incarceration, cavity search, death by electrocution, until she turns around and sees Thelma
across the store. She suddenly remembers that shes not just negotiating for her own fate.
Shes also in charge of Thelmas fate. So she tells Hal she'll think about it.
Thelma, meanwhile, is feeling like this conversation is going on too long. How long does
it take to say, To hell with you, were going to Mexico!? So she comes over and abruptly
hangs up the phone. Notice how effectively this one little action serves to completely change
the direction of the scene. In fact, cutting the phone connection functions on both literal and
metaphorical levels. Thelma is stopping Louise from further discussions with the police, but
shes also cutting their connection to the world they left behind. This is another proactive
moment for Thelma in relation to men, akin to holding up the store and taking the cop
hostage. Dont blow it, Louise, she says.
Thelma strides out of the store purposefully as Louise follows. She turns and asks if
Louise is going to make a deal with the police. Louise tells her no. Thelma prods further,
bringing up Jimmy. Thelma understands if Louise is thinking about going back to him. But,
she says, I dont know, somethings, like, crossed over in me. I cant go back. I mean, I just
couldnt live. Louise assures Thelma that she knows what she means.
This one line of dialogue, in addition to being the culmination of the second act, is the
culmination of everything Thelma has been through up until this point. It is her Statement of
Transformation. Something has crossed over in her and she cant go back. She couldnt live
in that way of being anymore. Thus, it is the moment that makes us feel we have progressed
from A to B. We have ended up in a different place from where we started.
This is also where we see undeniably that, although on the surface Thelma & Louise may
appear to be a buddy film, for our purposes of structural analysis, it is Thelmas story. Not
only is she made sympathetic at the beginning, she is also the one who transforms in the end.
Altough it is Louises extreme act that launches the plot, when looking at character
progression, Louise doesnt go that far. When the story opens, Louise is savvy, tough, in
control and traumatized by her past rape. As it approaches its resolution, she is savvy, tough,
in control and still traumatized by her past rape. Not much distance has been travelled.
Thelma, on the other hand, goes a considerable distance. It is Thelmas decisions, actions
and, ultimately, her transformation that the storys structure is centered around.

17

Back on the road, Thelma asks Louise if she is awake. Louise says her eyes are open. I
feel awake, says Thelma. Wide awake. I dont remember ever feelin this awake. Know
what I mean? Despite the fact that theyve been on the road for hours and hours, that Louise
is driving in a near stupor, and that Thelma is so sleep deprived her eyes are narrow slits,
Thelma feels more awake than ever. The metaphorically sleeping housewife has woken up.
Now shes rubbing her eyes and looking around. Everything looks different, Thelma says.
You feel that, too? Like you got something to look forward to?
Louise responds with a fantasy about their future life in Mexico. Well be drinking
margaritas by the sea, mamacita. Thelma wants to change her name. Louise wants to live in
a hacienda. Thelma wants to get a job at Club Med.
This is a typical moment for a tragedy. The drama is building, on its way to the ultimate
demise of the main character. But just before it reaches its peak, suddenly a positive event
will occur, in part to give us some relief We have hope! The gods are with us! Were going
to prevail after all! But also to increase the tension, like pulling back the arrow in the string
of your bow just a bit more. When the hopeful moment has passed, your main character has
further to fall.
In this story, we dont really have the opportunity for an actual positive turn of events
within the action. It wouldnt work for them to stumble onto some money, and we sure dont
want them to encounter a helpful man. To keep the metaphor pure, they have to be fleeing in
isolation, with no help and few options. So instead, we take them off into a hopeful fantasy of
what life will be like in Mexico, drinking margaritas, living in a hacienda and working at
Club Med, which, of course, means having a lot of great sex.
But this is not the only moment designed to prepare us for the tragic end. There have been
numerous preparations, beginning with the scene when Louise pulls the car over in the
middle of the night to look at the stars. The image of a dark, empty expanse, with little bits of
far off light introduce a somber mood. A couple of scenes later, Louise introduces the
possibility of a tragic ending when she says, I think I got us into a situation where we could
both get killed. Then we hear Hal tell Louise he doesnt think she will come out of this
alive. Then Thelma declares, if she had to go back to her old life, she couldnt live. These are
little teeny, barely noticeable plants serving to embed somewhere in the viewers mind the
possibility that things might not turn out alright for these women.
But before they go down completely, they have a point to make.
Theyve already made the point that, while they have no legal recourse for the attempted
rape, neither is murder the ideal recourse. What, then, in an ideal world, do these women
really want to see happen? This is the discussion that needs to be brought to its conclusion.
And its done in yet another dialogue scene, this one mixed in with a little action and using
the truck driver as a foil.
They first encounter the truck driver not long after Thelma holds up the store. As they
prepare to pass his rig, they express the kind of respect that is generally afforded truckers in
their status as kings of the road. Gliding along the length of his truck, though, they see
Playboy bunny tire guards and are dismayed. Nonetheless, when coming up alongside his

18
cab, they are friendly towards him, saying hi and waving. But they are met with lewd
gestures and cat calls in return. So they speed on ahead while exclaiming their disgust.
A few scenes later, they pass the same truck driver and Louise tells Thelma to just ignore
him. This time they glide by his cab in silence, staring straight ahead, in accordance with
generally accepted female behavioral standards. But he is even more loud, crude and
grotesque than the first time. Thus, the method most recommended to women for responding
to male disrespect has had absolutely no effect.
Now we are at the third encounter, and this time they invite him to pull over. He gets out
of his truck and dances up to them, ready for a score. Thelma tells him they think he has bad
manners and he laughs. So Louise asks, Where do you get off behaving like that with
women you dont even know? Howd you feel if someone did that to your mother? Or your
sister? Or your wife? But these attempts at raising awareness have no observable impact.
Taking another tact, they mirror his actions back to him, demonstrating how women
perceive them. I mean, really, that business with your tongue. What is that? That is
disgusting, says Thelma. And, oh, my God, continues Louise, that other shit of pointing
to your lap. Whats that supposed to mean exactly? Does that mean pull over I want to show
you what a big fat slob I am? Indeed, this is what it means to women. Not that it seems to
matter to these men how unattractive they appear when they do it. Then Thelma closes the
argument. Or does that mean, Suck my dick!
Oops. Now hes in trouble. Hes just been placed at the scene with ole Harlan. Guilty by
association.
But these women are not out for blood. In fact, they are not even vengeful. They do not
want to abuse, hurt, maim, torture, disgorge, disfigure or kill this guy. They are far above all
that. They simply want one thing.
They just want an apology.
We think you should apologize, says Thelma. The trucker refuses. You say youre
sorry, or were gonna make you sorry, says Louise. And he doesnt budge. So out come the
guns. Staring down her barrel, Louise repeats, You say youre sorry or Im gonna make you
fuckin sorry. But the best he can do is petulantly admit to calling them beavers on his CB
radio. Louise is losing patience. You gonna apologize or what? Fuck you! he shoots
back. So she shoots the tires of his truck. Goddamn you bitch! he yells. I dont think hes
going to apologize, Louise says to Thelma. Nah, I dont think so, Thelma agrees. So they
both take aim at the tank of his truck and fire. It blows sky high. He cowers and curses as
they take off in triumph.
This is the climax of the movie for several reasons. One, the lesser reason, is that this is an
action film, with car chases and guns and all that, and we are conditioned in our action filmgoing experience to want to see something blow up. The tension has been building for almost
two hours and we need a release. So this scene is fulfilling that sensational need in us. Plus,
the two scenes immediately previous to this the somethings-crossed-over-in-me and Ifeel-awake scenes are very internal and sensitive so now we have a dynamic need for
something big and external to happen. While this is not what makes it the structural climax,
the dynamic peak and tension release certainly make it climactic.
For this scene to qualify as the structural climax, it has to provide the test for the

19
Statement of Transformation. Thelmas statement was, Somethings crossed over in me, I
cant go back, and Louise readily concurred. By blowing up the truck, they have actually
crossed over. If there was still any question of their going back to hew to societys
expectations, they have now closed that door.
Indeed, up until this point, they have been given the benefit of the doubt, at least by Hal.
He knows what happened to Louise in Texas and he knows Thelma would not have held up
the store if J.D. had not stolen their money. Thus far, he has been able to temper the wrath of
the law enforcement machine. But this latest event presents a whole other picture. With these
two victims now wantonly blowing up a truck, theres no telling what they are capable of.
They have fully crossed over into outlaw land.
But what about the plot structure model, in which the End of the Second Act is when
things are seemingly as bad as they can be and at the Climax they get worse? When Thelma
hangs up the phone, Hal has just told Louise he is charging her with murder, which I would
certainly count among the worst things that can befall a person in life. Then they blow up a
truck. Why not? Theyre already charged with murder. Whats to lose? But this act of
gratuitous violence serves to ratchet up the stakes even more. Next thing we hear is an All
Points Bulletin for Two women, armed and dangerous. Approach with caution. This is
what brings out the army of police cars and helicopters that chases them all the way to the
rim of the canyon. Things have, indeed, gone from bad to worse.
So, if this is Thelmas story, why is it Louise who leads the discussion with the truck
driver and takes the first shot at his truck? Because it was Louise who was the first to resist
disrespectful behavior by murdering Harlan. She started the discussion that asserts, You
should suffer consequences for behaving that way towards women. So now Louise finishes
the discussion, or rearticulates it in a more measured, reasoned manner, by engaging with the
truck driver and then, to drive her point home, blowing something up.
There are only two acts of violence in this film: the murder of Harlan and blowing up the
truck. Each one is an expression of Louises rage, and is perpetrated for the purpose of
making a statement. In the first, Thelma is a shocked bystander. In the second, Thelma is
right along side her, gleefully participating. Louises rage has enabled Thelma to access her
own rage. When Louise says at the beginning, You get what you settle for, the comment
appears to refer to what they both settle for in their husband/boyfriends. But, on the thematic
level, it is also speaking to womens acceptance of demeaning treatment from men in general.
These women arent settling anymore.
You can hear Callie Khouris voice in this scene, addressing the entire male gender:
Where do you guys get off treating women that way? Would you treat your mother or your
sister like that? This is Khouris ultimate fantasy of what shed like to see happen that
men who sexually insult women are directly confronted and forced to apologize. When
Louise shot Harlan, we heard Khouri saying, Sometimes I just want to shoot someone for all
the abuse I get, as evidenced by her quote about confronting the old man on the street. But
in the course of the film, Khouri has tempered her position. Now she is saying, No, I dont
really want to shoot them in the fucking face. I just want them to fucking apologize. Is that
asking so god-damned much?

20
Thus, with the gender politics discussion having been brought to a close, only the action
has yet to be resolved. In between the blowing-up-the-truck scene and the helicopter-APB
scene, we return to the scene of the police car with the cop locked in the trunk and see a
Rasta bicyclist ride up. This is a bit of comic relief designed to offset the tragic ending that is
about to come. And, in true comic form, it is full of surprises. What is a Rasta bicyclist doing
out in the middle of the desert? Why is he pausing to smoke his blunt right next to a state
patrol car? And, Oh, my God! Now hes blowing reefer at the cop through the air hole!
But this scene also exists to show compassion for the poor guy who got locked in there,
just as Thelma and Louise have done throughout the film. Louise is careful to keep Jimmy in
the dark about whats going on so as not to make him an accomplice. Thelma is careful, when
locking the cop in the trunk, to give him air holes. And, since being locked in a trunk in a
New Mexico desert is surely dangerous, here Khouri is being careful to let us know that
somebody has found the cop and hes going to be okay.
But what does the image of a Rastafarian bring to the mix? Like these women, hes
outside the law and in an oppressed social class, which provides the same kind of power
switch between him and the cop that the women had when they did the deed. We dont want
to have another woman come along to let the cop go, that would be too on the nose. So we
have the next best thing.
Interestingly, in Khouris original script this scene is different. It reads:
EXT. NEW MEXICO SIDE OF ROAD DAY
A battered pick up truck is parked by the New Mexico State Patrol car. An
old man uses a crow bar to pry open the trunk. The patrolman hops out of
the trunk.

Not only is this picture not funny, it is decidedly heavy and sad. A battered pickup truck
suggests poverty, an old man brings in age and decay, a crow bar prying open the trunk
shows great exertion. All of these are in contrast to the image of the Rasta.
Back to the film: Cruising down the road, Thelma sees a couple of cop cars and Louise
veers off the highway to avoid them. But they are pursued and the chase is on, across the
Arizona desert, with a squadron of cop cars appearing from nowhere. Just when it looks like
they are about to be over-powered, the T-bird convertible slips under a railroad trestle and the
cop cars come to a screeching halt, crashing on top of one another and losing their prey.
The women then find themselves alone in unearthly, moonscape-like, surroundings. They
glide along in an eery calm, as if already in heaven, a sort of precursor of spiritual
transcendence. Suddenly, a chasm appears in front of them and they slam on the brakes to
narrowly avoid going over the edge. As they recover from the shock, an FBI helicopter looms
up from inside the canyon. They back away from the edge and an army of cop cars appears at
a distance behind them with guns staring them down. A bullhorn shouts, Any move will be
considered an act of aggression.
Louise tells Thelma she's not giving up. She gets out her gun. Shes going to go down
fighting. But Thelma says, Lets keep going. Louise looks at her and asks if she's sure.

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Thelma says yes. They hug and Louise accelerates. They soar over the cliff.
Thus, the story reaches its resolution with the decision to keep going, over the edge of the
canyon, and, again, the structural point is fixed on Thelma. In the character transformation
story, we have reached the end with Thelmas decisive act to take control of her own fate.
She has now become a fully independent, self-directed woman, having finally woken up to
the social oppression she lives under and then chosen her ultimate escape from it.
Now, this ending warrants some scrutiny to address the controversy that surrounds it.
When the film came out, there was an outcry, especially among feminists, that said, Women
who go against the system have to kill themselves? Whats so empowering about that? To
gain a better understanding of why Khouri made this choice, its helpful to look at the
potential alternatives.
The first, obvious, alternative is that they actually make it to Mexico. Through some kind
of divine intervention, they get a lucky break and evade the police. The film ends with them
sipping margharitas by the sea. But that would give the audience a false sense that a situation
like this could actually come out alright, which goes against Khouris point. Things are not
alright. Women are continually disrespected, insulted and abused by men and no ones doing
anything about it.
Then theres the alternative in which, trapped at the edge of the Grand Canyon, they give
themselves up and are taken into custody, and we know they are sure to go to jail. In drama,
this is a time-honored tragic ending that confronts the viewer with a stark social reality, as
was done to great effect in The Bicycle Thief. But sending these women off to be judged and
punished by the system that brought them to this point is also what Khouri didnt want to
have happen. It is the men who insult and abuse that need to be held to account. Not the
women who are subjected to it. For Khouris purposes, this choice would have been too
dispiriting and disempowering.
Another possible ending is suggested when Louise says, Im not giving up, while
loading her gun. Weve seen that last stand ending in other films, Butch Cassidy and the
Sundance Kid being a famous example. So these two could have gone out shooting, too. And
we know for sure they would not have survived. But, for Butch and Sundance there is an
element of fate in their demise. Its a classic life-of-crime comeuppance ending. In Thelma &
Louise, we are not falling in league with a couple of crime professionals. Rather, we are
swept along with average citizens through previously unknown fields of power imbalance
and injustice. This would have made such a violent ending pull-out-the-stops tragic and
unbearably harsh to witness.
Ridley Scott shot an alternative ending, included as a special feature on the DVD, that
puts more emphasis on the cops reaction to the women going over the cliff. Their shocked
expressions make it clear that the women are dead, but the film then cuts to an open road
with the two women in the T-bird scurrying away. Clearly, an attempt to underscore their
metaphorical spiritual escape from oppression, but a bit too heavy handed in its delivery.
So having Thelma and Louise choose their own fate by going over the cliff appears to be
the best resolution given the films intended statement. But the viewer must be able to read it
as a metaphor.

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A few years ago, an interesting comparative study appeared in the release of the film
Monster, written and directed by Pattty Jenkins and starring Charlize Theron, based on the
true story of Aileen Wuoronos, the so-called first female serial killer. She was a prostitute in
Florida who killed several of her johns until she was eventually caught. There are distinct
thematic similarities between these two stories. In Monster, a woman, who was raped over
and over in childhood and became a prostitute at age 13, wasnt able to rise above her
circumstances as an adult and finally just lost control. Her first victim was actually raping
and brutalizing her. But her subsequent targets simply said or did the wrong thing, triggering
a post-traumatic stress reaction that caused her to kill them, too. She finally got caught and
eventually was put to death by society.
When the dramatized version of Wuoronos life came out, I called it Thelma & Louises
Evil Twin due to its much harsher depiction of how things are for women who are raped.
This film shows the dark, gritty reality that Khouri is, in contrast, only hinting at. As if
Thelma & Louise is the clarion call and Monster is the truth manifested among us. In the
courtroom scene that Monster ends with (taken directly from court documents), Wuoronos is
defiantly unapologetic for what she did and rageful at the system that condemns her. May
you rot in hell! she yells at the judge and the jury. Sending a raped woman to death! Youre
a bunch of scum, thats what you are! By contrast, Thelma & Louise, despite the
controversy, is dainty, polite and sweet.
While these films paint corresponding pictures of how society vilifies women who
respond to aggression with aggression, they each make their point through different forms of
drama. On the one hand, it is done through a faithful reportage of real life events, while, on
the other, it is done through an artful use of metaphor. The biggest difference between the
films is in Khouris choice not to have the victim/aggressors killed by the powers that be, as
Wuoronos was, but to have them instead claim a degree of power against the odds by
enacting their own fate. It is the metaphoric nature of Thelma & Louise that gives the author
the opportunity for this kind of dramatic license.
Khouri wasnt out to tell a story of victimhood. She wanted her women to be empowered,
but within an unchanging reality. In an interview in the published version of the screenplay,
Khouri says this: Women who are completely free from all the shackles that restrain them
have no place in this world. The world is not big enough to support them. They will be
brought down if they stay here. Note that Khouri is describing individual empowerment
(women who are free from shackles) in the midst of social oppression (a world not big
enough for them). These are the two images that Khouri wants to leave you with. She wants
you to feel the thrill of liberation, but she also wants to make sure you understand that such
liberation cannot survive in the world as it currently exists. (Note also that she says such
women have no place in this world. She doesnt say no place in the U.S., but they could
have a nice life in Mexico.)
While this film is often referred to as a revenge fantasy, this is not correct. A revenge
fantasy is just that a fantasy. But Khouri knows too well there is no happy ending to a story
of female retribution, no matter how justified, or trauma-based, or just plain human that
impulse is. So she has carefully avoided the margaritas-by-the-sea ending, although she
makes reference to it in dialogue a few scenes earlier. However, she still wants them to have

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at least some kind of triumph. After all they went through, she says, I didnt want
anybody to be able to touch them. So she had them soar off into heaven. They flew away,
out of this world and into the mass unconscious, Khouri says.
She also points out that people who complain about the ending being a suicide are reading
the film very literally. I would like to add that they are looking for a revenge fantasy that
ends with a literal, real world triumph. They want the smug, self-satisfied margaritas-by-thesea ending. Khouris choice is more sophisticated than that. She is effectively saying, The
way things are now, there is no chance at real world triumph for these women and I dont
want to sugarcoat that reality. But neither do I want them brought down by this unjust world.
I want them to achieve a higher triumph. So she gives them the only triumph available to
them, in the form of transcendence to a purely spiritual realm, what she calls flying into the
mass unconscious.
Indeed, the passing of time has shown her words were apt. It seems the film did fly into
our mass unconscious, because now, over 20 years later, Thelma & Louise is still being
watched and talked about and written about. The reality being depicted may not be palatable
to everyone. You can accept it or you can argue against it, which is one of the primary human
functions of drama. You can also be grateful, as I am, that someone, once upon a time, put
forth a strong statement that continues to resonate. Despite the fate of its main characters,
Thelma & Louise is the film that doesnt die.

c. Jennine Lanouette 2012