Wednesday, April 16, 2008

New Working Thesis

 Vehicles, particularly cars and trucks, in Thelma and Louise are the catalyst, methods, and means by which Thelma and Louise dismiss traditional conventions of femininity and evolve throughout the film.

Input?

I was thinking that I would focus on three (-ish) main aspects of the film: cars and trucks as symbols for women and men, cars as the mode for change within the film (physical movement, journey, etc.), and the car as a lens to compare scenes from the beginning of the film to the end.   


Also, the poetry workshop was cancelled today. I was planning on going. Is there any other ways to get extra credit before the end of the year?

3 comments:

Ms Bates said...

This gets you back to the vehicle focus, but I don't know if it's saying anything new--from what you've already written.

So what might you say now that you've had a chance to re-watch vehicle-saturated scenes?

And that wraps up the extra credit for the semester. There have been almost 20 of extra credit chances. I sprinkle it throughout when the situation seems helpful to the class (library workshops, WC, etc) rather then find a way to plop them in at the end of the semester as a last-ditch effort.

Elizabeth Rose said...

I wasn't necessarily trying to plop it in at the end. Rather, I had been entirely planning on attending the poetry workshop and it was suddenly cancelled and I was looking for something else to replace it. I happened to have time this week to go, it wasn't a "last ditch effort."

I rewatched more of the film and formulated this thesis. I think it says something different about the film and also can incorporate some of the outline I completed yesterday:

The relationships between the various characters in the film Thelma and Louise, mainly the two females, J.D., Darryl, the “ass-hole” truck driver, and the investigator Hal Slocumb, and the various vehicles they either drive or are associated with reflect their relative positions within the film and, more universally, society as a whole. Simultaneously, most notably with Thelma and Louise, their relationship to the vehicles that surround them, reflect their evolution throughout the film.

Ms Bates said...

Elizabeth--perhaps I chose my words poorly. I'm not intending to cast aspersions on your interest in the poetry workshop.

But the year is drawing to a close and I haven't seen any W1-friendly workshops that I can piggy-back on this class as extra credit.