I know this is probably way to late, but I wanted to post my outline for my RAE on the blog. I thought you said that it was okay if we just handed it in with the final paper, but I guess I misunderstood.
Argument: By not being conventional, Thelma and Louise dismiss conventions and traditionally held beliefs about the place of women in society. Simultaneously, this dismissal of conventions makes the film more marketable and universal as audiences are not forced to identify with one gender or the other. The cross-gendered rendering of the film creates a tension between what defines female/male, feminine/masculine, ultimately, to be resolved by a consensus that there is not a clear line between these definitions, and thus, there should be no division between the sexes. Further, by not committing to traditional conventions, the film opens up a new range of… (“Historical evidence of view resonse to Thelma and Louise…” Cook 32)
Topic 1: Cultural Context of the film Thelma and Louise Key Evidence: What lead up to the film? Secondary Source: Cathy Griggers, pg. 131 “The meaing of the film therefore, has everything to do with the social history of its female audience. In a socio-historical context, Thelma and Louise takes on its particular meaning in relation to women’s changing social status and gender roles in the political economy of the United States after the Second World War. Thelma and Louise’s age is generally that of the white, post-war baby-boomer. Thelma is unhappily married, and Louise is single, reflecting the changing status of marriage for many women who grew up in the U.S. in the postwar period. Louise is a lower-income worker in the food service sector with some access to cultural capital; over the years she’s accumulated a few signs of lower middle-class status (she owns her own car, for example, is independent, and has a savings account of 6,700). Thelma is a lower middle-income housewife. Their class status and environment have nto provided them with a college education or a profession. And, like millions of women in the U.S. of the baby-boomer generation, neither of them has children- a situation that has helped make reproduction, birth control, and abortion rights a heated and controverisial contemporary issue. One need only note that by 1988, 16% of the U.S. female population between the ages of 30 and 34 were single (never married), and almost 11% were divorced. The number of single women who had never married in this age group as a percentage of the totally population rose from 6,2 in 1970 to 16.1 in 1988. And in 1988, the population of women in this age brack totaled nearly 11 million. Furthermore, in 1988 in the U.S., married couples with no children totally over 27 million, while female hourseholders with no children totally over 4 million” POINT: What is happening? Change, as men traditionally held these positios of power, (they were the breadwinners, they made the money, essentially having an elevated status and control over their female counterparts), The men were traditionally seen as above women for this ability, but women increasingly gained more and more power, status, and independence. The distinction between male and female lessens, and, as such, the seperation between the two is blended. In American culture and society, the gender lines began to fade and traditional conventions slowly dissipated. Conventions were thrown out in favor of a new society. Secondary Source: Cook, pg. 27 “Them Thelam and Louise was released in 1991, the battle lines in the “gender wars” seemed to be rigidly drawn, with progressive “feminists” and conservative “masculinists” (part of their hegemony involves the difficulty in naming them) strugging over power via discourse and representation, As in the case study of response to the AAUW reports, critis and pundits seemed arrayed in opposition to competing perspective. Common ground seemed elusive as proponents sought victory, refusing to apolizgize “for shit” Point: Thelma and Louise fits in as a response to this cultural “gender war.” The cinematic aspects of the film inherently embody the changing status of females. By dismissing traditional conventions, Thelma and Louise reflects upon this change and offers a solution in which there is only one gender, the gender of humankind.
Key Evidence: How the film fits into the world of feminist thought
Key Evidence: Historical Evidence for the feminist movement Topic 2: Elements of the film that make conventions, “unconverntional” Key Evidence: The actual situation of the film Secondary Source: Willis, pg. 124 “The film’s most compelling fantasies keep emerging through this kind of cross-gender identification. These are the ones that are thrown off, that escape a narrative logic of cause and effect. Thelma and Louise is about a long erratic drive, alternately wandering and speeding toward an impossible destination along the arc of a detour. And the detour becomes the whoel trip, a trip projected across the space between two images- the snapshot Louise takes at the beginning of the trip and the final still that permanently suspends the women in their Thunderbird. The snapshot memorializes a “before” image, women dressed up and made up for an outing. This is the image the film’s hourney undoes, as the women stric down to tee-shirts, cast off all the accoutrements of glamour, of conventional feminine masquerade. Ending with a still image that answers to the first one as its “after,” and the film puts an ironic spin on the genre of “before” and “after” pictures that advertise diets and beauty makeovers to the female consumer. Finally, this is a filma bout the motion between two still moments, the route from image to image. And here, the whole film seems to come down to Thlema’s lusty appreciation of JD’s buttocks as he walks away fromt heir var. “That’s him goin’,” she tells Louise, “I luuuuve watchin’ him go.” This is a film that wants us to be able to say the same: we love watching it fo, not watching it get somewhere.” “Such are th reasings the pronouce the film dangerous and wrong-headers because it invites women to take on wholesale the tired old clichés of Hollywood masculinity and male bonding that prevail in the history Westerns, road movies, and action films. For women to embrace and celebrate feminine versious of these clichés, the very clichés that men increasingly reject, such readings argue, advances nothing and merely inverts the current gender imbalance in representation. But this argument skips over the process by which the film parades the takeover of these clichés, a process tat foregoround the posturing involved. And this posturing has at least two effects. It remobilizes for women viewers the pleasures of fantasmatic identifications with embodied agents of travel, speed, force, and aggression, pleasures that we have historically enjoyed in a cross-gender framework, but this time offering room for a different mix of desire with that identification. At the same time, the spectable of women acting like men works to disrupt the apparanet naturalness of certain postures when perform by a make body.” Main Point: Women should not be the main characters in a road film. “Buddies” typically refers to men, why are these women here? Thelma and Louise blends this line. If men can be the stars in a buddy film, why can’t women? Key Evidence: The truck scene See Rhetorical Analysis Secondary Source: Willis, pg. 125, “As the screenwriter Callie Khouri remarks: “I just got fed up with the passive role of women. They were never driving the story, because they were never driving the car.” What happens when wome drive cars, instead of adorning mens cars, instead of sitting, fixed and still, draped across them?...” Grease, a cultural icon, wrought with cars, but do we ever see a female driving one? NO Main Point: I went to driver’s school with the impression, “all women are bad drivers,” My best guy friend in high schools favorite joke, Key Evidence: Drag show, making females masculine Let go of female conventions (Lipstick), Willis, pg. 127, “One of the more compelling pleasures of this film, for me, is the radical change in the woen’s body language…” Lipstick, Griggers, pg 139 Cook, pg 28, “In later scenes, long after shooting Harlan, Louise begins to relax her self-construction of gender. This process involves a stripping away and a letting loose. Each gesture again emphasizes the artificial and constructed nature of gender. For example, as Louise waits in the Thunderbird for Thelma (Louise is unaware that Thelma is robbing a convenience store), she looks through the glass window of a beauty salon at an older women. By linking Louise’s eyeline to the older womna’s, the shot seems to suggest that Louise is looking into a mirror, at her future self. In response, Louise reaches for her lipstick, a conventional gesture involving the cosmetic application of femininity, peering into the rearview mirror to aid her rebuilding in response to the treat of age to the feminine beauty of youth (especially poignant for a character in her early forties, a decade older than Thelma). Significantly, Louise acknowledges the motivation behind this impulse, stopping instead to toss the lipstick from the car” Pg. 28 “At the same time as the women cast off symbols of conventional femininity, they take up symbols stereotypically associated with lower-class, white masculinity. Thelma exchanges her housedress for a sleeveless black t-shirt emblazoned with a skull and a Confederate flag cap, proclaiming its wearer’s intention: “Driving my life away.” She later adds the mess-backed ball cap worn by the truck driver. By rhyming and equating these outfits, the film emphasizes that they are equally constumes. Thelma does not simply shed her previous, artificial self to assume some newer, authentic self. Rather, she (and Louise) gives up a compulsory, unreflective performance of gender for a more playful, self-conscious performance of genders. By the scene in which Thelma proclaims that “soething has crossed over” in her, she and Louise have taken greater control of their performance of gender, forging a new, hybrid construction and drawing upon conventions of both masculinity and femininity” They change from being the “used” to being the “users”- JD scene (Cook pg. 30) Secondary Source: Cook, page 31 “The film suggests first that J.D. performs “male masculinity” in telling his story to Thelma- he puts on an exaggerated versions of masculinity, rather than revaealing hes “true self”- and second that Thelma performs “female masculinity” in robbing the store by acting “like a man.”
Control the road, rather than the road controlling them (See RA) Key Evidence: Humor in a clearly not funny scenario Men: some criticize the men for being a false portrayal of males, characterize bad male stereotypes of emphasize the feminism within the film - actually, males are a method to induce humor in the film - As expressed above, the change within the film of these two women would be evident without using these male characters - Taken as a whole, the males are not portrayed as outlandish or entirely bad, nor entirely good; rather they are neutral o Police balance husband, boyfriend balances condescending truck driver Main Point: By using humorous aspects to the film, and rendering the harsh rape scene a smaller point, the film further dismisses conventions, where traditionally, the females would be in positions of weakness and, in that case, rape would be the most significant event in the film. By making the journey the significant piece of the film, the journey serves as a background for the humor that evolves. By contrasting humor and drama, the film induces many feelings among its viewers, increasing its critical acclaim and impact.
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Lifeline Outline
Argument: By not being conventional, Thelma and Louise dismiss conventions and traditionally held beliefs about the place of women in society. Simultaneously, this dismissal of conventions makes the film more marketable and universal as audiences are not forced to identify with one gender or the other. The cross-gendered rendering of the film creates a tension between what defines female/male, feminine/masculine, ultimately, to be resolved by a consensus that there is not a clear line between these definitions, and thus, there should be no division between the sexes. Further, by not committing to traditional conventions, the film opens up a new range of… (“Historical evidence of view resonse to Thelma and Louise…” Cook 32)
Topic 1: Cultural Context of the film Thelma and Louise
Key Evidence: What lead up to the film?
Secondary Source: Cathy Griggers, pg. 131 “The meaing of the film therefore, has everything to do with the social history of its female audience. In a socio-historical context, Thelma and Louise takes on its particular meaning in relation to women’s changing social status and gender roles in the political economy of the United States after the Second World War. Thelma and Louise’s age is generally that of the white, post-war baby-boomer. Thelma is unhappily married, and Louise is single, reflecting the changing status of marriage for many women who grew up in the U.S. in the postwar period. Louise is a lower-income worker in the food service sector with some access to cultural capital; over the years she’s accumulated a few signs of lower middle-class status (she owns her own car, for example, is independent, and has a savings account of 6,700). Thelma is a lower middle-income housewife. Their class status and environment have nto provided them with a college education or a profession. And, like millions of women in the U.S. of the baby-boomer generation, neither of them has children- a situation that has helped make reproduction, birth control, and abortion rights a heated and controverisial contemporary issue. One need only note that by 1988, 16% of the U.S. female population between the ages of 30 and 34 were single (never married), and almost 11% were divorced. The number of single women who had never married in this age group as a percentage of the totally population rose from 6,2 in 1970 to 16.1 in 1988. And in 1988, the population of women in this age brack totaled nearly 11 million. Furthermore, in 1988 in the U.S., married couples with no children totally over 27 million, while female hourseholders with no children totally over 4 million” POINT: What is happening? Change, as men traditionally held these positios of power, (they were the breadwinners, they made the money, essentially having an elevated status and control over their female counterparts), The men were traditionally seen as above women for this ability, but women increasingly gained more and more power, status, and independence. The distinction between male and female lessens, and, as such, the seperation between the two is blended. In American culture and society, the gender lines began to fade and traditional conventions slowly dissipated. Conventions were thrown out in favor of a new society.
Secondary Source: Cook, pg. 27 “Them Thelam and Louise was released in 1991, the battle lines in the “gender wars” seemed to be rigidly drawn, with progressive “feminists” and conservative “masculinists” (part of their hegemony involves the difficulty in naming them) strugging over power via discourse and representation, As in the case study of response to the AAUW reports, critis and pundits seemed arrayed in opposition to competing perspective. Common ground seemed elusive as proponents sought victory, refusing to apolizgize “for shit”
Point: Thelma and Louise fits in as a response to this cultural “gender war.” The cinematic aspects of the film inherently embody the changing status of females. By dismissing traditional conventions, Thelma and Louise reflects upon this change and offers a solution in which there is only one gender, the gender of humankind.
Key Evidence: How the film fits into the world of feminist thought
Key Evidence: Historical Evidence for the feminist movement
Topic 2: Elements of the film that make conventions, “unconverntional”
Key Evidence: The actual situation of the film
Secondary Source: Willis, pg. 124 “The film’s most compelling fantasies keep emerging through this kind of cross-gender identification. These are the ones that are thrown off, that escape a narrative logic of cause and effect. Thelma and Louise is about a long erratic drive, alternately wandering and speeding toward an impossible destination along the arc of a detour. And the detour becomes the whoel trip, a trip projected across the space between two images- the snapshot Louise takes at the beginning of the trip and the final still that permanently suspends the women in their Thunderbird. The snapshot memorializes a “before” image, women dressed up and made up for an outing. This is the image the film’s hourney undoes, as the women stric down to tee-shirts, cast off all the accoutrements of glamour, of conventional feminine masquerade. Ending with a still image that answers to the first one as its “after,” and the film puts an ironic spin on the genre of “before” and “after” pictures that advertise diets and beauty makeovers to the female consumer. Finally, this is a filma bout the motion between two still moments, the route from image to image. And here, the whole film seems to come down to Thlema’s lusty appreciation of JD’s buttocks as he walks away fromt heir var. “That’s him goin’,” she tells Louise, “I luuuuve watchin’ him go.” This is a film that wants us to be able to say the same: we love watching it fo, not watching it get somewhere.”
“Such are th reasings the pronouce the film dangerous and wrong-headers because it invites women to take on wholesale the tired old clichés of Hollywood masculinity and male bonding that prevail in the history Westerns, road movies, and action films. For women to embrace and celebrate feminine versious of these clichés, the very clichés that men increasingly reject, such readings argue, advances nothing and merely inverts the current gender imbalance in representation. But this argument skips over the process by which the film parades the takeover of these clichés, a process tat foregoround the posturing involved. And this posturing has at least two effects. It remobilizes for women viewers the pleasures of fantasmatic identifications with embodied agents of travel, speed, force, and aggression, pleasures that we have historically enjoyed in a cross-gender framework, but this time offering room for a different mix of desire with that identification. At the same time, the spectable of women acting like men works to disrupt the apparanet naturalness of certain postures when perform by a make body.”
Main Point: Women should not be the main characters in a road film. “Buddies” typically refers to men, why are these women here? Thelma and Louise blends this line. If men can be the stars in a buddy film, why can’t women?
Key Evidence: The truck scene
See Rhetorical Analysis
Secondary Source:
Willis, pg. 125, “As the screenwriter Callie Khouri remarks: “I just got fed up with the passive role of women. They were never driving the story, because they were never driving the car.” What happens when wome drive cars, instead of adorning mens cars, instead of sitting, fixed and still, draped across them?...”
Grease, a cultural icon, wrought with cars, but do we ever see a female driving one? NO
Main Point: I went to driver’s school with the impression, “all women are bad drivers,” My best guy friend in high schools favorite joke,
Key Evidence: Drag show, making females masculine
Let go of female conventions (Lipstick),
Willis, pg. 127, “One of the more compelling pleasures of this film, for me, is the radical change in the woen’s body language…”
Lipstick, Griggers, pg 139
Cook, pg 28, “In later scenes, long after shooting Harlan, Louise begins to relax her self-construction of gender. This process involves a stripping away and a letting loose. Each gesture again emphasizes the artificial and constructed nature of gender. For example, as Louise waits in the Thunderbird for Thelma (Louise is unaware that Thelma is robbing a convenience store), she looks through the glass window of a beauty salon at an older women. By linking Louise’s eyeline to the older womna’s, the shot seems to suggest that Louise is looking into a mirror, at her future self. In response, Louise reaches for her lipstick, a conventional gesture involving the cosmetic application of femininity, peering into the rearview mirror to aid her rebuilding in response to the treat of age to the feminine beauty of youth (especially poignant for a character in her early forties, a decade older than Thelma). Significantly, Louise acknowledges the motivation behind this impulse, stopping instead to toss the lipstick from the car”
Pg. 28 “At the same time as the women cast off symbols of conventional femininity, they take up symbols stereotypically associated with lower-class, white masculinity. Thelma exchanges her housedress for a sleeveless black t-shirt emblazoned with a skull and a Confederate flag cap, proclaiming its wearer’s intention: “Driving my life away.” She later adds the mess-backed ball cap worn by the truck driver. By rhyming and equating these outfits, the film emphasizes that they are equally constumes. Thelma does not simply shed her previous, artificial self to assume some newer, authentic self. Rather, she (and Louise) gives up a compulsory, unreflective performance of gender for a more playful, self-conscious performance of genders. By the scene in which Thelma proclaims that “soething has crossed over” in her, she and Louise have taken greater control of their performance of gender, forging a new, hybrid construction and drawing upon conventions of both masculinity and femininity”
They change from being the “used” to being the “users”- JD scene (Cook pg. 30)
Secondary Source: Cook, page 31 “The film suggests first that J.D. performs “male masculinity” in telling his story to Thelma- he puts on an exaggerated versions of masculinity, rather than revaealing hes “true self”- and second that Thelma performs “female masculinity” in robbing the store by acting “like a man.”
Control the road, rather than the road controlling them (See RA)
Key Evidence: Humor in a clearly not funny scenario
Men: some criticize the men for being a false portrayal of males, characterize bad male stereotypes of emphasize the feminism within the film
- actually, males are a method to induce humor in the film
- As expressed above, the change within the film of these two women would be evident without using these male characters
- Taken as a whole, the males are not portrayed as outlandish or entirely bad, nor entirely good; rather they are neutral
o Police balance husband, boyfriend balances condescending truck driver
Main Point: By using humorous aspects to the film, and rendering the harsh rape scene a smaller point, the film further dismisses conventions, where traditionally, the females would be in positions of weakness and, in that case, rape would be the most significant event in the film. By making the journey the significant piece of the film, the journey serves as a background for the humor that evolves. By contrasting humor and drama, the film induces many feelings among its viewers, increasing its critical acclaim and impact.
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