Throwback Thursday — Love And Lust Edition: Sapphic Ride Or Die Love

Men! Who needs ‘em? Not these two…

Hey Fleshbot fans! I’m wrapping up my Love and Lust Throwback Thursday series with a film that’s all about ride or die lady lovin’, kinda literally. I am of course, speaking of Thelma And Louise, released in 1991, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis. This film carries my content warning for sexual violence and suicide as plot points.

The film opens with Louise Sawyer (Sarandon) bustling away at work at a diner. Meanwhile, Thelma Dickinson (Davis) gets ready for the day at home with her shitty husband Darryl, helping him get out the door for work. She has been trying to work up the nerve to ask Darryl’s permission to go on a weekend trip to a cabin with Louise, but has yet to do so. The two load up the green 1966 Ford Thunderbird convertible and begin their journey, stopping at a roadhouse bar along the way to eat and let off steam and this is where their troubles begin.

Thelma dances and drinks with a man all evening and then he sexually assaults her in the parking lot. Louise shoots him and, well, accidentally kills him. They run as fast as they can and decide that they’ll flee to Mexico. Everything’s going ok until Thelma takes a liking to a shady drifter called JD (Brad Pitt) and Louise gets her boyfriend Jimmy involved by asking him to wire money to her, but he surprises her by showing up in person. This is not a good surprise when one is on the lam. More and more shenanigans and crimes keep snowballing as these women are desperate to stay a few steps ahead of the law, which is most definitely not on their side. Their decision sealed with a kiss, they decide to have radical control of their own fates and drive over the edge of the Grand Canyon to escape at the end.

The film received much critical acclaim and a slew of award wins and nominations. At the time, Thelma and Louise was a major step forward for representation for women and stories about women in the movies. They weren’t fighting over a man or acting as background characters for a man’s story, they were forming an incredible bond with each other. Do I wish the movie hadn’t ended with them going over a cliff into the Grand Canyon in their convertible? Probably. But that also shined a light on the kind of desperation and lack of support for victims of sexual assault and domestic violence that were and are quite real. These characters had no other escape from the system that was stacked against them from the start. There’s even been a whole book published about this film.

Thelma And Louise can be found for free streaming (at press time) on Tubi, Pluto TV, and The Roku Channel.