THELMA, LOUISE AND HOLLYWOOD
Classic 1991 flick was ‘clearly an anomaly, not a launching point’
When Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon clasped hands, stepped on the gas and flew over the canyon ridge in that memorable ending to Thelma & Louise, many in Hollywood believed they were launching more than that turquoise Thunderbird.
It was 1991, and the expectation — or at least the hope — was that they were also launching a new era for women in movies, an era in which it would be easier to get films made with meaty female lead roles, and in which female filmmakers would find it easier to get work.
It didn’t happen, says Thelma herself. “It hasn’t changed at all,” says Davis, who in the intervening quarter-century has become an activist for diversity in Hollywood, focusing especially on gender bias. “We never seem to get any momentum going.”
In fact, she says, things actually haven’t got better since the 1940s.
“Our research shows the ratio of male to female characters in film has not changed since 1946,” Davis said in an interview, referring to studies by the non-profit research group she launched, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media.
So what about Wonder Woman, the mega-hit that has shattered glass ceilings, turned Gal Gadot into a superstar and earned the top global haul for a live-action film directed by a woman?
Davis remains skeptical. “Look, there was Hunger Games, there was Frozen, even Star Wars with a female lead ... and now Wonder Woman. You figure, ‘We’re done!’” she says. “But we have to wait for the data. It’s been a quarter-century since Thelma & Louise and nothing ’s changed. I know it WILL change, but to say this is the exact moment — well, you’ll have to prove it to me.”
Also in the skeptical camp: screenwriter Callie Khouri. Her tale of that fateful journey from Arkansas to the Grand Canyon by Thelma, a timid housewife with a chauvinist husband, and Louise, a hardbitten waitress with a painful secret, was Khouri’s debut screenplay. And she won the Oscar — the first solo screenwriting Oscar awarded to a woman for an original work in 60 years.
But a turning point for women? “Yeah, that didn’t happen,” says Khouri, with bitter humour. “I’m still waiting.”
The rise of Wonder Woman, she says, feels like a “tiny little crack” in the ceiling. But, she adds: “You know, it’s been a little daunting to see how slowly things actually do change. I can tell you that I, for one, am so sick of the conversation. Why haven’t things changed for women? I mean, don’t ask US!”
Twenty-six years after Thelma & Louise landed on the cover of Time because of the gender conversation it launched — was it feminist or fascist, inspiring or outrageous? — the film still resonates, and remarkably so, says author Becky Aikman, whose Off The Cliff, released this summer, takes a deep dive into the unlikely story of a film that defied the odds merely by getting made. But it was clearly an anomaly, not a launching point, the author says.
“I wanted to see how this one made it through the wormhole, in part because it hasn’t happened before or since,” Aikman says. “A lot of people thought at the time, ‘Wow, this movie is so successful, we’ve got to have more movies like this!’ And then no one did it, which is wildly frustrating, and just shows how entrenched the point of view of Hollywood is ... that even a very successful movie didn’t seem to get people in positions of power to say we should do more like it.”
The uphill struggle for women in Hollywood — onscreen and behind the camera — has been the subject of numerous studies, including several in recent weeks. Most research has been about films for adults, but the Geena Davis Institute has lately been looking at family-oriented films.
In a yet-unreleased report, the institute analyzed, using technology developed in partnership with the University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering, the 50 top-grossing 2016 family films. It found, among other things, that male characters outnumbered females by two to one, and male characters had twice the screen time and speaking time.
Davis says with a laugh that now, when she watches movies and TV with her three kids, “They’ll turn to me before I even say anything and say, ‘Yeah, I noticed that.’ ”
In a statistic that remains ever striking, only one woman has won the Oscar for directing in the awards’ 89-year history: Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker.
Khouri’s experience is instructive. Her Oscar aside, “It still took 10 years before anybody would let me direct anything — I was trying, every day of that 10 years,” she says. She eventually directed Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood in 2002, then was frustrated to find herself typecast as a director of female-oriented films. “I never really understood why I was only ever sent things about women bonding through their tears,” she says. “Nobody wants to be put in a box.”
But despite her struggles to build on the momentum of Thelma & Louise, Khouri can point to a clear silver lining — well, besides that statuette on the mantel.
“Honestly, here we are, 26 years later, talking about this movie,” she says. “So, I win.”
Our research shows the ratio of male to female characters in film has not changed since 1946.