Thelma & Louise: irrelevant or prescient?

there was a good conversation in response to judith warner's piece about Thelma & Louise and whether that movie fits with our time now. while the thread begins with the inevitable calling up of the Duke case (as if that one case negates the experiences of rape victims everywhere), the conversation thankfully moves on to thoughtfully explore the role of feminism now, the legacy of the conservative policies in the early 90s, the instability of Dept of Justice (D0J) stats on rape (right, that rape has decreased by 75%), and how our culture has moved the signposts when it comes to defining the empowerment of women.

would Thelma & Louise have been made today? i remember watching it in college and feeling thrilled, angered and frustrated by it. as a sheltered baptist girl, i recognized feeling trapped by others, by unformed ideas of what my role was supposed to be, trapped by a closed culture that laid out motherhood and marriage as the sole sign of fulfillment.

movies about women's experiences now don't evoke the same kind of thrill or anger or even recognition. there is a blank puzzlement when i see women reflected in our popular culture.

i wanted thelma and louise live, but i'd rather have them fly off that cliff than have them turned into the vacuous sexbot females our current culture seems to favor.

Thelma and Louise in the Rear-View Mirror - Judith Warner - Domestic Disturbances - Opinion - New York Times Blog