The lure of the road is an integral part of American myth, mobility, and freedom. From Kerouac’s On The Road to a variety of “road” films portraying men and women, the road represents the possibility of new beginnings and freedom from the shackles of the past. Historically, road movies like those featuring Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, Easy Rider, and Cannonball associate the values of the road with the male gender. Most heroes in road movies are men, with women taken along for the ride if they are fortunate. As Mark Williams (8) writes in Road Movies, “The women are essentially along for the ride, and are not part of what is constantly being redefined as an exclusive male enclave.”
While the above may have been true in road movies of the past, ones where women often represented the same type of female stock characters found in westerns (the whore with a heart of gold, the prim proper innocent who discovers fun and loses her virginity, etc.), today’s road movies have expanded the role of women. In modern road films women are the heroines. If we look at three contemporary road movies, we see that the words of Williams no longer apply to today’s cinema. In Thelma & Louise, Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, and Boys on the Side, we see that even though the road typically leads to a dead end the women in these road films are heroines.
One of the conventions of the road film is that the road often represents the chance for escape and freedom. In all three of these films we see that the women are driven to take to the road as a means of escaping the unfulfilling existences they lead. In Thelma & Louise, Thelma and Louise hit the road to escape the mundane nature of their lives and the oppression of the men around them. As Thelma says in the film “I don’t ever remember feeling this awake” and “I’ve had it up to my ass with sedate.” The pair hit the road but will eventually take a wrong turn. In Even Cowgir...