"Thelma & Louise" and Marxism

In the film "Thelma & Louise," Thelma remarks that "law is some tricky shit, isn't it?" Thelma's remark comes at the end of a discussion between her and Louise about the advisability of telling the police that Louise has just killed a man who was raping Thelma. Louise decides against going to the police, believing they could not get a fair hearing. Thus, the women set out on a journey that will make them outlaws and eventually cost them their lives. Gender issues, therefore, are significant throughout the movies. In fact, through the use of these issues, the film critiques the law as a means by which men, as a class, maintain power over women.

In essence, Marxism argues that the world is divided into two classes: the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The proletariat is the working class, those who labor in the factories but who are alienated from the products of their labor. The bourgeoisie, on the other hand, own the means of production and have the financial and social power to control society's rules. The bourgeoisie use this power to ensure their continued control and continued economic profits (Harman 7-9). One way the bourgeoisie maintains this control is by creating and maintaining social rules that exclude or disempower those who are not of its class.

Marx also focused on class divisions in his argument about women's oppression. Essentially, he contended that women's oppression arises from the development of a working class of women who h

Related Essays

Thelma and Louise Thelma and Louise is a film that makes use of certain accepted movie images and generic conventions to recast a male genre in female garb. .... Thelma and Louise. .... (2054 8 )

Butch Cassidy and Thelma and Louise: Compare and Contrast .... Thelma and Louise, starring Geena Davis as Thelma and Susan Sarandon as Louise, was released in 1991. .... For Thelma and Louise, life simply has not worked out. .... (2735 11 )

Thelma and Louise & Deviant Behavior The recent film Thelma and Louise presents two women who turn to criminal activity as part of their way of dealing with the world of males, and their way of .... (1704 7 )

Interaction of Race & Gender in Political Identities .... In the film Thelma and Louise, Thelma and Louise are all too familiar with male oppression and being told what to do and when to do it. .... (1169 5 )

Hollywood's Portrayal of Women .... informative contrast can be made between a film from the 1960s, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and two movies of the 1990s, Thelma and Louise and Silence .... (2908 12 )

Category: Film - "