Thelma & Louise: Trouble in ParadiseThe film Thelma & Louise (1991) has often been criticized for presenting women with negative role models. This criticism takes the film too literally, failing to recognize how Thelma & Louise, as film fantasy, effects more complex psychological experiences of gender construction. This article explores the psychological fascination of the film as allegorical fantasy.Thelma & Louise (1991)-directed by Ridley Scott, from a screenplay by Callie Khouri (her first)-tracks the development of two rather sheltered, un-self-reflective familiar female types into more psychologically and emotionally ambiguous and complex characters. Thelma (Geena Davis) is a submissive and unhappy housewife; Louise (Susan Sarandon) is a coffee shop waitress. The narrative deals with the attempted rape of Thelma and with the two women's subsequent discovery of a way to come to terms with this violent and oppressive act. The story operates like a fable, like a fabulous fairy tale. The women's self-transformation and self-discovery occurs within a fantastic allegorical journey through the vast desert landscape of the Southwest. In many ways, Thelma & Louise resembles Alice in Wonderland, in which the journey down the rabbit hole is a parable of self-discovery and growth. The feelings that people experience on their journey toward adulthood often include a sense of strangeness, separation anxiety, and abandonment as well as curiosity and delight.

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