Essay Comparing The Driver In Thelma And Louise And Badlands

Have you ever thought of how much you’re influenced by the driver every time you sit on the passenger seat of a car? How your mood changes over the music and your actions and whereabouts all depend on where and what the driver is doing? Though Thelma & Louise and Badlands appear to be different runaway stories they have significant similarities. Thelma from Thelma & Louise, and Holly from Badlands are both in the passenger seat in the runaway car and throughout the films we see how the driver continually influences and molds the passengers compelling them into showing their true colors while breaking from the male oppressions they’ve dealt with in their lives. These are women on their way to a destination they didn’t know they would end up

A boy Thelma trusted stole all of Louise’s savings and Thelma saw how Louise blamed her for it and was devastated because of the occurrence. This is important because when Thelma decides to rob a store, she made a decision. She knew this meant she couldn’t go back to her old life, but that’s what she wanted. She tells Louise to drive off to Mexico. Ultimately Thelma’s modifications are shown when they got stopped by a police officer, the moment Louise got put in the passenger seat of the cop car we see Thelma put a gun near the officer’s head and told him to let Louise go. Both of them put the officer in his trunk and locked him there. He tried to tell them that he had kids and a wife, but Thelma cut him off by telling him to be sweet to them “My husband wasn't sweet to me and look how I turned out.” This far out on their drive Thelma realized how suppressed she had felt all her life with the constrictions her husband put upon her. The federal agents that were trying to find the women talked to them and let them know about how they knew that they were heading to Mexico and the only way they would’ve known that was because the boy Thelma trusted told them. Thelma’s transfiguration becomes more extreme after that occurrence because Louise then yelled at her “We're fugitives now. Let's behave that way!” With every series of events, everything Louise acted upon, Thelma step by step wanted to

After Holly’s father telling Kit he didn’t want him around anymore, without even asking Holly, Kit started packing her things to drive her away from the life she had. Holly was forced to be a fugitive after Kit killed her father. Holly only slapped Kit, she really didn’t say much about her father’s death and maybe it was because that meant she regained control of some part of her life. Kit was always the one in control of the wheel and murderers. Holly never decided on where they were going she was just a passenger fleeing. At one point they find this couple, but because they’d seen one of Kit’s murder scene Kit took the decision of trapping them. Holly stayed with them because Kit asked her to. The girl asks Holly what’s going to happen to them and this is when Holly makes it clear “You have to ask Kit. He says frog, I jump. […] I’ve got to stick by Kit… He feels trapped” The girl replies with “I can imagine” and Holly says “Well, I’ve felt that way, hadn’t you?” This is the prime clue we get of Holly’s transformation. When she begins to accept what her life actually is, but then questions a life without being trapped like the girl she met. After a while we hear he narrating “Kit was the most trigger happy person I'd ever met. He claimed that as long as you're playing for keeps and the law is coming at you, it's considered okay to shoot all witnesses.” He killed