Analysis of the Cop Scene in “Thelma and Louise”

“Thelma and Louise,” directed by Ridley Scott and released in 1991, was a breakthrough film in that it was a buddy film, but the buddies were two women. The movie appropriated many of the traditional male/macho genres and stood them on their heads. It was seen by many as a feminist statement in that the title characters engage in several increasingly transgressive acts of rebellion against male domination, ending with their suicide rather than submitting to (male) captivity. One scene that illustrates the gender role reversal theme, as well as the evolution of Thelma and Louise, is the “cop scene.”

In this scene, the women are pulled over by a Texas highway patrolman. They debate frantically what to do but then conclude that possibly, the cop does not know that they are wanted for multiple crimes and maybe he is just flagging them down for speeding. They stop and the policeman approaches their car. They greet him with sweet smiles and ask him if they were going too fast. He responds that yes, they were: “about 110.” He then examines the car’s registration and commands Louise to come back and sit in the patrol car with him, leaving Thelma in the women’s car. The cop starts to radio in a description of the car (evidently still treating this as a speeding incident), but Thelma, the clearly liberated soul, interrupts him with a gun to his head. The two women apologetically force the cop from his car, destroy the radio, and lock him in his cruiser’s trunk (after first shooting some air holes in it). As they drive away, Louise is still in a bit of shock, but Thelma is reveling in her having taken charge of the situation that saved them.

The entirety of this scene appropriates several elements of classic Hollywood genres. First of all, the women are in the middle of nowhere, but it is a scenic middle of nowhere; the landscape, with its buttes and pinnacles, is reminiscent of the Monument Valley landscapes used in old John Ford westerns. The bleakness and isolation of the landscape emphasize the similarity to classic Western heroes (or antiheroes) inasmuch as they are on their own. They are and have been in trouble and only their wits and resourcefulness can get them out of it. The first time we see the patrol car is in Louise’s rearview mirror, which produces a perfect “oh, no!” moment to which we can all relate. The women’s response is to prepare to turn on the charm; they greet the cop with thousand-watt smiles and a very deferential manner. This is the classic way for women to respond to male authority: with deference, appeasement, and sexual appeal (Thelma and Louise are both gorgeous). Then Thelma apparently discards this strategy in favor of acting forcefully. The instant transformation of the cop from a swaggering, confident macho man (which we saw clearly as he approached the women’s car) to a blubbering wimp is highly amusing; one moment he is ordering the women around, the next, he is crying and pleading for his life. Who gives the orders is determined here, not by gender roles, but by who has the gun. And both Thelma and Louise are quite comfortable, they find, with guns.

The markers of male domination are seen in certain visual clues. One such is the sunglasses worn by the cop and Louise. He puts on his mirror shades—apparently not necessary for driving—and then swaggers manfully and confidently up to the women’s car. The cop’s concealment of his eyes establishes a power hierarchy: I am in charge; I want to see you; you do not have to see me. This is underscored by the fact that the first thing he has Louise do when she gets in his patrol car is to take off her sunglasses. She does so, and then her submissive behavior in the face of male authority abruptly ends.

Thelma and Louise, in this scene and essentially the entire movie, are two halves of a whole. They trade roles as “thinker” and “doer,” and support each other both practically and emotionally. This is visually suggested when they combine forces to try to charm the cop; they look quite similar in their dress, posture, and manner. They are also both almost comically apologetic when they force the cop out of the car at gunpoint and lock him in his trunk. Thelma, the “doer” in this scene, thinks quickly and determines that the cop cannot be allowed to radio in the information, so she does what needs to be done. She coolly directs Louise to shoot the police radio (Louise, misunderstanding, shoots the AM/FM radio first) and then fires two precisely aimed shots into the trunk (“air holes”). Louise’s role in this scene is to play the placating, cooperative woman so that Thelma is free to act. Though Louise is initially compliant to the cop, she goes along with Thelma’s actions—a trope that is present in just about every buddy movie, wherein one character has a wild idea or an innovative solution to a problem and the other buys wholeheartedly into it, albeit with some misgivings. Louise makes her thoughtful contribution when she confiscates the cop’s belt with its extra ammunition. Amusingly, Thelma feels no qualms about what she has done; in fact, she feels liberated, having discovered that “I’ve got a knack for this,” amazing even herself that she coolly handled the situation.

The moments after the cop pulls the women over mirror real life. All we hear after the vehicle’s stop is the pulsing of the police cruiser’s light bar and the droning of insects. The women sit in a state of near-panic, wondering what to do. Despite the fact that they must be aware that they have been speeding, they still decide to try the charm tactic. It becomes evident that Thelma is already deciding what they will have to do. This moment, when Thelma decides to put aside the female way of handling a crisis and act assertively, is emblematic of women’s rebellion against male domination. The immediate crumbling of the cop’s male macho façade is priceless—the clear implication is that male power is all bluff and bluster, while female power is real and just needs to be invoked. This, in fact, is the theme of the whole movie, seen in many other scenes—that male power is more taken for granted than genuine and that women can and should challenge it.

Of course, there is probably no place in the U.S. where macho manhood is more cherished than in the cowboy-and-pickup-truck bastion of West Texas. The wide-open spaces of such a place are almost essential in the buddy movie. During the several minutes of this scene, no one comes along. The women are alone, having only their own resources. The cinematography here suggests the starkness of their situation, with its long shots of their car in an overpowering landscape, zooming in directly to a headshot of Louise.

All the men in the movie, with the notable exception of Slocum, underestimate Thelma and Louise. (In fact, they initially underestimate themselves.) The cop leaves Thelma alone in the car, evidently not considering her a threat. He puts Louise in the front seat, not the more secure back. He then discovers how wrong he is about the women, a discovery made by other men in the movie, such as the trucker whose truck the women destroy as a penalty for sexual harassment, or the attempted rapist who Louise shoots dead. It is perhaps forgivable that given the isolation of the location, they might just be condemning the cop to die of thirst inside the locked trunk; the clear implication is not just that they do not care (their extreme politeness to the cop being more pro forma than anything else, and played for laughs), but also that they should not care: the cop at this moment is a stand-in for the entire male population, which has done nothing but torment the two women for their entire lives.

During most of this scene, there is no background music at all. At the very end of the scene, though, as the women, liberated once more, drive away, we hear upbeat banjo music. This is a musical motif suggesting the women’s freedom (something they have never known until now). As the entire movie is about liberation, so do we hear this music every time the women wriggle out of a situation. Clearly, the depiction of the women as carefree road buddies whose criminal acts liberate them is tongue-in-cheek, but it also has a serious undercurrent and makes a statement. One is reminded of Howard Beale in “Network”: “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!!!”

The scene’s ending features an interesting twist. Thelma is now the driver of the car, and she gets in the driver’s seat not by opening the door but by vaulting into the car. This is an echo of the way just about every buddy-cop in films gets into his car and underscores just how much of a take-charge gal Thelma has become. Her poised and confident air as they zoom off toward the Texas horizon has been taken away from the cop, now cowering and helpless, whimpering, locked in his trunk.

The pace of this scene is relatively leisurely, as Thelma has to be given time to deliberate and then act. The women’s fairly measured actions, taking time to get the details right (Louise makes sure to remove the six-pack of beer from the trunk to make sure the cop has enough room, for example), and making sure they are secure, is a reflection of the contrast between the way men and women supposedly handle things. Again, though, neither Louise nor Thelma would be able to function effectively without the other. This is another essential premise of the buddy movie, that the buddy team forms a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

This is one of the movie’s funniest scenes, and what makes it so is that the women’s actions are so transgressive. It is a safe bet that many people, pulled over by a cop, have fantasized about doing something similar. Likewise, many women must dream of an act of total rebellion against the males who dominate their lives. This movie and this scene are cathartic in addition to being entertaining. The particular style elements chosen for this scene, such as camera angles and sound editing, enhance those effects.

Work Cited

Scott, Ridley, director. Thelma and Louise. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1991.