The film Thelma and Louise, written by Callie Khouri, is a story about two ordinary women living under male domination in small-town Arkansas. Louise (Susan Sarandon), an unhappy waitress, and her best friend Thelma (Geena Davis), an unloved housewife, decide to go away for the weekend to get away from the monotony of their everyday lives. Louise's plan is to drive until they reach their destination, which is a cabin in the mountains. But, during a stop at a bar along the way, Louise fails to consider that Thelma has no experience with heavy drinking and sweaty aggressive cowboys. As events unfold, Thelma is nearly raped and Louise, in rescuing her, shoots and kills the drunken male aggressor. Instinctively, the two women run while trying to comprehend what had just happened to them. Before and after the shooting, the two main characters are surrounded by male figures that are sexist, domineering, and crude. Thus, the rhetorical criticism of Thelma and Louise's domination by a patriarchal society will be critiqued through the model of feminist criticism. This criticism will require in-depth analysis, which will examine gender roles as well as how patriarchy is constructed and maintained during the film.
             How Thelma and Louise are treated because of their womanhood is important to the progression of the storyline. Thelma and Louise's role in society is established as insignificant because of their gender. This is shown through their various encounters with men, such as when they speak with the men in their lives, when they are insulted in a bar, or even when they are sexually harassed as they are driving down the street. During the film's opening scenes, Thelma is shown to be a submissive "Barbie-doll" type housewife, accustomed to everyone else thinking for her. Her friend, Louise is revealed as a thirty something waitress whose musician boyfriend is afraid of commitment. Thus, throughout ...