The Geena Davis movie that was supposed to change the world: “It profoundly didn’t”
Geena Davis has always been a trailblazer within Hollywood and a key player in the push to create more substantial roles for women, something that the actor was vocal about during a time that treated the issue as taboo. Through roles in classic films such as The Fly, Beetlejuice and Tootsie, Davis became associated with the indie boom of the late 1980s and ’90s, working with daring directors such as David Cronenberg, Ridley Scott and Tim Burton, becoming inseparable from the wave of weird auteurs who were taking back creative control and sharing new ideas that challenged audiences perception of mainstream cinema.
However, while the times have changed in comparison to the reductive rhetoric around roles for women in the past, Davis has spoken about the misleading perception of this change, describing the one film that people misleadingly thought changed the business for the better.
Ridley Scott has been praised for many projects, with people highlighting his immersive world-building and visual prowess that has led to films such as Alien, Blade Runner and Gladiator. However, perhaps the film that most resonated and struck a chord with women was the 1991 film Thelma and Louise, which follows two women who break away from their dreary lives and embark on a road trip. However, after being involved in an unforeseen crime, the pair continue their journey as fugitives, finding new strengths in their friendship and exploring the bond of womanhood.
The story was seen as the pillar of feminist filmmaking at the time, with Geena Davis and Sarah Sarandon becoming icons of the movement towards more fleshed-out female characters and stories about the inner world of women. But despite the widespread praise and perception that it had somehow ended misogyny in Hollywood, Davis has since spoken about the misleading power of the film and its impact on improving gender equality in the industry.
When discussing this, Davis said, “When Thelma & Louise came out, the media were sort of unanimous in saying that it was going to ‘change everything,’” in terms of the producibility of women’s stories. “It profoundly didn’t.”
Davis also starred in A League of Their Own, which was also accredited as being the great saviour of feminist cinema and paving the way for revolution in Hollywood. Despite their commercial success, it took many more years before the industry began to take women’s stories seriously and place them on a slightly more even keel with male-centric stories, with subsequent projects such as The First Wives Club also not making a significant enough dent in the historically huge gender gap in film.
Thelma and Louise was repeatedly described as the film that would ‘change everything’, with Davis later making a documentary in 2018 called This Changes Everything, which is a collection of interviews and testimonies from women in the industry as they discuss their journeys in having their voices heard and the struggles they have faced as women in Hollywood. While the film highlights the progress that has been made in recent years, it also shows how far the industry has to go before equality is achieved, with Davis’ early statement ringing true even today.
