Thelma & Louise: Rape culture, mudflaps and vaginal horizons

Dayna McLeod

doi:10.5209/tekn.90286

Thelma & Louise: Rape culture, mudflaps and vaginal horizons

Dayna McLeod Middlebury University https://orcid.org/0009-0006-1585-2443

Keywords: erasing male characters, fighting back, patriarchal violence, rage

Agencies: Made possible with funding from the Fonds de recherche du Québec–Société et culture (FRQSC) Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Data availability: https://vimeo.com/841304471

Abstract

This video essay isolates the rage of the protagonists of Ridley Scott’s 1991 film Thelma and Louise, against personal and systemic patriarchal violence. Using animation, multiscreen, and supercut editing, this video essay supposes what happens when supporting male characters are removed, erased, or diminished to focus our attention on Thelma and Louise’s response(s) to their violent acts. It also imagines mudflap girls –now women– talking and fighting back against their oppressor. Finally, this video essay transforms Thelma and Louise’s suicidal leap into a deep dive of the vagina, often essentialized, in heteropatriarchal discourses, as synonymous with the female body.

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Author Biography

Dayna McLeod, Middlebury University

Dayna McLeod is a queer media artist-scholar and current Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) postdoctoral fellow at Middlebury College. Her research-creation video and performance work often use humour and capitalizes on exploiting the body’s social and material conditions. Her work appears in The Journal of Autoethnography, Exertions, Theatre Research in Canada, Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, Journal of Aging Studies, Canadian Theatre Review, and Ciel Variable. Her video and performance work have been presented at the Impakt Festival in Utrecht Netherlands, the Modern Art Museum in Warsaw Poland, Le Centre d’art contemporain in Paris, Agora Hydro Québec, PHI Centre, OFFTA, and Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois in Montreal, the Summerworks Theatre Festival in Toronto, Sporobole in Sherbrooke, and Performatorium, Queer City Cinema’s performance festival in Regina. Recently, Dayna has been working with Artificial Intelligence tools to explore human to non-human collaboration, embodiment, and performativity. www.daynarama.com

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Published

2024-01-31

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How to Cite

McLeod D. (2024). Thelma & Louise: Rape culture, mudflaps and vaginal horizons. Teknokultura. Journal of Digital Culture and Social Movements, 21(1), 99-101. https://doi.org/10.5209/tekn.90286

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Issue

Vol. 21 No. 1 (2024): Right to rage: Subjectivity and activism

Section

Video Essays

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