‘Thelma & Louise’: What’s It All About?

What’s causing much of the fevered critical response is not only that the title characters are women, but that they are also working-class women.

Rainer calls Jamie Lee Curtis’ role as a cop in “Blue Steel” “crypto-male.” Does he realize how offensive his stereotyping is to the many female cops out there in harm’s way? While one might suspect Rainer has a problem dealing with women who carry guns, it may well be that movie critics for major newspapers just lose touch with what’s happening in the regular working world.

“Thelma & Louise” draws responses to its lead characters’ criminal acts that are refracted through critics’ upscale eyes. Which is not to say that everything Thelma and Louise do is right. But what business is it of the critics to judge this movie on the basis of its uplifting moral value?

ERIC DODSON

Santa Barbara