Thelma and Louise changed Geena Davis' view of women in entertainment
Geena Davis said Thelma and Louise changed how she viewed female representation in entertainment and inspired her advocacy for more women on screen.
Thelma and Louise heightened Geena Davis' view of how women were portrayed in entertainment.
The 1991 crime-adventure film showed the 70-year-old actress just how rare it was for women to play empowered characters who drive a story, making the lack of female representation in film and TV more evident to Davis.
On the latest episode of the Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard podcast, she told how Thelma and Louise changed the way she watched programmes with her and 55-year-old ex-husband Reza Jarrahy's three children, daughter Alizeh, 24, and 22-year-old twin sons Kaiis and Kian.
She said of Alizeh: "The very first thing I showed her, I had her on my lap, and I’m thinking, 'Oh, this is great. It’s a preschool show.' ... immediately, I noticed that there seemed to be far more male characters.
"I even looked it up, and they had one female character in this large cast, and I was like, 'Well, that’s weird.'"
Davis rented a video for her daughter, and she once again noticed the lack of female representation.
The Oscar winner continued: "We’re 12 years past Thelma and Louise, I assume this has been straightened ... I’m like, 'Wait, so we’re training kids from minute one to have unconscious gender bias.'"
Thelma and Louise followed the titular characters as they were on the run after waitress Louise (Susan Sarandon) killed Harlan Puckett (Timothy Carhart) after he attempted to rape Thelma (Davis).
And the movie inspired her to launch the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media in 2004, a nonprofit organisation that "champions equitable representation in media".
Davis explained: "And I think it’s because of Thelma and Louise and it really heightened my awareness of how women are portrayed. Because, you know, women had so few opportunities to come out of a movie feeling empowered by the female characters."
The Beetlejuice star also credited her children, whom she had in her 40s, for giving her a "different perspective” on life.
In June, Davis told The Sunday Times Style magazine: "I'm really glad I had children later in life, because by the time I had them I'd changed a lot. I had a different perspective on things.
"I was a bad*** on screen way before in real life, but I'd been transformed by playing these really powerful women.
"These brave, strong people rubbed off on me.”
She added: "I can't wait to see what the next decade will bring."
