Thelma x Louise

Thelma x Louise is the femslash ship between Thelma and Louise from the Thelma & Louise fandom.

Canon
Thelma and Louise are best friends. They decide to go on a road trip together to take a break from their monotonous lives. Before meeting to start the road trip, Louise calls Thelma from her work, as Thelma is visibly overwhelmed by all she has to do around the house for her disrespectful and controlling husband. Louise tells her she'll be waiting for her and goes to her car to pick Thelma up. Louise is seen as caring and supportive to Thelma, from the start to finish. She constantly makes sure she's safe and reminds her to be careful.

Before heading for the road, the two of them take a picture in a "selfie" kind-of-way. In the car, Thelma tells Louise that she didn't let her husband know about this trip because there was no way he'd let her go. And shows Louise that she brought a gun with her, in case they need it to protect their safety, something Louise seems very much against, but accepts anyways.

On the way, they stop at a roadhouse bar, and Thelma has fun on the dance floor. Until a man takes her to the parking lot and tries to sexually assult her. As Thelma screams for the man to let her go, Louise comes behind him with the gun Thelma brought in the car, and demands for the man to let Thelma go. As Thelma quickly gets behind Louise, Louise tells the man "in the future, when a woman is crying like that, she ain't having any fun!" They were willing to let the man go, despite the fact he tried to assault Thelma, but when the man reiterates that he should've gone ahead and just did it, Thelma turns around enraged and shoots the man. Shocked, Thelma gets in the car and pleads for Louise to join her and to run away with her.

They decide to not go to the police as Thelma can even be blamed for what happened to her. So they decide to escape to Mexico, although Louise asks to not go through Texas, as something traumatizing happened to her there that she doesn't share then. The following morning, they discover that J.D., a man they've met the day before, has stolen Louise's life savings and fled. Louise is distraught, so Thelma takes charge and later robs a nearby convenience store using tactics she learned from J.D.

Throughout their journey, Thelma and Louise share intimate, meaningful conversations together in the car. At one point, they stop at a cliff to admire the beauty of the landscape, when a helicopter gets in front of their car. When they try to escape, they realize they're surrounded by police cars, so they find themselves at a crossroad. Then, Thelma turns to Louise and tells her to not let them be caught. Louise is a bit confused by this at first, but Thelma signals to the cliff with her head, asking Louise to move on. Louise understands what Thelma is trying to tell her, so she asks Thelma if she's sure of this. When she gets a confirmation, Louise smiles at her and gives Thelma a passionate kiss. Then, as the two of them tightly hold hands, they jump off the cliff in their car.

Fanon
Over the years, the movie became a legendary film. Most fans see it through a subvertive feminist lense. While some fans have started analysing the movie through a queer lense. Because the two of them break their relationship with their respective partners, leave their married/partnered livestyles, live the adventures they have, decide to end their journey together, exchange a kiss and finally jump into the void holding hands, leaving all the men behind, fans started seeing the romantic potential their relationship has and thus started shipping the two of them together.

An article all about the queer reading of the movie even compares the two to Romeo and Juliet: "Their deaths echo that of Romeo and Juliet. They fall in love and realize that when they have nowhere else to turn for a life where they can live out happily with each other, they take their own lives. This parallel further solidifies the likelihood of a lesbian romance between the women."

Fandom
FAN FICTION