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Davis said the film shifted the way she watched shows with her children, who she had in her 40s
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- Geena Davis says Thelma & Louise changed how she viewed female representation in media and inspired her activism
- Davis noticed a lack of female characters in children’s shows while watching with her daughter, sparking her concern about gender bias
- She founded the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media in 2004 to promote gender equality in entertainment
Geena Davis is opening up about how Thelma & Louise shifted her view of how women are portrayed in film.
Davis, 70, spoke about the 1991 movie on a recent episode of Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, noting that it shifted the way she watched shows with her children, whom she had in her 40s. (Davis has three kids with ex-husband Reza Jarrahy: daughter Alizeh, born in 2002, and twin sons, Kaiis and Kian, welcomed in 2004).
Speaking about her daughter, Davis recalled, “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 said she then rented a video for her daughter and noticed something similar: little to no female representation.
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“We’re 12 years past Thelma & Louise, I assume this has been straightened ... I’m like, ‘Wait, so we’re training kids from minute one to have unconscious gender bias,’ ” Davis added.
Davis noted that starring in Thelma & Louise made her view entertainment and female portrayal differently, saying, “And I think it’s because of Thelma & 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.”
Thelma & Louise told the story of the titular Thelma (Davis) and Louise (Susan Sarandon), who go on the run after Louise shoots Harlan Puckett (Timothy Carhart), kicking off their run of crimes. Thelma & Louise also featured a supporting cast of Harvey Keitel, the late Michael Madsen and Christopher McDonald. Brad Pitt starred as J.D., a hustler, in his breakout role.
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Davis was inspired by this and the impressions she thought it was leaving on her children to start a media institute for gender equality, launching the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media in 2004.
Speaking to PEOPLE in 2020, she said, “I was bothered by the idea that we were showing kids a very imbalanced world from the beginning ... I saw that there were so far fewer female characters than male characters. I didn’t intend to make it my life’s mission, but it has become that now 15 years later.”
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