At the begining of the movie Louise is working at the Diner, a job usually occupied by women. Employed and controlled by a man. She wears a standard american diner uniform which kind of resembles a maids uniform. She is not happy here, we know this as she plans to escape and abandon her job and go on a road trip with her firned Thelma (Geena Davis).
When we first see Thelma and Louise togther Louise comes across as the dominant one in their friendship and mothers her in a way, she is less naive more aware and the more mature character. Louise is in control of the journey, she drives the car and is the navigator of the journey. Louise drives a 66 Thunderbird, a very desirable car for men. Thelma begged Louise to stop at the bar like a child would beg there parents to stop somewhere, this shows that Louise is in complete control of where they stop and holds parental status. When in the bar Thelma is dancing about and very immature, Louise has to watch out for her like a babysitter. This ultimately leads to Thelma getting in trouble and Louise saving her. Defeating the man and taking on the hero/protagonist role.
Once on the run they take refuge in a motel where Louise gets in contact with Jimmy, this is the first point in the film where she asks/needs for help from a man. Before she has not relied on a man to help her. Now the audience knows that Louise has previously been involved with a man and has not been "going it solo" all the time. The fact that she has recently had a relationship gives her back some of her feminity and makes us portray her as more of a woman. This is short lived as once she recieves the money and spends some time with Jimmy she then ups and leaves with no intentions of seeing him again. This now cuts out emotional hold backs and she takes control.
They continue on there journey and pick up JD along the way. They stop later at another Motel where JD steals the money off of Thelma, this courses Louise to break down as the money was her way of escape, she belives it is now not possible to escape and starts crying. In which Thelma conforts her, this is a switch in the roles as Thelma remained strong whilst Louise could not cope. This is one of the only times we see Louise at her weakest.
Later Thelma then stops at a Store and robs it, Louise is now slightly over shadowed by Thelma as she has found her confidence. Louise was unsuspecting of Thelmas act and it comes as a shock to her. They escape and are on the run again.
A policeman then pulls them over for speeding, Thelma again takes charge with a spontainus impowerment and puts him in the boot. This scenes is still feminised by Louise and Thelma saying "Thank You", "Please" and plenty of apologies. Louise once again has to be the one whom is a partner wrapped up in this instead of the dominant one like in the beggining of their journey.
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