Women and the road movie genre

This thesis is interested in the potential of 'Road Movies', in regard of women. It is the mission to describe the thematical dimensions of a relationship between the politics of gender, nature and sexuality, and to articulate the complicated display of ideas that come from these relationships. In this thesis, a selection of films are investigated that actively deconstruct specific constructions of nature, oppression, gender and sexuality (whether straight or lgbtqi). These deconstructions can show expressive modes, such as distrust, rebellion, escape, retaliation, solace, and by referencing certain literary forms, such as patriarchal self/other dualism (men oppressing women), selfdiscovery in the wilderness and feminist and queer theory concepts of inclusion and naturalizing as a solution. To assist this thesis?s research, I have chosen to investigate three films which enable the possibility to move contextually from an emblematic film from the nineties to contemporary films in the 2000's. I read these films alongside of a selection of academic literary texts that inform each filmic text and analysis. The first film is Ridley Scott's Thelma & Louise (1991). This is where Greg Garrard's, Steve Cohan's and Patrick Brereton's Ecocriticism theories come in. The second is George Miller's post-apocalyptic film, Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), which I analyze alongside of Greta Gaard's and Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands Ecofeminist theories. And finally for my third chapter I turn to Abe Sylvia's work Dirty Girl (2010). This final filmic text prompts questions of both gender (men and women) and sexuality (straight and lgbtqi). This is where Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands and Greta Gaard's Queer ecology and Ecofeminism can shed light on the subject. The following specific notions from the academic areas mentioned above will be discussed; 'self/other dualism', 'first and second spaces', 'third space', 'otherness', so-called 'unnatural' or 'degenerate' sexuality, ecoqueer sensibility, global democratic community, biotic community, a sense of place/planet and of course 'Road Movie' genre theory.