Professional Documents
Culture Documents
AMST 198
March 12, 2010
Homeward Bound: Space, Time, Gender, and the Home
While seemingly a simple concept, home has come to represent various ideas and
sentiments. It can be a place where one has been in childhood, a place one aspires to arrive at in
the future, or even a group of accepting and welcoming people. It can be an ideal state of mind or
a traditional, physical space with four walls. In its various definitions, home has become a
politically useful tool. In Pat Buchanan’s famous conservative call to arms in 1992, home
becomes the place and time of the Reagan era. These years, Buchanan contends, represented
America at its peak and a time to which we must return. In this argument, the traditional values
adopted by and enforced under the Reagan administration are those to which the American
public must return in order to reach home again. This idea of home, one full of traditional values
and standard gendered familial roles, is contrasted by the ideas of home and domesticity
presented in Thelma & Louise. The film’s use of spaces in unconventional ways serves to
contradict the view of the home as a communal and ideal place. The Buchanan view of home, as
a space and time of traditional values and roles, does not surface in this film. The home and
domestic sphere are depicted in ways that are problematic to traditional female domesticity and
refuse to show the comforts of home that Buchanan utilizes to effectively create a longing for
Buchanan uses the word home throughout this speech, each time appealing to the
collective traditional values of the conservative audience. “We took the long way home, but we
finally got here,” he tells us.1 The use of the collective “we” when speaking about home
1
Patrick Buchanan, “Patrick Buchanan’s Speech to 1992 GOP Convention,” Houston, Texas, 17
August 1992.
<http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Patrick_Buchanan's_Speech_to_1992_GOP_Convention>
effectively establishes the idea that everyone lived better in the past when we were home and that
we can get back to this ideal again by returning home. His idea of home in the first half of the
speech refers to the ideal of the Reagan era, calling the 1980s “great years” and Reagan “the
great statesmen of modern time” (Buchanan). After placing Reagan squarely in the minds of his
audience as one of the greatest presidents since Lincoln, Buchanan draws parallels between
Reagan and President Bush. By associating Bush with Reagan, he aligns not only their
philosophies, but also their accomplishments; Bush then becomes linked with the Reagan idea of
home. As Buchanan says, “this campaign is about philosophy” and since Bush is aligned with
Reagan’s conservative philosophy and character, he “wins” (Buchanan). This association is then
used as a call to action: “it is time all of us came home and stood beside [Bush]” (Buchanan). In
creating an understanding of home as a place and time in which conservative politics dominated
and America was “great,” Buchanan attempts to stir voter’s desires to return to this place once
again.
His use of sentimentality assumes that the people he addresses were happier in the 1980s.
Even if this is not the case, Buchanan makes it easy to see the 1980s in rose-colored glasses. He
prefaces his discussion of the past with one of contemporary “radical” events. He first speaks
about the “giant masquerade ball at Madison Square Garden” where “radicals and liberals came
dressed up” to “the greatest single exhibition of cross-dressing in American political history”
(Buchanan). This convention of “the prophets of doom” is presented in order to call to mind not
only how horrible the opposition is, but also to establish the current state of the country.
Buchanan contends that America has lost its way and has ended up in a cross-dressing
convention in New York City, led by the Democratic Party. This presentation is then contrasted
with the accomplishments of Ronald Reagan—winning the Cold War and a program of
peacetime economic recovery— and the period of perfection that was the 1980s. This
juxtaposition of the current “masquerade” with “the longest peacetime recovery in history”
idealizes the past and cultivates the desire to return to it. With this technique, Buchanan can
Buchanan contends that home is the time and place during the Reagan era to which we
must return, but he also defines home as a set of ideas and an ideology that needs protecting. He
states, “the party is our home; this party is where we belong. And don’t let anyone tell you any
different” (Buchanan). His definition of home then becomes a place where we are accepted and
where our ideas are shared certain people and threatened by others. The protection of the home
becomes the responsibility of the collective “we” to whom Buchanan addresses this speech.
Buchanan employs a common technique in speech writing, repetition, to stress the unity required
to protect the party and therefore, the home. Buchanan asserts that, “we stand with President
Bush” on a number of issues, from the right-to-life, to “the amoral idea that gay and lesbian
couples should” be equal to heterosexual couples under the law, to the prohibition of allowing
“American women in combat” (Buchanan). The conservative values for which Bush and “we”
stand are those that maintain the Reagan ideal of home, and oppose those that threaten the
traditional norms that people have been convinced need protecting from the liberal “prophets of
doom.” The repetition also plays up the importance of the issues Buchanan mentions, as if to say
if one does not stand with Bush, the home will be destroyed: there will be no more school choice,
“the raw sewage of pornography” will fill our streets, and the Constitution will be rewritten.
These stances, which “we” take with President Bush, clearly reflect the conservative
agenda and are made to seem like they must be taken, for fear of losing not only our homes, but
also our way of life. According to Buchanan, the “soul of America” is at stake in this conflict,
and if one does not chose properly, not only will their identity and beliefs be disregarded, but the
path of the nation will also be irrevocably changed. “Clinton & Clinton are on the other side, and
George Bush is on our side. And so, we have to come home, and stand beside him” (Buchanan).
Home here can be interpreted as maintaining the status quo. Buchanan essentially says that if one
votes for a different candidate (Clinton, in this case), he or she threatens to disrupt the path of
American life. In that same vein, if a person operates outside the normative roles with which
American life. In standing beside Bush, “we” protect the American way of life and thus, our
homes and the identities in which we have been placed within that space.
Thelma & Louise, the controversial 1991 film about two women on the road running
from the law, establishes the concept of home in the opening scenes through a depiction of home
life for Thelma. We first see Thelma yelling as she picks up the phone, rushing around the
kitchen and clearing off the table where her husband did not eat the breakfast she made.
Thelma’s hectic home parallels Louise’s hectic restaurant environment; Louise yells as she picks
up an order and serves several customers before calling her friend. Thelma is as much a waitress
in her home as Louise is in the restaurant. Thelma, in this space, acts as a stereotypical
housewife: submissive, neurotic, and timid. Her presence is an annoyance to her husband. She is
would have us believe. This first depiction of domestic life refuses to portray any comforts of
home, and in doing so, subverts the idea that the traditional home should be the ultimate political
destination for Americans. The home in this context is a place of inequalities, unhappiness, and
neuroses, which does not match up with Buchanan’s notion of home as a place of near perfection
and happiness that we must strive to reach and always protect from outsiders.
In a scene that portrays Louise at home, we see it as a lonesome space. Louise keeps a
clean house and packs in an organized manner, contrasting to the packing style of Thelma, which
entails dumping entire drawers into her suitcase. Louise tries to talk to her boyfriend on the
phone but receives no answer. She washes a single glass and sets it to dry on her white
countertop, the only act of domesticity we see Louise do. This quiet and clean space serves as a
stark contrast to the busy environment of the restaurant. Louise does not have to serve anyone in
her own home, but nor does she have anyone with whom to converse. Louise’s version of home
is one marked by isolation, rather than the communal idea of the home promulgated by
Buchanan. This depiction of traditional home again shows that it does not correspond to
This solitude associated with Louise’s home continues with the next scene that occurs
there. In his investigation, Hal, the detective, enters Louise’s home, observing how neat and tidy
it is. A lone glass sits on her otherwise bare counter, giving the viewer a sense of the emptiness
of Louise’s home. Hal then picks up a photograph of Louise as a child dressed up for her
birthday. A gentle melody and the echoes of a little girl’s voice play as Hal holds the photograph
and wishes her a happy birthday. Next to this photo sits one of Jimmy, Louise’s boyfriend, as
well as one of the young Thelma and Louise in school. These photographs each represent a part
of Louise’s past, but instead of understanding these as places in time that can be recaptured, the
audience comes to see that these are places to which Louise cannot revisit. It is important to note
that at this point in the film, Louise has already killed Harlan and the women have made the
choice to flee to Mexico. They have literally abandoned the idea of returning to their previous
traditional homes and accept that their homes are places to which they can never return.
This notion of home presented in the film differs from Buchanan’s past oriented notion of
home. While the past and the home are connected in the film through Louise’s photographs, the
connection is not a rigid or enduring one. Buchanan’s idea of the home, as a place to which
Americans must return, is rejected by the realization that Thelma and Louise have passed the
point of no return. “So,” Thelma asks Louise, “how long before we’re in god damn Mexico?”2
Thelma’s acceptance that she will not go home again marks a shift in the film’s conception of
home so far. For Thelma and Louise, home was a space that was confining and labored, or one
rooted in solitude. These women readily abandon those conceptions of home and progress
The film uses tight, close up shots of Thelma and Louise in their homes, which greatly
contrast with the expanse of the open road as the women drive through vast emptiness. As Marita
Sturken contends in her Thelma & Louise reader, the film establishes the traditional home as a
confining space, as well as one rooted in shadow and darkness. “Whereas the women are
constantly driving into the sun, the men either slog through rain or sit in darkened rooms”.3 The
darkness that fills the home and the sunshine of the open road contrasts with Buchanan’s idea
that the home is a place of happiness and that the outside world is a threat to its security. In the
film, the open road possesses more comforts than the home, which challenges Buchanan’s notion
The home can also be defined in relation to who inhabits it. According to Sturken, after
these first scenes displaying Thelma and Louise in their homes, the men operate in the domestic
space typically inhabited by women. “While Thelma and Louise are in motion and on the run,
the primary men in the film are stationary and house bound. In the dark, unappealing interior of
the home, they must deal with each other until the women give them something to go on” (42).
2
Thelma & Louise, dir. Ridley Scott, writ. Callie Khouri, perf. Geena Davis and Susan
Sarandon, 1991.
3
Marita Sturken, Thelma & Louise (London: British Film Institute, 2000) 41-5.
This conception of home as a male dominated space contradicts the conventional roles associated
with Buchanan’s view of the home. Here, the placing of men in non-traditional spaces
contradicts conservative notions of traditional gender roles that are associated with the ideal past
to which Buchanan wishes Americans will return. Thus, the film’s idea of the home, as a space
that confines and binds first the female and then the male characters, looks to move away from
For Buchanan, when the question of the security of the home arises, it is always in need
of protection from threatening outsiders. In his view, stability can always be found in the home,
which explains why Buchanan calls his followers to stand beside Bush and return home: to
regain a feeling of safety. However, in the film, Thelma and Louise find more stability with each
other when on the open road than in their traditional home settings. “The open road of the two
women is contrasted throughout the film with the small-town and domestic interiors they left
behind” (41). The “domestic interiors” they leave are the spaces in which uncertainty manifests
itself. For example, Thelma can never tell when Darryl will receive her with annoyance or
decency. She also does not know his schedule, as pointed out in the first scene when Darryl tells
her, “I may not even make it home [for dinner], you know how Fridays are.” Additionally,
Louise cannot count on Jimmy as a support system since she does not know if he will pick up her
While nothing is perfectly stable in this film, the women develop a space of acceptance,
love, trust, and relative stability on the open road in Louise’s 1966 Thunderbird convertible. For
these women, the old definition of home does not apply; their home has become wherever they
are together. As made very clear by the middle of the film, they cannot return home without
tremendous consequences, and as such, they must rely on each other for survival. In doing so,
they become each other’s stable environment. After JD, the young cowboy, steals Louise’s life
savings, she breaks down sobbing in the hotel room. Thelma takes care of her, just as Louise
cared for Thelma after the trauma of being sexually assaulted earlier in the film. Immediately
after each of these scenes, the women get back into the car and go, thinking of their next move
along the way. The car may not be their permanent home, but it is their interim one and partner
in crime. Literally, it is a vehicle of change as it brings them away from their confining,
alienating, and traditional homes to a fresh, sunny, and promising one south of the border. The
car’s role in propelling the women forward not only opposes Buchanan’s notion that the ideal
home exists in the past, but also the idea that a home must be a morally perfect space, or even
that the ideal home can be attained. The political value of the rigid traditional home lessens as
Thelma & Louise ultimately refutes and redefines the traditional notion of home that Pat
Buchanan attempts to use as political motivation for conservative voters. Through its use of
space and gender, the film changes the traditional domestic sphere to one dominated by males
and effectively challenges conservative gender roles in the home. The medium of film allows for
these scenes depicting the home to be dark or rainy, as Marita Sturken points out, which
contrasts the perfect vision of the Reagan era about which Buchanan speaks. The spatial confines
of the home, as well as its lack of stability and certainty, portray it as a space that not only must
be abandoned, but one to which we cannot return. The adopting of the Thunderbird as a new
notion of home that can carry Thelma and Louise to their ideal future home adequately refutes
the conservative notion that the home must be a space for morality. Buchanan attempts to
marshal the uses of home to instill a desire to protect the home from outsiders as well as to
regain the security of the way things were in the so-called golden years of the 1980s. In
attempting to push American voters into this past conception of the home, Pat Buchanan greatly
overlooks the progressive nature of the American people. Like Thelma & Louise, the American
voter can only be backed into a confining kitchen for so long before she breaks free and onto the