Thelma and Louise are two women who escape from their humdrum lives for a weekend away but get on the wrong side of the law when Louise kills Thelma's would be rapist. After this they are on the run from their partners and the police just as male characters in films like Easy Rider commit a crime and then take off for adventures on the road. Just as the males in Easy Rider pick up girls in the New Orleans brothel, Thelma and Loiuse pick up a hitchhiker, JD, and Thelma has a one night stand with him. Events snowball and the two respectable working class women end up robbing a store and locking a police officer in the boot of his car. This is a symbol of their new found dominance in a male run society. When a truck driver makes obscene gestures at them and uses sexist language about them they blow up his truck. In fact all through the film passing trucks are used as symbols of society's power, perhaps a male power, which they are rebelling against.