Gender Bender Over Thelma & Louise

A white-hot debate rages over whether Thelma & Louise celebrates liberated females, male bashers -- or outlaws

It is "the first movie I've ever seen which told the downright truth," says Mary Lucey, a lesbian activist in Los Angeles.

It is a "paean to transformative violence . . . An explicit fascist theme," writes social commentator John Leo, who went out prospecting for a column in U.S. News and World Report and discovered a mother lode of fool's gold.

It is, according to Cathy Bell, a Houston environmental communications specialist who was once married to "a redneck control freak" and found the courage to dump him after a liberating weekend trip with a girlfriend, "like seeing my life...

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