On Mon, 4 Sep 1995, DAVID MOON wrote:
 
>
>       Mistress fate was certainly on their side against
>      incredible odds right up to the end and happily made their final flight
>      into the next world (Butch Cassidy style) an honourable one.
>
 
It seems to me that David Moon makes an interesting observation in noting
the *Butch Cassidy* nature of the ending.  There is a
very telling contrast between these two endings.  The Butch Cassidy
ending is consistent with the western-macho genre.  The *heros* move out
TOWARD the source of violence and death (other males), their phallic
symbols ready to shoot.  Freeze frame and we hear the infinite shots of
orgasmic gunfire.
 
In T&L, the women make their final moves AWAY from the source of violence
(males) but toward death (while a male is chasing after them).  This is a
female ending, but it is hardly a liberating one.  Its iconography
belongs to a film tradition which goes back to the early silent era, when
the fair damsel, pursued by a rapacious male (often with a racist
subtext), rather than submit, jumps off the cliff or into the raging river.
Liberation through death is an old theme, but it is hardly liberation in
the sense I understand feminism.  Whether or not the fact that two women
go off a cliff together (in buddy movie fashion) makes a differnce as a
text, one which can be read as *liberation* and *freedom,* seems doubtful.
 
Ron Hoffman
 
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