The Return of the Outlaw Couple

Abstract

The outlaw couple is on the comeback trail. Reaching the screen almost simultaneously, Badlands, Thieves Like Us, and The Sugarland Express have striking similarities. What kind of trend do they represent and why has it arisen at this particular time? Strongly influenced by Bonnie and Clyde, all three films focus on a pair of appealing young lovers who boldly break the law. Ultimately the young man is executed by lawmen, while the woman survives to take care of baby or record their adventures. All three films are set in rural America sometime in the past: Sugarland takes place in Texas in 1969 and is based on actual events; loosely adapting well known news stories, Badlands follows a westward journey from North Dakota to Montana in 1959; the plot of Thieves (a remake of They Live by Night) is set in Mississippi in the thirties. Outbursts of violence are juxtaposed with humor or nostalgia, creating a very distinctive tone. Despite all the vigorous action (robberies, prison breaks, killings, and chases), the special quality of each film is determined primarily by the rich visual surface. The world in which these characters move is defined by strange white houses and stylized furnishings, car lots and motor courts, desolate roads and idyllic landscapes. These films seem to be reacting against trends that currently dominate Hollywood. As if to counter the forces of Gay Lib and the Women's Movement, commercial American films have recently been focusing on love stories between a couple of male friends (Papillon, Bang the Drum Slowly, Scarecrow, Mean Streets, The Sting, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Easy Rider, Midnight Cowboy, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and most blatantly Thunderbolt and Lightfoot). Of course, the heroes aren't really fags, and to prove this the film will usually include a scene ridiculing homosexuals, yet at the same time indirectly suggesting the latent sexual dimension of the friendship. Women may be included, but they are always restricted to minor roles. In the fifties the male couple was mythologized in the highway romance of Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady, a prime source for sixties road movies like Easy Rider and TwoLane Blacktop. Although they are straight, most of these male heroes are lawbreakers or