Fried Green Tomatoes (1991)

and the Friend Who Came to Get Her

Two stories, fifty years apart: a woman who leaves a violent husband because her friend comes to get her, and a housewife who learns, listening, that she is allowed to get angry. What it teaches about leaving with help, the deal a friend refused, anger as the first sign of a self, and women who take each other home.

Fried Green Tomatoes (1991). Directed by Jon Avnet, from Fannie Flagg’s 1987 novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. Kathy Bates as Evelyn Couch, Jessica Tandy as Ninny Threadgoode, Mary Stuart Masterson as Idgie Threadgoode, Mary-Louise Parker as Ruth Jamison, with Cicely Tyson as Sipsey and Stan Shaw as Big George.

“If you ever touch her again, I’ll kill you!”

Idgie, carrying Ruth’s things out of her husband’s house.

A note before you read. This page discusses a film in which a woman is beaten by her husband and leaves him with help. Nothing is described in detail. If you are living with someone who hurts you, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788. They help with safety planning, and they won’t tell you what to do. Every other number is on the Resources page.

This page belongs to Plot Twist. It is the last of the refusals the backlog set out to write, and it answers the oldest lesson in this series. Sleeping with the Enemy taught that a woman escapes a violent man by disappearing, and that her reward is the next man. In Fried Green Tomatoes, a woman leaves a violent man because another woman comes to get her.

Like every entry on the Plot Twist page, it reads a story for the pattern it teaches, and makes no claim about anyone’s diagnosis. It is a warm, funny, sad film, told by an old woman to a younger one in a nursing home, and it has two stories: one about a friendship in the 1920s and 1930s, and one about a housewife in the 1980s who starts to change by listening to it.

The Story

Evelyn Couch is a timid housewife in 1980s Alabama. Her husband, Ed, mostly watches sports. Visiting his aunt’s nursing home, Evelyn meets Ninny Threadgoode, who over several visits tells her the story of a town called Whistle Stop.

In Whistle Stop, Idgie Threadgoode is a tomboy who withdraws from the world after her beloved brother dies. Ruth Jamison, who loved him too, is asked to befriend her, and over a summer the two grow deeply attached. Then Ruth moves to Georgia to marry Frank Bennett.

When Idgie visits, she finds Ruth pregnant and Frank beating her. Idgie, her brother Julian and Big George bring Ruth home, over Frank’s violent attempts to stop them. Ruth’s son is born in Whistle Stop. With money from Idgie’s father, Idgie and Ruth open the Whistle Stop Cafe, with the family cook, Sipsey, and her son, Big George, whose barbecue makes it famous.

Frank comes back to take his baby son. Someone stops him, and he disappears. Years later his truck is found in a river. Idgie and Big George are arrested. The sheriff offers to let Idgie go if the blame falls on Big George alone; she refuses. At trial, the town’s minister lies for them, and the case is dismissed. Not long after, Ruth dies of cancer.

Listening, Evelyn begins to change. She stops trying to save her marriage with the “womanly” tricks she’d been taught. She gets angry, for the first time in her life, and likes it. She changes the house to suit herself. Ed starts noticing her. She tells him Ninny is coming to live with them, whether he likes it or not.

At the end, Ninny reveals what happened to Frank, as the film’s darkest joke. And Evelyn takes Ninny home.

Fried Green Tomatoes was a box-office success, earned two Academy Award nominations, and won the GLAAD Media Award for best feature film with lesbian content.

The Story Before the Story

Fannie Flagg’s novel tells a love story between Idgie and Ruth. The film keeps it ambiguous, and was criticized at the time for glossing over it; its director has called their food fight a “love scene.” This page reads their bond for what the film does show: a woman who loves another woman enough to walk into her husband’s house and take her home.

What It Gets Right

A great deal. It shows domestic violence plainly and never makes Frank charming. It shows that leaving took people: Idgie, and two men who stood with her. It gives Ruth a life after, a son, a business and a home. It lets Idgie refuse to save herself by sacrificing Big George. And it gives Evelyn, a middle-aged housewife, a story of her own.

What It Teaches

1. The friend who came to get her

Idgie visits Ruth and sees what Frank does. She doesn’t leave a number and hope Ruth calls. She comes back with help, packs Ruth’s things and brings her home. On the way out, she tells Frank: “If you ever touch her again, I’ll kill you!”

The series has shown a woman escaping a violent man only once before, in Sleeping with the Enemy, and there she did it alone, faked her own death, and was rewarded with a new man. Here the way out is a friend, and a family, and a town. That is closer to how many women get out: someone notices, someone makes room, someone helps carry the boxes.

It is also worth saying plainly what advocates know: the time around leaving is often the most dangerous. Idgie brings help for a reason. If you are planning to leave, a domestic violence advocate can help you do it safely, before anyone is told: 1-800-799-7233.

2. He came back for the baby

After Ruth leaves, Frank returns to Whistle Stop to take their infant son. It is the move many women fear most, and it is real: a man who has lost control of a woman may reach for the children.

The film stops him in the dark, and turns what follows into a mystery and, finally, a grisly joke. This page won’t linger on it, and doesn’t recommend it. The film is a fable. The lesson worth keeping is smaller: Ruth was not alone in that house, and that is why the baby stayed.

3. The deal she refused

When Idgie and Big George are arrested for Frank’s disappearance, the sheriff offers Idgie a way out: let the blame fall on Big George alone. She refuses.

In 1930s Alabama, a Black man accused of killing a white man faced a danger no white woman did, and the film knows it. Idgie’s refusal is its own kind of loyalty: she won’t save herself by handing over someone with less protection. It is a quiet lesson inside a loud one. Getting free is not the same as getting free at someone else’s expense.

4. The husband who was joking

Evelyn, trying to save her marriage, asks her husband whether he’d still be watching the game if she answered the door in nothing but cellophane. Ed answers: “No, honey, I’d probably be checking you into a loony bin.”

The Decoder’s Card 21, Weaponized Humor, covers “the laughter at your expense.” Ed isn’t cruel; he’s absent. But the lesson Evelyn had absorbed was that the marriage was her job to fix with tricks, and that her husband’s attention was something she had to earn by performing. The turn in her story comes when she stops.

5. “I got mad, and it felt terrific”

A young woman steals Evelyn’s parking space and tells her, “Face it, lady, we’re younger and faster.” Evelyn shouts “Towanda!” and rams their car. Then she tells Ninny what it felt like: “I never get mad, Mrs Threadgoode. Never. The way I was raised, it was bad manners. Well, I got mad.. and it felt terrific!”

The car is a fantasy, and this page doesn’t recommend it. But the feeling is the point. Many women were raised to believe anger is bad manners, and live a whole life without once feeling their own. Evelyn’s anger is the first sign she has a self to defend. What she does with it next matters more: she changes her house, her habits and her marriage, and she brings home a friend.

6. She took Ninny home

Evelyn’s husband doesn’t want Ninny to live with them. Evelyn tells him she’s coming anyway. At the end, she finds Ninny sitting alone on the lot where her house used to be, and brings her home.

It is the same act as the first one, turned around. Idgie went to get Ruth. Evelyn goes to get Ninny. The film’s argument is that women get each other out, across decades and across every kind of trouble, from a violent husband to a lonely old age.

Two Escapes, Side by Side

	Sleeping with the Enemy (1991)	Fried Green Tomatoes (1991)
How she leaves	Alone, by faking her own death	With a friend who comes to get her, and two men beside her
Who knows	No one	Her friend, her family, the town
What she gets	A new man, and the old one comes after her	A home, a son, a café, and a friend
How it ends	Only when he is dead	With women taking each other home

Two films released the same year about a woman leaving a violent husband. One taught that she has to vanish. The other taught that someone can come and get her.

If You Grew Up on This

Many of us still shout “Towanda!” in parking lots, and some of us have made the recipe. Nothing on this page asks you to stop loving the film. The useful thing is to look at it clearly from where you stand now.

Some questions to sit with:

Has someone ever come to get you when you couldn’t get yourself out? Have you done it for someone?
Were you raised to think anger was bad manners? When did you last let yourself feel it?
Have you tried to earn someone’s attention by performing, and what happened when you stopped?
Is there someone with less protection than you who could be blamed for something you did together?
Who is your Ninny, the person whose story changed yours? Who could you bring home?

Idgie went to Georgia and brought Ruth home. Fifty years later, Evelyn went to an empty lot and brought Ninny home.

You’re the audience now. Someone can come and get you, and you can come and get someone.