What “Moxie” Missed
photo courtesy of @moxie.netflix Instagram
As we celebrate Women’s History Month, Netflix brings a feminist tale to the small screen that empowers those — like me — who were invisible in high school. “Moxie,” had all the pieces to be intersectional and original. Instead, it fell flat.
Directed by female comedian, Amy Poehler, “Moxie” follows a shy high-school junior Vivian as she becomes increasingly fed-up with sexist culture in her school and creates a ‘revolution’ through an anonymous feminist zine she titles (you guessed it) “Moxie.” In the film, an annual list, created by the jocks and their douchey football captain, Mitchell, ranks and objectifies female students based on degrading qualities like “Most Bangable” and “Best Ass,” including new student Lucy, who tried to stand up against Mitchell. Fueled by this and her mom’s rebellious history of activism (as well as some girl-power rock anthems), Vivian creates a zine titled (you guessed it) “Moxie” and plasters it all over the school, encouraging Lucy and other girls to form a club around this mysterious heroine to take on sexism in the school.
The movie was definitely refreshing and powerful in some ways. The Moxie club consists of more than just stereotypical outsiders, but of the soccer captain, Kiera, and eventually the popular head cheerleader, Kaitlynn. There was also a lack of typecasting. For example, the male love interest was Asian American but a skateboarder with bad grades and the rebellious Black girl isn’t cold or aggressive but very friendly.
However, the movie’s greatest disappointment is that it has all the elements to examine intersectionality but rarely does. The diverse cast does not abide by racial stereotypes, and each character seems to have very interesting stories, but we learn nothing about these people of color other than how they boost the White main character’s “wokeness.” It seems that the movie’s creators had a “Woke checklist,” which involved dropping one-liners to make this movie progressive but never followed up to explain the story or context behind them.
For example, we learn a bit about Vivian’s best friend Claudia, who is Asian American and who is hesitant to join the ‘Moxie’ movement, much to Vivian’s disappointment. Claudia tells Vivian later, “You don’t know what’s going on with me because you’re White.” We find out she’s determined to avoid trouble because her mother, an immigrant, had to work very hard to get to where she is today, and she doesn’t want to let her mother down by being suspended from the Moxie movement. This would have been a great time for the characters to discuss White privilege or for Vivian to ask Lucy, who is Afro-Latina, more about her story. But instead, Vivian never mentions it ever again and has a screaming fit at dinner about how her best friend “hates her.” Like many lines in the movie about people of color, it’s said and then never explored in the movie again. Not once does Vivian reflect on her White privilege or how that affected her friend. It’s never brought up again.
The only thing that is really resolved in this movie is that Vivian finds her confidence to give a speech in front of the school and expose herself as Moxie’s creator. It became another coming-of-age story about a White girl, who needs a topic that she’s passionate about for her college essay. In summary, this film should have been more about Lucy, given her a character and story arc, but we got Vivian, who we were bored with after the first 10 minutes. I would have preferred to see this as a TV show so that we could learn more in-depth about the other characters and their different story as a feminist. “Moxie” is a start, but it’s a long way from the feminist revolution Poehler wanted it to be.