Moxie: the #girlboss movie of my nightmares
★ ★ 1/2
Gaslight. Gatekeep. Girlboss.
Moxie (2021) is the new film directed by Amy Poehler. Vivian, a young girl just beginning a new year in highschool, is inspired by her mother’s — played by Poehler — stories of her rebellious youth where she protested misogyny. After meeting Lucy, a new girl at the highschool, Vivian becomes aware of the rampant sexism at her school. Vivian decides to publish a zine calling out the sexism, causing a feminist revolution amongst the student population.
The movie opens with a dream, Vivian is running through a forest in a scene that could have been taken straight out of Twilight (2008). She screams but she is silent. This parrallels the end of the movie when we see Vivian in the same forest, but when she screams her voice can definitely be heard. This would have been a poignant call back if everything sandwiched between wasn’t so flawed.
The spark that begins the main conflict is introduced as the main characters discuss the weird list compiled by the boys of the school — the ‘best girls’. This is so strange that it can only be explained by giving examples; ‘Best HJ’, ‘Most shaggable’, or ‘Most obidient’. Vivian, and her childhood best friend, Claudia discuss the list and make bets on who they think will ‘win’ each category. Vivian and Claudia are completely unaware of their internalised misogyny. Until Vivian meets Lucy.
Lucy is confident, and unafraid to stand up to Mitchell — the captain of the football team, and unashamed creep. When Vivian tells Lucy to “keep her head down”, Lucy refuses to and tells Vivian that she won’t be doing that and that boys like Mitchell are dangerous. Suddenly, Vivian is aware of sexism and produces the first edition of the Moxie zine.
As the school reacts to each new edition of Moxie, more and more girls become enlightened to the sexism they have been experiencing. However, this is the case for a select few. The athletes on the women’s teams were already having discussions about unfair treatment from the school administration. Lucy’s first onscreen moments are spent calling out the domination of straight white men in the English Literature curriculum and how more women, specifically women of colour need to be introduced for the readings.
This introduces the main problem with Moxie, why are we watching yet another coming of age movie about a white teenage girl? Especially when all that is interesting about her are the girls around her in the Moxie club.
In comparison to the other members, Vivian appears like she’s cosplaying as a revolutionary. Their first protest is very mild – only drawing hearts and stars on their hands in solidarity – but before first period even started Vivian goes to wash it off her hands because she doesn’t see anyone else with it on. This was her idea.
This film is one of many that centres white feminist narratives that are inherently flawed. The film clearly intends on being intersectional; as the term is thrown in as Vivian’s mum reflects on her feminist days, but it completely fails by using all the other girls as props for Vivian.
It isn’t simply Vivian’s whiteness, but that is a significant part, it is her complete lack of personality and investment as she spend the first third of the movie completely oblivious. Comparing Vivian’s story, or lack of one, to that of Emma (Josephine Langford) or Kaitlynn (Sabrina Haskett) illustrates how weak the movie is with Vivian as the lead. Vivian faces no challenges, none that aren’t of her own making.
So many characters have much more interesting potential stories that I will list some possibilities below:
- Lucy, her experience coming to this new school, being Afro Latina, being harassed by Mitchell and starting a zine inspired by her hometown.
- Lucy and Amaya’s relationship could’ve been better developed, exploring the misogyny experienced by sapphic people.
- Emma, dealing with the aftermath of being raped and the list.
- Claudia, dealing with finding her place in feminism and her overbearing mother by starting a zine.
- The disabled girl and her experiences in the band and being a disabled woman in a violently misogynistic school, creating a zine to speak out bc she has been so silenced.
- The women of the basketball team starting Moxie to protest the unfair treatment and protest for equal financial support.
- CJ’s experiences with transphobia at this school as she tries out for the school musical, she creates the zine to speak up for herself after talking to Lucy about zines.
- Or focusing on all the girl’s storylines as an ensemble.
I hope in the future we can have stories created by and for women of colour. Stories that are truly intersectional. Stories that do not claim to be for all women with a surface level understanding of our experiences.
