MOXiE!

Bibliographic Information:

• Title: MOXiE!
• Production Company: Paper Kite Productions
• Distributed by: Netflix
• Release Date: March 3, 2021
• Director: Amy Poehler
• Adapted by  Tamara Chestna and Dylan Meyer from the book Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu.

Genre: Comedy/Drama/Coming of Age

Format: Movie

Rating/Interest Level: Rated PG-13

Awards: None as of May 2021

Plot Summary: Vivian is a shy high school student who lives with her mother and hangs out with her nerdy friend, Claudia. When a new student, Lucy, shows up in Vivian’s English class and questions the value of reading The Great Gatsby, Mitchell, a popular jock, interrupts and defends the book. Later, Mitchell spits in Lucy’s soda and torments her. When Lucy reports his behavior to the principal, she is blown off, due to Mitchell’s popularity and status. Vivian becomes fed up with the toxic masculinity culture at her school, and decides to create an underground zine, MOXie!, to expose this inappropriate behavior and raise awareness. Vivian is inspired by her mother’s days of protesting in her youth.

Vivian and Lucy become friends and are joined by orger girls who have been bullied and treated unfairly. Vivian also starts dating one of her classmates, Seth, who discovers she is behind MOXiE! and supports her. As the girls’ movement grows, the administration attempts to shut them down. They stage a walkout and are joined by even more people. To celebrate, they throw a huge party.

Reaction/Interest: Teen reviews of MOXiE! on Common Sense Media (2021) averaged 4 out of 5 stars. Most teens like the feminist aspect to the film and the diverse characters. Many mention the positive messages and role models and say that the film is empowering and inspiring. Some younger teens objected to the swearing. Negative reviews said the movie is unrealistic and the dialogue is questionable.

Critical Evaluation: MOXiE! addresses many themes that are relevant to high school students, including bullying, sexism, race, sexual assault, and harassment. The acting is good but not great. There is a good balance between comedy and drama. The film has a diverse cast of characters. It is engaging and received mostly positive reviews from teens, who are its intended audience. Most teens found the movie empowering and inspiring and has positive messages and role models.

Speed-Round Talk: Do you ever get fed up with how people are acting? Do you wish you could do something but don’t know what? Well, Vivian figured it out! Watch MOXiE! and see how Vivian and her friends fought back against the toxic culture at their high school!

Creative Use for a Library Program: A great program for MOXiE! would be to have the teens create zines. They could pick topics that they are passionate about, write, and illustrate them. We could print color copies and the teens could distribute them to their friends.

Potential Challenge Issues and Defense: The movie contains a lot of swearing that some younger teens found offensive. There is some under age drinking and sexual content. Older teens and mature teens should not have a problem with the content. Most teens have seen much worse.

Reason for Inclusion: I included the movie MOXiE! because of the positive reviews that it received from teens. Many teens found the movie to be empowering, inspiring, and have positive messages and role models. The book Moxie, by Jennifer Mathieu was very popular when it came out and also received good reviews.

References:

Movie Coverage. (2021, February 2). MOXIE trailer (2021) Josephine Langford, Amy Poehler teen movie. [Video]. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_1LMMXF3HA&ab_channel=MovieCoverage