Stephanie Akinfolarin '25
In celebration of the end of Women’s History Month, it seems only fitting to review the Netflix movie, Moxie. Moxie is a coming-of-age movie about an 11th grader, Vivian Carter, who takes inspiration from her mother’s Riot Grrrl memorabilia and creates an anonymous zine to address sexism at her school. At first, Vivian does nothing when encountering such issues. She steps into her school for the first day and the first thing she is told is that they’ve already started ranking girls. The captain of the football team, Mitchell Wilson, and other guys are already harassing girls left and right. This is just a window into what the female population at this school has to put up with. The new girl, Lucy Hernandez is not ready to put up with this. Vivian tries to help and tells the new girl, “If you keep your head down, he will move on and bother someone else.” Lucy replies, “Thanks for the advice, but I’ll keep my head up…high.”
The next day, Vivian goes to a pep rally where the boys release a list in which they categorize all the girls in the school. Vivian gets “Most Obedient” and Lucy gets “Biggest Cunt." This is a pivotal moment in the movie because Vivian channels this anger into creating something amazing: a zine that focuses on sexism, empowering women, and addressing injustices taking place at their school. Thus, she successfully instigates a movement. Drawing hearts and stars on their hands for support, staging protests against a sexist dress code, and having a walkout to protest the raping of their fellow classmates, Moxie girls are fighting back.
This story conveys messages about feminism, love, and the power of a single voice. There has been a lot of talk about feminism recently because of the overturning of Roe vs. Wade. It’s never been more important to talk about the misogynistic attitudes that are implemented in society. Every community has its share of misogyny, and Cate is no exception, but women are capable of anything. Moxie is an inspiration to women everywhere and provides hope for a more equitable community with some signature feminine Moxie!
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