It’s come to my attention that teenage boys still suck. Now, this may be based on a small sample size of fellow commuters, but if the group of private school boys aggressively shaming a peer (not present) for her choice to wear a crop top is anything to go by, we absolutely haven’t made the feminist leaps and bounds all those ‘The Future Is Female’ t-shirts claim.
Why are we still subjected to hearing things like, “she should either be keeping her clothes on or taking them off for me,” from male school students no less, loudly proclaimed through a train carriage? And what are they saying in private? It’s this continuing sexism and dehumanisation of women that Moxie moves to tackle.
WATCH BELOW: Netflix’s Moxie Trailer
The new Netflix film, whose trailer you can watch above, is another in a string of book-to-film adaptations from the streaming service.
Moxie is based on a novel by Jennifer Mathieu, originally published back in 2015. Directed by and starring Amy Poehler, the film follows a young high school student Vivian (Hadley Robinson) as she navigates the sexist and objectifying behaviour her peers perpetuate. The infuriating commentary recently encountered by Sydney’s private schoolboys makes the comments in the Moxie trailer look relatively tame by comparison, but said real and fictional boys are pretty gross across the board.
When a new student, played by Alycia Pascual-Peña, arrives at the school and refuses to bow to this harmful status quo, Vivian realises something has to give. (It’s the comically sexist behaviour and double standards, that’s what gives.) Inspired by her mother’s rebellious behaviour in her youth, she starts a zine—as you do—that ultimately sparks a reckoning in her school.
Moxie also stars Lauren Tsai, Vivian’s close friend—the trailer does a solid job of making the Chinese-American actress and model believable as a “plain” and under-the-radar high school student. Also in the cast is Booksmart’s Nico Hiraga—the inclusion of a soft Asian male lead, and in a seemingly romantic context, in a wide-reaching Netflix film? Yes, more of that, please.
Between the steady hand of Amy Poehler directing and the stellar source material, we’re very intrigued by this one.
Per Netflix, Moxie is set for release on March 3rd.
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