The revolution is in Mom’s zine collection in Amy Poehler’s riot grrrl nostalgia trip Moxie
Film Reviews Riot grrrl
On its 2000 album All Hands On The Bad One, Sleater-Kinney bemoans the co-opting of the riot grrrl movement by mass media: “I’m spending all my days at girlpower.com / Trying to buy back a little piece of me,” Corin Tucker, a “bearer of the flag since the beginning,” sings on “#1 Must Have.” Considering that this was the deflating end point of ’90s punk feminism, it’s difficult to decide what to make of Moxie. Is this more of that watered-down bubblegum that so disillusioned the original grrrls? Or is it something more innocent, and yet somehow more distressing: proof that those of us who remember these bands from the first time around are now officially old?
In Moxie, Vivian (Hadley Robinson), a high school junior in suburban Oregon, creates an anonymous, handmade publication railing against the sexism at her school. Her inspiration? Brace yourself, Gen-Xers and old millennials, it’s her mom’s zine collection. Amy Poehler, who also directs (this is her second feature, after Wine Country), plays the mom, Lisa, a former Portland scenester who’s since settled into a life of home ownership and long hours at work. She still keeps the rebellious flame alive, however, if only in a suitcase full of mementos and a leather jacket that hangs in her office closet. An offhand comment from Lisa about wanting to “[burn] down the patriarchy” in her teenage years leads Vivian to rifle through that suitcase, a fateful act that eventually spirals into an insurrection at her high school.
Moxie is based on a young-adult novel by Jennifer Mathieu, which accounts for the multiple storylines bogging down its two-hour runtime. (Interestingly, the novel is set in Texas, a more likely home for the “boys will be boys” attitude that sparks Vivian’s rage than the Pacific Northwest.) While tracing the aftermath of Vivian surreptitiously dropping a pile of zines in the girls’ bathroom, Moxie also follows Vivian’s friendship with her BFF, Claudia (Lauren Tsai), and rebellious new girl at school Lucy (Alycia Pascual-Pena). There’s also a sweet teen love story that elevates Nico Hiraga, a.k.a. the skater kid from Booksmart, to a romantic lead. On their first date, Vivian and his character, Seth, break into a funeral home and snuggle in a coffin listening to Bikini Kill through a pair of shared earbuds—an alt-teenager’s dream, then and now.
But although Kathleen Hanna and company—specifically, their most famous song, “Rebel Girl”—play a prominent role in the narrative, and the set design is littered with vintage riot grrrl signifiers like Sleater-Kinney T-shirts and Huggy Bear posters, Moxie seems designed for the same Gen Z audience as Olivia Wilde’s 2019 film. Designed for, not created by, mind you: Moxie has the air of a hipster parent playing their record collection for an indifferent adolescent, asking, “Doesn’t this slap?” It tries, but the dialogue in the film is cringeworthy, particularly when it incorporates AAVE slang. (It’s smart enough not to put “Get the bag, sis” or “That’s fire” in the mouths of its white characters, to be fair.) Learning from the mistakes of the riot grrrl movement, Moxie does incorporate intersectionality into its feminism—in fact, one of the film’s most valuable messages is that the best thing an ally can do is step aside and let marginalized people speak for themselves. But you can still tell a couple well-meaning white ladies wrote the script.
There are worse fates than dorky earnestness, of course. But Moxie just isn’t all that funny either. (This is coming from someone who found Booksmart pretty hilarious, so adjust your expectations accordingly.) The teenage girls in the audience may warm to discussions about the sidelining of the girls’ soccer team in favor of boys’ football or the unfairness of school dress codes that make girls responsible for boys’ behavior. But the lack of any distinct visual identity for the film only highlights the corniness of the dialogue. And while a dramatic Hail Mary toward the end does wrap up the story, introducing the most serious issue yet—an anonymous rape allegation—in the last 20 minutes of a nearly two-hour film makes it seem like an afterthought.
Moxie isn’t a total wash. The young cast is energetic and engaged with the material, even when they’re reciting mouthfuls like “the end of the mediocre white dude’s chokehold on success.” Speaking of, Patrick Schwarzenegger is perfectly cast as the leering face of said mediocrity, although his comeuppance is too abrupt to be truly satisfying. It’ll probably be a while before we start getting films about the Gen Z experience made by members of that generation, at least in the realm of studio filmmaking. But while this old lady can’t say for sure whether today’s teens will find Moxie inspiring or eye-rolling, it is nice to see a film that acknowledges that becoming politically conscious is an ongoing process. Even if it’s a mom who’s saying it.
43 Comments
So this is just Hollywood full ceding the youths to TikTok, right? Because I am an old person too but I figure that’s where kids are more likely to 1. put out activism and 2. listen to music, as opposed to what this movie is presenting. Listening to decades-old music and putting out zines, expression via long-dead culture — maybe the comparison isn’t to Riot Grrrl but another 90s musical identity, big band revival.
Kids these days really like that damn Squirrel Nut Zippers band by golly.
I’ll see you in…the afterlife.
Hell, you don’t even have to go to the 1990s for weird nostalgia of things from before the fans were born. These days Millenials and GenZ are into vinyl and cassettes, even though with MP3 files and streaming they have access to practically all recorded music without any need of physical media. As a GenXer who actually bought vinyl and tapes before they were cool but just because that’s how music worked in the 1980s, I don’t get it. So a zine revival seems actually pretty plausible, actually. It’s not any weirder.
I don’t doubt that this happens/is happening, it’s the way it’s centered that seems off to me. This is thinking off a really good Noel Murray article about John Hughes movie soundtracks and specifically Pretty In Pink — Noel makes the argument that Hughes helped create the teen experience of music that he depicts in his movies, but he did so with a good ear toward then-contemporary music that worked in that mode. That seems different and more interesting to me than just slapping 20-year-old music into your contemporary teen movie and writing it off as their cool tastes. Anyway, the article is here: https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/pretty-in-pink-soundtrack-35th-anniversary
That’s a very good point (A good point in a Noel Murray article, who’da thunk it?). Any movie that wants to court teenage rebellion has to play their music. Like Pretty in Pink had “Try a Little Tenderness” but it also had the Psychedelic Furs, y’know?
Fellow Gen Xer Here: I don’t understand the appeal of tapes, which where kind of a cumbersome medium even at their peak, but I definitely understand the appeal of vinyl with all the pretty, pretty cover art. A lot of records come with a download nowadays, so I probably actively listen to the music more often on my phone, but having physical album artwork as a keepsake is something that can appeal to hoarding magpies of all ages.
There was a Twitter thread or some such last year which got some attention as a bunch of current teens were getting all wistful about a video of teens on their last day of school in the more innocent days of… 2010.Then again, who wouldn’t have 2010 nostalgia in 2020?
I remember similar incredulity about the movie Ladybird because it asked the viewer to be nostalgic for 2002 (only 15 years prior to its release in 2017). Although to be fair, the classic American Graffiti was nostalgic for a mere decade prior to its release in 1973 (even if that decade saw a lot of changes).
Especially with much these days being online, it’s interesting to hold a physical zine.
Guessing, but surely it’s exactly _because_ most of the kids are over there in TikTok land (is that a thing? I’m old too) that some of the kids are going to think that zines are a wonderful idea?
Zine culture is alive and thriving in the Bay Area. Before the pandemic, San Jose had at last 3 big zine festivals a year. It’d be just as exciting for teens to find old zines as when we were teens and found our parents vinyl collections. And maybe this won’t be true in the future, but esoteric artifacts will always be of curiosity to people who haven’t seen them before.
“Sleater-Kinney bemoans the co-opting of the riot grrrl movement by mass media”I remember this. It was right around when Blink-182 taught the world what punk was all about!
Punk Rock changed my haircut for approximately a three year period, dood.
Mine too, buddy. Then my girlfriend got into Bettie Page and cherries and I put flames on literally everything I owned and started swing dancing. Now I own an Arthur Murray franchise.
Thanks punk rock!
These days Carrie Brownstein does Amerrrican Exprrress commerrrcials.
“Get the bag” is slang now? Seems potentially confusing.
If there’s a bag over there and I ask someone to get it, am I slangin’?
you’re safer just referring to it as a satchel
I am Gen X and former zine reader and I had to Google “AAVE.” Apparently it is a cryptocurrency.
this is one of the whitest things I’ve ever read
The Texas line is certainly an odd drive by, considering it has nothing to do with the film itself. But more than that it’s weird that, apparently, the entire Pacific Northwest is devoid of patriarchal bias in education. (I live nowhere near either state, to be clear.) Honestly it sounds even more refreshing to explore something like this in that kind of locale, which is presumably at least partly why it was changed it from the book.
Especially considering the Pacific North West is where my mind goes when I think of virulent white supremacy and whackos living in cabins, but I guess that’s a bit too real for the writer.
Yeah I was taken aback by that too. Portlandia isn’t real, Katie!
“It’ll probably be a while before we start getting films about the Gen Z experience made by members of that generation”What would y’all consider the Millennial version of this concept, I’m curious.
Well, it hasn’t happened yet.
But in 10 or 15 years there’ll be a movie with a 48 year old character telling their kid how great “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World” is or something.
Lady Bird ticks that box for millenials on the older end (writer/director Gerwig was born in ‘83, the character in ‘85).https://www.avclub.com/the-heart-of-lady-bird-is-an-old-dave-matthews-song-abo-1822033808
That’s the first one I thought of too. Whiplash might qualify considering it has a Millennial writer/director basing it off of his own experiences.
“Who’s responsible for burning down the patriarchy?”“VIVIAN! VIVIAN!!!”“’VIVIAN, VIVIAN!’ Honestly, whenever a social system is burned it’s always ‘blame Vivian’!!”
I love “Rebel Girl” but I’m not really sure it should ever be used in a movie or TV show again, since it tends to be the most obvious song choice ever, next to using “London Calling” when a character is going to London.
I watched Die Another Day for the first time recently. When James is flying back to duel not Mark Zuckerberg and “London Calling” kicks in, I thought I was having a stroke. I turned to my husband and asked if that was the first time they ever used London Calling in a Bond film.I cannot believe the restraint they previously showed.
“Snuggle in a coffin listening to Bikini Kill through a pair of shared earbuds—an alt-teenager’s dream, then and now.”Oh great the same type of pretentious cool kids assholes who were around in the 90s (and made my life hell) still exist now. Unless the movie ends immediately after with them suffocating in there its a hard pass from me.
I don’t think it was the Bon Iver teens picking on you
It was actually roving gangs of Pavement fans who oppressed Dr Bob. A veritable Teenage Fanclub of them.
Finally a movie about the best carbonated beverage in new england! it’ll put hair on your eyes!
To me, the ultimate Gen-X expression is still a bumper sticker that says “visualize using your turn signal”. Basically a giant middle finger at the previous generation’s complete lack of pragmatism and humility.I remember an intense frustration with the co-opting of culture by corporations, e.g. the music INDUSTRY, an intense frustration with the Christian religion claiming to be the center of the moral universe, a desire to reject the thesis of the “me generation”’s grandstanding and self-importance, and feeling like urban and suburban life had been scrubbed of all darkness and skepticism and we needed to seek out and embrace both or we’d end up just like our parents collectively. It turned into an adulthood attitude that was like, “I’m going to quietly do the right thing because fuck you and mind your own business.”And now a big-studio movie has taken the ancient zine subculture and made it another vehicle for identity politics? Call me unimpressed. Zines were also full of nihilism, anarchy, graphic poetry, non-sequitur culture jamming, anti-capitalism manifestos, and unmarketable, un-pretty, unrestrained **FURY**, and were just as likely to say “blow up the school and kill yourself” as they were to say “smash the patriarchy”.So this movie sounds like more of what I hated as a teen: A corporate entity taking art I had a personal involvement in, making a product that resembles it, and selling it back to me – or co-opting it to sell me something else. I can only assume this is for a younger generation that doesn’t have that visceral “fuck you” reaction to an industry doing this.
Part of me is happy when my teenager rifles through his old man’s record collection and asks me about the times pops saw Neutral Milk Hotel, Pavement, Fugazi, etc during the last millennium, but TBH the kid needs to find his own culture. I am more interested when he excitedly tells me about some new band he discovered on Spotift. The teen has good taste, thank god.
Bummer to read a mediocre review, I heard about this movie & really liked the premise. I’ll probably still check it out.
I’m watching it now and… it’s fine. The criticisms are valid, but it’s heart is in the right place and the cast is charming.
The only decent thing about this film is the cast. Such lazy writing with not a skerrick of authenticity. And a rape hastily thown in at the end just to round it all off? It has nothing original to say about any of the (very real) issues it covers. Such a waste.
“Speaking of, Patrick Schwarzenegger is perfectly cast as the leering face of said mediocrity,”Ugh, Patrick Schwarzenegger… This young man, IRL, is the epitome of what this movie is fighting against, THE Patriarchy. Was his casting meant to be ironic, or clever? He may be a perfectly nice fellow, and talented enough to portray a character who makes us throw up a little in our mouths, but jesus. Patrick Schwarzenegger is the billboard of straight white cis male privileged, it boggles the mind. Born into the wealth, power, and celebrity of being a Schwarzenegger and a Kennedy, he went to the best schools, college, business school (natch), first movie role at ten (ten movie rolls in the last ten years), started a clothing line at 15, opened a franchise of Blaze Pizza at 20 (now owns additional outlets), he was/is a model with LA Models (of course), dated Miley Cyrus, and is currently dating a (swimwear) model. I don’t know the answers to overcoming the Patriarchy, but providing more employment and privilege to a person that clearly has more than any of the rest of us will ever be given, seems counterintuitive.But one really does want to punch his face when one sees it onscreen.
I’m very glad for the window scene. When she calls the lead out on that she can’t understand because she is white.