streaming on Netflix, follows introvert Vivian Carter (Hadley Robinson), who becomes fed up with the toxic masculinity (and the teachers and s who turn a blind eye to it) at Rockport High and takes action to rally her female classmates to evoke change.
Vivian and her best friend Claudia (Lauren Tsai) are self-proclaimed introverts who are determined to keep their heads down and stay out of the line of fire when it comes to the misogynistic antics of their male classmates led by Mitchell Wilson (Patrick Schwarzenegger). After Mitchell begins to target outspoken new girl Lucy Hernandez (Alycia Pascual-Peña), Vivian decides to fight back. Inspired by her mother's (Poehler) involvement in the riot grrrl movement of the 90s, Vivian anonymously writes and publishes a feminist zine titled Moxie!, calling out Mitchell and other offenders for their sexist behavior. Soon Vivian finds herself in the middle of a full-on revolution that pits Rockport's fed-up girls against their oppressors.
Moxie is reminiscent of past films such as Lindsay Lohan's Cady v. Rachel McAdam's Regina George, Vivian v. Mitchell) attempting to free various social factions of the student body from the iron-fisted rule of their schools' A-listers. However, Mean Girls derives its humor from exploring and deconstructing the driving forces behind girl-on-girl aggression, while Moxie pays tribute to third-wave feminism, expanding on its ideology, creating an on-screen movement that is all about female inclusion. The characters in Mean Girls exist in a vacuum, but Vivian and her friends are more cognizant of the current political climate and are self-aware enough to know they're being victimized and are either discouraged from taking action or fearful of the repercussions.
Battling their schools' respective bullies expectedly proves to be a transformative process for Cady and Vivian. Cady gets swept up in the cyclical and systemic cog of girl-on-girl crime, while Vivian grows more outspoken and confident as she accrues allies in her battle against a common foe. Both become empowered through their actions, although, for Cady, her power is derived from tearing other girls down while Vivian gets hers from building them up. Both face a reckoning of sorts that culminates in scenes where they're publically forced to accept responsibility for their actions, a tried and true formula for these types of movies.
There are other similarities between the films that are hard to miss. There are the requisite clueless principals and parents (Amy Poehler receives more realistic and empathetic treatment playing Vivian's mom than Regina's). The Plastics' slam book, which denigrates girls' looks, is replaced by the Rockport boys' "list," which objectifies their female classmates. Both leads get appealing love interests, although Cady's crush is thinly drawn, serving exclusively as the source of conflict between Cady and Regina (another all too common plot device). Moxie is infused with the same skepticism as Mean Girls, but both films end on a hopeful, if not too tidily wrapped up, note. Mean Girls' message is a bit muddled as a product of its era. Overall, it encourages young women to try to be nice, but Moxie stresses that sometimes it's more important to be heard.
