Show Notes

MOXIE

Recently, Amy Poehler released a movie on Netflix based on Jennifer Mathieu’s YA novel, Moxie. If that sound familiar, it’s because Episode 23 of the podcast is all about Moxie. It was one of our Summer Book Club picks of 2018.

Moxie is a fantastic book that provides an opportunity to talk to teens about:

• Bullying
• Dating Relationships
• Feminism
• Friendship
• Secrets
• Sexual Assault
• Sexual Harassment
• Standing Up for What You Believe
• Teacher/Student Relationships
• Using Your Voice 

THE BOOK IS ALWAYS BETTER

Because it’s a favorite, I decided to compare and contrast the book version and the movie version of Moxie.

You probably already know what I’m going to say first: the book is always better! Movies cannot capture the depth or complexities that books can. So much happens internally in books that can’t be portrayed in a visual medium.

 That holds true for Moxie as well. In fact, I would say that the movie was “Inspired by” vs. “adapted from” the book. It’s a subtle difference, but an important one.

Moxie, the book, is a feminist manifesto. It uses a girl’s coming of age story to highlight what it feels like to be undermined and denigrated in subtle and overt ways as a female.

Moxie, the movie, is a girl’s coming of age story that uses feminism and inequity to highlight what it feels like to struggle to find your voice and the courage to use it. 

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MOXIE THE BOOK AND MOXIE THE MOVIE

 The Movie

Movie scripts have to condense a whole book into a two-and-a-half-hour script, which means lots of condensing and even cutting. Here are some of the changes Moxie underwent:

Characters movie did not include:

• Vivian’s Grandparents
• Principal Wilson as Mitchell’s father
• Seth’s Parents

 Character changes:

• Seth was the new kid vs. someone who’d always been there
• Vice Principal Shelly became principal and was a woman
• Diversity was added to some characters

The biggest loss in the book-to-movie translation was the personal cost to Vivvy to stand up and use her voice. The interiority in the book captured her doubts and fears in a way the movie could not.

Moxie the movie throws in some things that seem to undermine Vivvy’s righteous indignation. One example is the line: “Why doesn’t Dad want to see me at Christmas?” – in the book, her father died when she was a baby. It’s part of an outburst that Vivvy has over dinner with her Mom and their significant others. Vivvy’s outburst in the movie is more about her Mom dating than about women’s rights and feminism. However, there is an authenticity to it. It reflects the reality of messy motivations and emotions, which are often not neatly packaged in clear-cut boxes with edges. 

The Book

 So there’s this snowballing sick-feeling-in-the-pit-of-your-stomach thing in the book that the movie doesn’t really capture.

The events in the book feel more menacing:

• Mitchell Wilson grabs Claudia’s breast and has attempted to rape Emma. The administration knows and doesn’t do anything about it
• There is a “bump and grab” game between Thanksgiving and Christmas. “The bump ‘n’ grab is exactly what it sounds like. A boy bumps into you in the hallway. Maybe quasi-gently with a hip. Maybe more forcefully like he’s enjoying himself a little too much. When you stumble, there’s a grab. Sometimes you get goosed around the waist. Sometimes you get pinched on the butt. And as quickly as it starts, it’s over, and the boy is off down the hall, maybe squawking that he’s sorry. Maybe laughing at the top of his lungs.” (pp. 170-171).
• Vivian’s relationship with her Mom and grandparents is key in the book. She is discovering her Mom as a human vs. Mom as “my mom”. She’s able to see the differences in how her Mom parents her compared to how Seth’s mom parents him. “I think about Seth’s Mom and how she makes her life all about her, and about my Mom and how she makes so much of her life about me.”

The book is able to be much more nuanced because we know exactly what’s going on in Vivvy’s head.

CREATING TENSION

Both mediums create tension in different ways to make their points.

In the book, it’s the continuing escalation of things and her growing internal pressure that motivates Vivian to speak up. She wants to create lasting change.

In the movie, she is motivated by a contest to vote for the Rockport High Student-Athlete Ambassador, which comes with a huge scholarship. The girls nominate Kiera Pascal, the captain of the girl’s soccer team when they realize that no one is running against Mitchell Wilson.

On the day of the election, Mitchell gets to speak on the morning announcements and the girl doesn’t. This part of the movie had an interesting message because when Vivian confronts the principal about it, she tells her that “Mitchell asked.” What I took away from this was that You have to ask for what you want and need.

The character Emma was raped by Mitchell in the movie, but there’s not any depth to how they handle it. In the book, it’s an attempted rape, but we have a better understanding of the emotion and trauma associated with the experience.

The school administration in the book resists rectifying the inequities and providing justice, but the motivation is different than it is in the movie. The administration in the book avoids it because it disrupts their norm and threatens their culture/way of life.

In the movie, it’s implied that it’s more about not dealing with all the red tape and hoops that come with dealing with incidents – NOT that the school administration doesn’t see anything inherently wrong with what’s happened. It’s just too much of an effort to deal with it. 

USING MOXIE TO CONNECT WITH YOUR TEENS

 In the end, both mediums of Moxie are fantastic vehicles to talk about all kinds of important issues.

 If you’re looking for ways to open up a conversation about any of those “hot topics” with your teen, I’d love for you to grab my free discussion questions for Moxie.

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