Moxie with Carly Adams
Show Notes:
This week on Jelly Pops Book Club, host Julia Washington is joined by Pop Culture Makes Me Jealous regular Carly Adams. The pair discuss the book Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu to its screen version released by Netflix in 2021.
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Interview with Author: Jennifer Mathieu Screen Queens Interview
Transcript:
Julia: I finished the book yesterday and I'm really glad you, you read it all the way through or no,
Carly: I did read it all the way through. I cheated and I did audio book. Oh, can we talk about how, um, um, the reader I'm like, are you doing an Amy Poehler impression?
Julia: Just like,
Carly: all right, sweetie. I'm like, okay, you're. You're just doing Amy Poehler now.
Julia: Let's just call it what it is. I really love that you said that because I was like, is it just me? It's not. You caught it too. I love that. But I did buy the book and whenever something like, cause I did start reading it, physically reading it, but then this week was crazy.
Julia: And on Wednesday, I was still on only page like 30. So it's like, I got to borrow the ship from the library. Cause I'm not going to get through it unless I'm listening to it at work. Um, but I would go through and like, I don't mark in books, but I would like marks stuff that it's like, I want to, if it comes, if that something like that comes up, I want to bring that up in the book as a point of reference.
Julia: Cause we'll get into it. But I, I liked the book a lot more and I'm a little disappointed with some of the changes they made to adapt it for film.
Julia: Welcome to Jollipop's book club, where we read book to screen adaptations and compare them to their screen counterparts. I'm your host, Julia Washington, and we are revisiting a conversation from pop culture makes me jealous with Carly Adams about Moxie. We recorded this episode in September of 2021.
Julia: This is one of my favorite conversations to this day. So a little bit about the author of Moxie. Jennifer Matu is a writer and English teacher originally from New England, but now lives in Texas. At the time of this recording, she has published six books with a seventh expected later this year, 2023. The summary from the Macmillan website of the book is this, Vivian Carter is fed up.
Julia: Fed up with an administration at her high school that thinks the football team can do no wrong, fed up with the sexist dress codes, hallway harassment, and gross comments from guys during class. But most of all, Viv Carter is fed up with Always following the rules, Viv's mom, it was a tough as nails, punk rock riot girl in the nineties.
Julia: And now Viv takes a page from her mother's past and creates a feminist zine that she distributes anonymously to her classmates. She's just blowing off steam, but other girls respond as Viv forges friendships with other young women across the divides of clicks and popularity rankings. What she has started is nothing short of a girl revolution.
Julia: Moxie is a book about high school life that will make you want to riot. And that's from Macmillan website. We have a summary of the movie that is coming in the recording from our sister show. I also want to add, this is an edited down version, so if you follow both shows, we did take out the parts that were very movie specific and movie specific only and left in the pieces that did.
Julia: Touch on the book and the screen adaptation, and now here we go. To the show.
Julia: Netflix released Moxie on March 3rd, 2021, and it was met with some serious criticism. It was based on the young adult novel written by Jennifer Matthew. But before we dive into this discussion, I must introduce you to my guest. Carly Adams is a professional organizer based in Sacramento, California, and the owner of tidy revival.
Julia: She loves nerding out on all things, decluttering and organizing when she's not working. She's probably shopping for houseplants and binging reality TV with her husband. And I have to add that Carly and I have known each other since high school. She's one of my favorite humans to roam this earth. And I am proud to call her my friend.
Julia: And bonus I've rendered her tidy services. I'm gonna tell you what it's fucking life changing. So definitely look into that. If you need that help, Carly, welcome to the show.
Carly: Thank you so much. I am so excited to be here with you and thank you for having me on. Um, I'm really excited to dive into this because I know you and I talk about these types of things all the time, but this is the first time I've talked about.
Carly: These types of conversations on a podcast. So I'm excited right
Julia: now. I'm excited that you're bursting that bubble with me. It makes me feel like we're bonded even more.
Carly: Well, yeah. And I feel like it's pretty appropriate because I feel like we've been bursting that bubble since we met.
Julia: Yeah. Those high school years, man, one day, one day we'll never admit to any of the things we've done.
Julia: Okay. So let's do a quick summary of Moxie really quickly for our friends and listeners at home. The summary came from Netflix, everybody. So bear with me. Inspired by her mom's rebellious past and a confident new friend, a shy 16 year old publishes an anonymous scene calling out sexism at her school. So we're not going to expand any further on that because the discussion is really going to dive into a lot of a lot more.
Julia: We're just going to get into it. Yeah, let's go. And as I mentioned before, critics had a lot to say about this movie and most of it was not positive. The Hollywood reporter calls this film a wholly plausible and a transparent Gen X fantasy of its cultural relevance to Gen Z. Cosmopolitan ran a review titled.
Julia: Amy Poehler's Moxie is just another movie about a problematic white teen. IndieWire's review was titled Moxie Review. Amy Poehler introduces feminist thinking to a generation that might not need it. And NPR's headline was Moxie says some things, but not everything about high school feminists. I have to
Carly: tell you, uh, there's a title.
Carly: The titles of the articles that I pulled up to talk about this are one from the Phoenix at Swarthmore college since 1881. Um, Moxie reviewed, I'm not upset, just disappointed. And then, um, what to watch. com said intersectional feminist and proud, which is like the most positive review I think I've seen of anything.
Carly: Um, and I know we're going to get into. All of the points, but I like that the verdict for this was like positive, positive, positive, positive. The only Against it says, and this was a big issue that I had about it said, while it's inclusive and diverse, it could have gotten full marks. If it had allowed it's trans character character to be explicitly trans rather than just implying it.
Carly: Yes. I don't think that's the only issue with it, but we'll get it. Big issue of
Julia: mine. We're going to get really into it. We'll dive in big time because what I think another point we need to make about this, like we mentioned earlier, Moxie is based on a book. Moxie references the riot girl movement, which is a movement of the 1990s, a movement that I discovered personally in 1998 and held.
Julia: Onto a lot of that ideology through most of my high school career. Carly was witness to it. Not just witness. I was like with, yeah, we were there together. Yes. We will not be sharing pictures because it was pre digital. Sorry. I had to
Carly: go because my eyebrows are so thin and sad,
Julia: so cruel. The early, the late nineties and early aughts.
Julia: I stand by this. It was just a cruel time for fashion. It was fun though. It was fun. I had a good time. This is a movement for those of you listening and aren't familiar with Riot Grrl, G3RL, it's very important to note that. This is a movement that started in the Pacific Northwest and was punk and feminism and politics all wrapped up in music.
Julia: And it was a very, very heavily female. Okay. In the Cosmo review I referenced earlier, Mia Brabham, I think is how you pronounce her last name, writes, in the process of exploring what a feminist awakening looks like for a white teenager, Vivian's classmate Lucy, who is Afro Latina, is both exploited and ignored by teachers, by peers, and most importantly, by Vivian.
Julia: Vivian doesn't speak up when Lucy is interrupted by a white male peer After questioning the diversity of the syllabus and Vivian hangs her head low when she is the only one who witnesses the same white male spit in Lucy's drink after she denies his sexual advances. Vivian even goes so far as to approach Lucy one on one in the hallway and tells her to ignore this behavior.
Julia: That is until they become best of friends after Lucy tells Vivian, she won't ignore chauvinistic comments and behavior inspiring feminist ideas in Vivian. Moxie, just another problematic white girl trying to make Gen X cultural phenomenon relevant in today's world.
Carly: So I didn't really think that it was like Gen X trying to be relevant today.
Carly: I, and that wasn't like any sort of issue I had with it. And I didn't actually
Julia: pick that up until I started researching and I was like, what? Cause I guess I don't equate riot girl with Gen X, even though I should.
Carly: Yeah. Yeah. I totally see what you're saying. And I just think that there's a lot of. Amazing things about that movement that still apply today.
Carly: So I don't really think that it's like, Oh, and we're trying to like force this on you, you know, let's not, like, it doesn't feel like Woodstock in the nineties, you know what I mean? Gosh, like,
Julia: we don't have that kind of time. Yeah.
Carly: Yeah. But. Okay. So there's something about the radical movement that they talk about briefly in the book and briefly in the movie, and that is that it wasn't.
Carly: Intersectional enough. It could have been a lot better probably because it took place in the Pacific Northwest where it is an overwhelmingly white area. And I know you and I talked about this offline. I found it very interesting that the book takes place along the Gulf in, um, Texas in Texas. Yeah. But her mom's, you know, her misspent youth years were in like the Portland area and she was in Washington too.
Carly: Um, but then I, in the In the book, her father dies and she needs to like move back to her hometown and be near her parents so that she has support. But the whole movie takes place in a small town in Texas. I don't know if it's even worth noting that like the Seth, Seth character in the movie, they've known each other since like kindergarten, but in the book, he's like a new kid, which I thought was a random weird change, but yeah, but then they took the whole movie and put it in the Pacific Northwest and made the diversity of the set more diverse than the actual diversity of that area, which I just thought was.
Carly: It's just like, why not set it somewhere else that is more diverse, like, and then That just leads me into the issue of like, this was obviously a very purposeful attempt at intersectionality at bringing together all sorts of different, um, genders and sexual identities and all sorts of things, but they still chose to make the entire storyline through the lens of.
Carly: A straight white girl. So like, why?
Julia: So after you and I had our original conversation about Moxie, because my initial reaction was like, Oh my God, I love this movie. Because also I was the girl getting yelled at and being called, you know, a boy hater and a man hater because I wanted equality. And so that is what stuck out to me.
Julia: Plus the right movement. But after you and I had this conversation months ago, I was like, Carly's making some really good points. Let's dissect this, found out it was a book. So we agreed to read the book together in preparation. What I love about the book taking place in Texas. And I'm going to read it for, I'm going to read my notes verbatim.
Julia: Do it. The book portrays the small town, small mind with the layers of mom's a widow. So she moves back home for help. Because that's a huge thing. Solo parenting, especially in like a bigger city, like Portland real hard. Yeah. There's limited diversity in this small town. The football culture, as we know it from Friday light, Friday night lights told everybody the football culture in Texas is a BFD, um, the element of her grandparents, because the grandparent, like the mentality of the grandparents, when it comes to gender and gender roles, I thought was a huge in the book.
Julia: And we. They removed that for the movie. Yeah, entirely. So, especially in contrast with her mom. So she's growing up with these small town antiquated behaviors. Her mom got exposure outside of that by living in Portland and then having to move back home and hating it. I identify with that by the way. Um, but Vivian's concept of elsewhere is, is a, is abstract.
Julia: She doesn't have. That understanding because that's not our experience and to make Seth instead of being a new kid in town in the Book turning him into a long time friend in the movie removes the elements that Seth and Lucy in the book bring to her, which is, Hey, the world's actually a lot bigger. And all the shit that happens here is kind of bullshit.
Carly: Yeah. And I found, I don't remember it really coming across as much in the movie, but Lucy was talking a lot about how different her experiences were when she was in Houston, um, because they had, you know, what was that like a student? Um, It was like, I was a reward type of thing, um, that she was on. And she said that like her teachers loved her, the administration loved her.
Carly: They really valued her opinion. She was a good student. Whereas in this new school, she was just considered trouble and like a problem starter because she spoke up for what she believed in and stood up for herself. So that was, that was interesting. Yeah. I agree with you. That's. Maybe they should have kept stuff.
Julia: I think so. Because when coming from a small town, I mean, Modesto is a big small town. I talk about that kind of a lot. And so when you don't have somebody, when all you know is what, you know, when somebody new comes to town and they teach you about, Oh, this is what it's like where I live. It's kind of mind blowing when you're 16, if you don't travel a lot.
Julia: And I get the impression that she and her mom probably don't travel a lot. She's a nurse. So she probably is working 12 hour shifts, seven days a week. I don't know. Yeah. And so that, that self discovery of what the way that Mitchell Wilson treats us is actually wrong in the book is so much more impactful than in the movie.
Julia: Cause in the movie, it just feels like, Oh, you know, we do all these things and it's bad and football rules. But I don't equate the culture that exists in the Pacific Northwest with the culture that they're trying to represent and sort of speak out against that we see represented in the movie. Yeah,
Carly: they also change.
Julia: Oh, go ahead. No, I was just to say I see you know this concept of trying to make it anywhere town, then you shouldn't have said it in the Pacific Northwest.
Carly: Uh huh. 100%. Also, they, they changed the principal character too, because in the book it's his dad. So it's, there's a lot of nepotism going on. Um, where, you know, Mitchell Wilson can never get in trouble, no matter what he does.
Carly: And they're shocked that he, you know, spoiler alert, if you haven't read the book or watch a movie, but in the end he has rape allegations against him. And like, that's a whole thing. Um, and in the book, you know, They have to like, they basically leave town by the end of it and like move away. So, um, so it felt like he was untouchable for that reason.
Carly: Like the whole administration was, it was set up so that Mitchell and his friends could do whatever they wanted. There were more of those. There was a little bit of dress code stuff in the movie, but not to the extent that it was in the book. Um, and they didn't have like in the book, you know, the guys are wearing.
Carly: Gross shirts that were like gross shirts, like nice legs. When do they open and something else? I don't know. It's just a lot of like really gross sexual references. Um, and never got in trouble for it. The whole entire football team, whereas girls are getting pulled out of class because they are wearing, you know, tank tops whose straps are too thin.
Carly: And, um, and they go into that. Like, like in a much bigger detail.
Julia: Um, that's part of the second call to action for Moxie. You know, the first call to action is to do the hearts and stars on your hand with the first scene that she produces. The second call to action is in direct response to the dress code violations that the girls.
Julia: Female students are getting in trouble for, but male students aren't. And in the movie, they make it that character. He's just topless all the time. And to me, I'm like, you're a sports player. Like, not that I'm saying that students should be topless in school. I'm just saying, when I drive by the high school after school, when practice is over, they're all topless because they're hot, right after running scrimmage or whatever.
Julia: So it didn't have the same impact to me. As the, when I read that in the book, the statements that were on the shirts, it was just like, this is. Really inappropriate and offensive and not like, Oh, I'm a delicate flower. I'm offended. But like, this is 2021. The book was printed in 2017, still in 2017, wildly inappropriate.
Julia: But in the context of a small culture that is pumping money into a football team to keep this sort of ideology alive, it's still makes sense regardless of what year it is.
Carly: Yeah, totally agree. Um, can we talk a little bit how the side characters were not allowed enough room for development and 100% way better.
Carly: Like I care way more about Claudia struggle and figuring out her way against her parents than I care about if Vivian is going to have sex or not. And like that, that seemed to be like. A huge thing, especially in the movie. She's like, and I might have sex. It's like, okay, like, um, there's some other bigger fish to fry that you're really part of right now.
Carly: I get that. That's part of it, but like. You know, your friends might be expelled and you're kind of letting them take the fall for
Julia: things. Yes. Like where's the ownership. So in the book, she establishes Moxie, but then doesn't take the leadership role. She leaves it open for it to be led by the group, by whomever is compelled to speak out against the injustice that's happening to the female students publicly.
Julia: And in the movie, she's quietly the leader. And even that's part of the whole premise of the essay, writing the essay, um, for colleges applications. That to me was just like, why did you throw that in there? Because they made that a thing, right? Like when, when Lucy potentially could be the one who gets to claim that she, or, um, not Lucy, when Claudia could potentially be the one who claims that she started Moxie and her essay, college essay, and then like, you know, um, Vivian kind of bristles at that thought because, you know, she started moxie.
Julia: That's not the tone in the book. Vivian's constantly stating in the book, this isn't mine. This is ours.
Carly: Oh, I thought that she, I felt like she was bristling at that just because she was nervous for Claudia specifically about. Her parents reaction.
Julia: Okay. I took it a different way.
Carly: Yeah. I, I took it as, you know, like, she's like, Like her parents will get over it.
Carly: She's going to have a great college essay. I took it as like, don't tell, like, you just got here, Lucy. You don't know how her parents are. I know how her parents are. But the thing is that kind of doesn't even match it up either because, you know, when she like goes to see Claudia and see how she is, Claudia is like.
Carly: No, I'm not. Okay. And you don't get it. And it's like, wait, what do you mean? I don't get it. So it's almost like, she's like, you don't know. Cause I do. Cause I know Claudia, wait, I don't what what's happening. And I was like, it felt like a really big moment that Claudia was trying. To finally tell her friend who she's been friends with since they were like babies and explain to her how her life is different because she's not white and she has immigrant parents and she has different expectations at home than, you know, Vivian does.
Carly: And it was really interesting because it's like. I felt like that was a very big moment for Claudia to try and explain that. And Vivian's like, Oh, okay. And then it's like, that's it. The moment of understanding, I guess we're done now. Cause I told you that one time.
Julia: And it's a lifelong struggle. You and I have talked about this offline for many, many years, you know, especially because, um, you know, we both have a non white parent where you're like, people don't understand what it's like when you.
Julia: I'm going to go with, I'm going to leave with biracial, but other things too, like in the instance of Claudia, the expectations, everything that you outlined for her and Vivian to be a friends for as long as they have, it makes sense to me for Vivian to still not fully understand Claudia struggles, because I feel like I can't speak for you.
Julia: I'm only going to speak for me because I feel like. I'm always in that situation friends for a decade, and they still, I still can't fully help them understand what it's like to be in my shoes. And sometimes don't want to broach those conversations unless something happens, then it's like, well, now we have to talk about it.
Julia: Now I have to tell you why I'm upset. Now I have to tell you why this is problematic.
Carly: Yeah. But so that was my issue. It's just, it's your very, very best friend. This is the first time this has ever come up in your friendship. I was just, I found that slightly hard to believe, but even if it had, even if this was just boiling under the surface for Claudia and.
Carly: She finally expresses it for Vivian to just like take it that one time and then, you know, it did just like kind of never comes up again, even in the movie, like it just felt like it wasn't enough of an exact acknowledgement. It wasn't really like a listening and learning. It was more of like a listening, giving a slight nod and moving on.
Carly: Yeah.
Julia: Cause they could have done something at the end at the walkout scene to sort of resolve that a little bit better. And I'm always talking about how pop culture and movies and television give us the language we didn't know we had. And that's a missed opportunity to sort of help students and kids and teenagers who don't know how to say, this is why this is hard for me.
Julia: And I need you to understand like that was a missed opportunity. Totally.
Carly: Okay. Since we brought this up, I'm going to get into it right now. The CJ character, my, this was probably, I have many issues with it, but this was my biggest one. CJ's character, they never use the word trans in the entire movie. They never do.
Carly: So at the beginning, when the girls are at the party and then they're kind of like commiserating with the different things, CJ, CJ has like three lines in this entire movie. Um, also she is cute as a button. I was very proud of. The folks who made the movie for hiring a trans actress. I thought that was fantastic.
Carly: Um, anyway, so she said, you know, people are griping about the different things. And she says, yeah, people don't even use my new name. Like, or, you know, people aren't using my new name. And I said, Oh, seriously, not even teachers. And she's like, yeah. And I want to audition for Audrey and little shop of horrors.
Carly: And everyone is upset by this. And that's how she puts it. The thing is, I felt like those lines. If you're not familiar with trans issues, if you don't know trans people, I felt like those lines were so short and so I felt like they could mentally be swept under the rug. If you weren't like. If it wasn't like a, not a trigger word, but you know, it's like, that didn't pop up
Julia: for you.
Julia: You're not familiar with the language.
Carly: If you don't know someone who's had a new name, if that's not something that you and your, your friends, your family have gone through, that might not be something that registers as a thing. And it might just be like, well, anyway, and like move on.
Julia: Yeah, it didn't, I didn't pick up on that, all of that, right.
Julia: The first time. And then the second time I'm watching it, I was like, cause admittedly back in March, I was still learning more about. The trans community and the hurdles that are faced, um, that the trans community faces. So in March, when I watched it, I'm still in like this infancy the second time around, it was like, Oh, there it is
Carly: completely, completely.
Carly: And definitely a community that I feel, um, More comfortable with and like have been, you know doing Lots of different work with you know for a year. So I think that's why it pissed me off even more because for people who are maybe watching this and this is um the first time that they would be ever introduced to a trans character.
Carly: If it's not specifically stated, if they miss it because you didn't say it and because you didn't make it a bigger deal, it almost felt like they didn't say it so that they didn't have to rock the boat enough. Sure. It felt like they weren't proud of having a trans character. Honestly, that's, I felt like as a viewer, that's how it came across.
Carly: Like, just say it stop beating around the bush.
Julia: And that's one of those sub plot characters that could have developed more because the idea, again, the theater stuff, you know, she wants to audition for Audrey, this is a backwards town while in the Pacific Northwest, but if it had stayed in Texas. That could have been a really interesting avenue to explore as one of the sub storylines.
Carly: Exactly. And instead her audition was part of a montage and that's it.
Julia: And the teachers are looking very happy with the way she's auditioning. And I'm thinking, no, I'm, I'm going to go with, I think that if the teachers are refusing to use your new name, they're probably still not thrilled that you're auditioning for this role.
Carly: Yeah. And then, and then nothing. And I'm pretty sure like that besides like, Hey, yeah, like, yeah, that's the end of CJ's lines. Um, I just felt like if you're gonna go there, then freaking go there. Yeah. Don't stop. Like, I felt I felt I found that very
Julia: annoying. Yeah. There's a lot of like highlights too, of things that, you know, black women say have been saying for years that, you know, they, I felt like they kind of plucked out, right?
Julia: Like, don't touch our hair. Don't touch our butts. We're always being whatever, like, these are things that are issues for us when we move into the major dominant culture. And then they just let it. So it was like, Going to pull the headlines. We're going to pop, plop in the headlines, but we're not going to get deep on anything
Carly: at the course of the end of the movie with me.
Carly: And, um, you know, it's like at the rally and like everyone's sharing, they did have that character who got up just to like defend herself. Where has she been this entire movie? Right. What is your name? Who are you? Yes. Why did you not have more? Like that is a person who I want to know where she started from.
Carly: Is this the moment where she felt compelled to share? I don't know. I've never seen you before, right? You deserved more lines. Chances are you probably had them and they were cut. Yeah. Um, but yeah, Vivian's face at the end, like Corey and I were just laughing. Like she was kind of like, I did this.
Carly: Everything's fixed now. Now we're good. Don't worry guys.
Julia: I saved it. I saved it. Racism's over.
Carly: So is homophobia. You're welcome.
Julia: I saved everything. You're welcome. That's a really good segue to move into our next topic. Early on in the book, there is a reference to this band, Heavens to Betsy, which is the band Corinne Tucker left Sleater Kinney for.
Julia: Bikini Kill's song Rebel Girl is a large part of the backbone of the book and is referenced a few times in the movie. The Riot Grrrl scene was very much white and Amy Poehler's character acknowledges its lack of intersectionality briefly in the film. Moxie has been accused of tokenism and the white savior trope.
Julia: In the earlier referenced review by NPR, writer Linda Holmes had this to say, Moxie also tries to tell the story about feminism more broadly. Poehler plays Vivian's mom Lisa as a one time 90s riot girl who knows that her own feminism wasn't intersectional enough. The film Answers this to a degree with the fact that mocks that the moxie club is a lot more inclusive than Lisa's circles sound like they were.
Julia: It includes students of color and a girl who is in a wheelchair, though her role is very small and a girl who's transgender played briefly, but memorably by the wonderful Josie Tota. And I apologize if I pronounce the last name wrong. I have not actually heard any interviews where she's been introduced.
Julia: So I'm not familiar with how to pronounce her last name. The feminist movement is predominantly white since its inception. And only recently has this openly been discussed without bristle and discomfort, though, these things still happen in certain groups, home States, this film answers this to a degree.
Julia: So I have to call this into question. What like, let's talk about, we've briefly already talked about representation and its attempts to address feminism, but I kind of, let's get into it more to your point about. Vivian's face at the end, like I did this, this is mine. I'm so good to me. It felt like they were like, Oh, this is a book about white people in Texas with reference to Lucy Hernandez.
Julia: That's her actual name in the book as well. Seth's last name in the book is Acosta and we late, we learned his parents, Zoe and Alejandro. So I'm, I'm thinking maybe Seth is biracial based on that. Zoe is kind of one of those names that could be in any group. And so it felt like they just sort of like plucked characters from the book and were like, okay, that one's going to be black.
Julia: That one's going to be in a wheelchair. That one should be trans. It didn't feel like there was consideration for. The actual intersectionality. And they were just like, let's have diversity for diversity sake.
Carly: Also in the book, they talk about it a lot more about how, as they reached like middle school, high school, that groups ended up being more segregated.
Carly: Um, and they really dig into that and they talk about how, um, you know, there's like the Latina girls who speak Spanish, the Latina girls who don't speak Spanish. There's like the black students, there's, you know, all these like different, different groups. Um, and so yeah, in the movie, it definitely felt, it just felt like it was more addressed in the book and in the movie, it was definitely more of like a casting choice for 2021 or 2020, you know, like.
Julia: Yeah, I really appreciated the scene in the book where Kiera, where Vivian full on admits that she and Kiera were friends up until middle school, like that whole scene where they run into each other in the bathroom that is described in the book, I thought was really important because a lot, you know, the accusation of the white savior, the accusation of tokenism, I feel like the book.
Julia: Isn't that because she is becoming self aware of all of these little things that are, that have happened and are continuing to happen. And she's acknowledging it. And she's thinking, well, we have to like, what's my, I felt like she was coming at it with what's my role in this. And that's what made. Moxie not having a leader in the book so much more powerful because she wasn't trying to save anybody.
Carly: Yeah. Whereas in it, in the book, it came across as this is for everyone. It's not just about me. Whereas in the book or in the movie, she came across more as a coward who wasn't, who was too afraid to do anything publicly that she only just got pissed in private and then let. Other people who were POCs, like take the fall and, you know, and, and stand up for things publicly because she was like, two chickens should too.
Carly: I, I honestly felt like if they had taken less time in the movie to explore her and Seth's relationship so much and had taken more of that thoughtfulness into, um, taking some of those, the feelings from. The book and putting them in a movie instead that it would have been better.
Julia: I agree because that whole funeral scene date in the movie just doesn't make any sense to me.
Julia: Like it's
Carly: cute, but like, okay. If the book's about like, that's the other thing too. Like if the book's about ultimately about feminism, why is it so much about the making out and the, am I going to have sex with this person and all of that? It just felt like it wasn't really. As important as the message about bringing people together,
Julia: right?
Julia: This isn't a teenage high school rom
Carly: com. Yeah. Yeah. Like what's the point here? Let's find the point and let's dig into it. I
Julia: do love. The actor that played Seth. I thought that he was really, I forget his name off the top of my head off to look at it. I thought that he did a really good job at playing that role.
Julia: The part that was hard for me once reading the book, knowing that he came from Austin. And so when the accusation of rape comes up and they have that fight in the book about it, where he's like, I forget specifically what he says, but he's basically like, you know, just sort of doubting the accusation, which is
Carly: typical.
Carly: Well, yeah. Like that's a big accusation. It could really ruin someone's life.
Julia: Yes. And so in the book, Vivian's like, uh, that ruins her life. And so they have, I felt like Niko Hiraga. Is that how you would say it? Hiraga? Yeah. Niko Hiraga plays Seth and he's just adorable. Um. Oh, cute. And, and just the way that he would like look at her and stuff.
Julia: I was just like, you guys are adorable. But also this isn't a rom com. As Carly has pointed out.
Carly: It was a really cute relationship. They had a bunch of cute scenes. I, I loved the funeral date. I thought it was just precious and adorable. But that said, if you're trying to tie everything up in a bow, there's a lot of shit you left out for the sake of getting all this teen romance in.
Carly: And that wasn't supposed to be the point. So if it's like, it's a timing thing, then like it's, it's really about prioritizing. And I feel like they prioritize. Wrong. I'm usually not that critical of movies. There's so many movies that are absolute pieces of garbage. I've been told by friends
Julia: that I love
Carly: garbage movies, but this movie, it pissed me off.
Carly: I
Julia: feel like that's why I feel like that's fair because the fight in the book between Seth and Vivian about the accusation, I feel like is the way that that fight happens all the time when a woman steps up and makes an accusation. And then the way that they fight about it in the movie felt like she was just being a self righteous human, you know, like it didn't, it wasn't coming from a place of like, how am I, how do I try, how do I say this?
Julia: It's because I haven't explored my own emotions fully with stuff like this either, because it's scary to think about, you know, but I just. Reading the scene in the book just felt like this is a conversation I've had with people when somebody steps up when we're observers of somebody stepping up this conversation at a 16 year old level feels like how 16 year olds would fight about this because the guy's coming from the perspective of like, what if somebody accuses me that scary?
Julia: And then the girls coming from the perspective of like, I don't want my life fucked up because of this. And well, and so I guess they're both, that's the same perspective, I guess, but different angles. Yeah. And in the movie, it didn't feel like that. It just felt like she didn't know how to add, not advocate.
Julia: She didn't know how to, I don't know. I don't know what, I don't know. It was just, it was a mess. I don't know how to further explain it, but to me, it didn't feel as I hate to use the word authentic because we use that word for everything. But I mean, that's
Carly: accurate. Yeah. It's an accurate word choice. Yeah.
Carly: Um, yeah, the scene, um, and I'm totally blanking cause there were only, there were only a few fight scenes in here, but, um, was that the same scene where she like blew up at the dinner table with her mom's boyfriend and all that? I think,
Julia: yeah, I think that came a little after
Carly: that came, that came across as really just like a, um, you know, when you're 16 and you just have so many hormones just coursing through, you don't know how to use your words.
Carly: So instead you just blow up. It. It had that feeling, but it didn't feel as constructive as it could have been.
Julia: Yeah. I also hate that they made it that they brought her dad back to life and just wasn't in the picture. Oh yeah.
Carly: And also it wasn't in the picture. And then She doesn't really reference him until kind of that moment where she's just really upset about this, this, this, this, this.
Carly: And why doesn't dad want to see me at Christmas? And then he's never mentioned again. So you're like, okay, so wait, is this just like actual parental issues? Which fair enough. But why have we never heard of him till now? Why do we never hear of him again? Like, let's just. Let's just reign
Julia: it in guys. They made, she makes an earlier reference.
Julia: That's really quick. And I didn't catch it the first time I caught it the second time where she makes a comment about her dad's wedding. And so, but it's really fast. It's really, really fast. And so for me, the mom being a widow, still in love with her husband, trying to navigate dating somebody in Texas.
Julia: It was so compelling, even though it's a sub thing, then her being, I don't know, we don't know what she left. We don't know. We don't know what, what the demise was. We have no idea. And then that bit about like, Oh, you know, he's like, hello, Mrs. Carter. Nope. That's not my last name. Sorry. That's not my last name.
Julia: I went back to my name and that just felt super pretentious to me. And
Carly: it was kind of like, Nope. Wrong. It's like, okay, well, why don't you just tell him your last name? Or it's not that big of a deal. You don't need to make a point about it. You don't need to be rude about it.
Julia: Like, yeah, correct. Because so in my life, you know, I, my parents are still married.
Julia: Okay. And so that whole concept of divorce parent, isn't a thing for me. So when my parent, when I have friends, who's. Who are divorced and their moms still have the last name that they were given at birth that my friends were given at birth. It's not weird to me because a lot of those moms and I actually had one very specifically say to me when she got because I was older when she got divorced.
Julia: And I was like, Oh, are you going to go back to your maiden name? And she said, no, my children's last name is this. My last name will stay this, even though he did all of these terrible things to me, and I would love to be rid of him. My children have this name. I will have this name. And that stuck with me.
Julia: And obviously because my child has my last name. Um, and so I just, so when I see that sort of representation of like, Nope, Nope, sorry, Nope, that kind of tone, it just kind of makes me feel like, I don't know, I'm not comfortable with it.
Carly: There was just no need to be that rude. Yeah. There was no need for
Julia: it.
Julia: And on the other hand, there are on the other side of that, I have some friends, moms who were like, that man was awful to me. We are done. I do not need a reminder. I'm going to, um, go back to my maiden name. Personally, I hear all these horror stories about what you have to do to change your last name. So I don't know why we bother anyway.
Carly: Um, yeah, and I will say it was, I don't even care that she decided to have her last name. Like, sure. Have your last name change. You'll do whatever you want. It's your name. It's your decision. Just don't be rude about it. Yeah.
Julia: There was just kids being polite. She's trying to make
Carly: sure. Whatever. Yeah. All you have to say is like, Oh, I'm my last name is actually so and so.
Julia: And it's so intimidating to meet your teenage. Partners, parents for the first time. Like that's already, I bought yesterday. Made me give it to you right now. They're trying to be polite. It just made me, that just rubbed me the wrong way, the whole thing. And I don't know if it's because I have teenager and I'm just like, here are the things that I would like for his friends.
Julia: Like I expect them to be polite. 90% of them are, you know, but it's just like, but I'm not gonna be a dick to them. Well,
Carly: if he brought someone home for you to meet, there's no, there's just no
Julia: need to be rude. Yeah. Amen. If this had come out five years ago, I probably would be in immediately in your camp of like, I've got problems.
Julia: But my first initial response was high school, the nostalgia. Oh my God, somebody knows who bikini kill is like other people know who bikini kill is. So I was in this cloud of, of. I don't want to call it sadness because it's not sadness, but I definitely am reliving that the high school, the positive high school feelings through my kid right now, now that he's literally going to graduate 20 years after I graduated.
Julia: So that's an, it's like an extra level of emo happening. I'm going to have to start wearing dark eyeliner again
Carly: and get the banks that just go right in your
Julia: face. I don't, did I, I don't think I did that. Did you do that? No, no, I didn't think you did. No, I missed it. I was more of the short bang, you know, I liked them short.
Julia: Remember they were all cute because I was really pretty back then.
Carly: You're really pretty. Always
Julia: do. I want to talk a bit specifically about Vivian's relationship with Claudia and how Lucy affects this. So for our friends listening. Vivian and Claudia, as we mentioned, have been friends since early primary school.
Julia: If not earlier in the film, Claudia is of Asian descent and is struggling with Vivian's new found assertiveness, not because she doesn't believe in feminism, but because she's 16 with strict nonwhite parents and the complexities that exist for Claudia and Lucy. Don't exist for Vivian. So I think we should speculate a little bit on what the writers could have done to highlight this better through the relationships that exist between these three characters, because Lucy is Afro Latino.
Julia: Claudia says that line, you don't get it because you're not white. Like there's so many avenues that we could have really focused on. The writers could have for me specifically that first scene when Mitchell comes up to Lucy and it's just like when he first sees her and it's just like really gross towards her and just mean and awful to me that felt racially charged.
Carly: Did you feel like that scene you're talking about in the cafeteria right in
Julia: the classroom. Oh, when they first meet. Yeah,
Carly: I felt like that was racially charged to,
Julia: and there's no discussion on that beyond it.
Carly: Uh huh. And in one of the, one of the articles, they say that like, um, he, he spits in her drink because she's rejecting his sexual advances.
Carly: I didn't see those as sexual advances. I saw them as creepy and racist. Same. Absolutely the same aggressive, dangerous, and racially
Julia: motivated. Yes. Same. And so it, it, it, this, after reading the book and then watching the movie the second time, I was like, why aren't you tying that in? Because this doesn't feel like it's because Mitchell wants to bang Lucy to be grotesque about it.
Julia: It feels like he's attacking her because she's a black woman. Yeah, that's,
Carly: that's the vibe that I was getting as well.
Julia: Okay. I'm glad I'm not alone in that.
Carly: No, I was really surprised to see that they wrote that. They're like, Oh, he, she's rejecting his advances. I was like, advances. What? Like to it, everything he was saying seemed just like weird and creepy and
Carly: I'm like at a loss for like the right word. We're like, like there's violence under the surface.
Julia: Yes. And, and Lucy does call that out in the movie later on. And I'm really glad that they put that in there because so often we brush under the rug that type of behavior. And it's passed off as like, Oh, it's harmless.
Julia: That's just hold your, keep your head down. Don't don't antagonize them a number one. It's not my responsibility for you to control yourself around me. I can't, that's not my responsibility. Don't put that on me. That's that's fucked up to like Lucy called it. This is this, if it's not already dangerous behavior, it's the start of dangerous behavior.
Julia: And as we learn later on, both in the book and the movie, he is a harmful person.
Carly: Yeah. Yeah. And in the book, it's attempted rape. And in the movie, he rapes somebody. That's the one person who comes forward. Yeah.
Julia: You know, I did love that in the book, there was more boldness about calling out the action.
Julia: Right. The flyer comes out. Nobody knows who puts out the flyer about this calling for this walkout. So for those of you listening, Moxie the zine has these calls to action for Moxie girls. And so the towards the end of the book. This flyer gets circulated it's taped to the front of the school and it's like it.
Julia: Hold on, I marked it. One of the things I actually like about the printed book is that they put the zine in there. Right. Just like how she would have designed it. Yeah. Oh,
Carly: that's my bad for getting the audio book.
Julia: That's okay. Oh, that's cute. So the flyer in the book says Moxie walk out this Friday at the attendance bell.
Julia: I am tired of being silent. Mitchell Wilson tried to rape me at a party. I won't be quiet anymore. Principal Wilson and the administration of E. R. H. S. refused to listen to me. If you support this walkout, you support all girls. You support a movement that refuses to tolerate violence against girls, which is part of what started the, um, fight between, um, Seth and Vivian.
Julia: But I thought, That was way more impactful than just a note in the bathroom saying this thing happened because it's like Moxie has given the girls of East Rock Rock East East Rockport high school, the confidence and the ability to now say, I have been harmed and I'm not standing for it anymore. And I know
Carly: that I'm not going to be alone.
Carly: Yes. I know that like I'm putting this out there because I know that I won't be alone when I do this walkout. I know you have my back is what that, that's what it came across as to me.
Julia: Yes. And that's huge because it's so scary to come out and say this is what happened to me because immediately you're going to get discredited and people are going to call into question your character and the believability and And, and sadly, the way you dress and the way you behave with other people, shit that shouldn't matter because my actions and behaviors should not.
Julia: Whatever. And so it's just, it was so when that part hit in the book, I was like, yes, girl, let's get you the help. Let's show, we're going to stand up and show up for her. But in the movie, it felt very passive and it didn't highlight the strength that Moxie truly had. Yeah.
Carly: And I feel, I feel like there was more momentum to leading up to the walkout.
Carly: I don't know if in the book
Julia: or in the
Carly: movie. In the book. Mm-hmm. in the movie, it felt like the beginning was too long. Yeah. And then so much happened in like the last like 20 minutes. Mm-hmm. , whereas like there was way too much fluff over here.
Julia: Yeah. I do think that it was a disservice to not expand more on their storylines because it is.
Julia: So that's still a narrative immigrant parents. It's a lot of the pressure, like third 18 year olds today still dealing with that. Like that's never
Carly: going to stop. Yeah. And the thing is even in, um, you know, in the movie, you don't even really see a lot of her parents. It's just like, you know, her going to the door on the mom and like, no, like,
Julia: yes, mom, you defend your girl.
Julia: I know.
Carly: Um, and, um, yeah, that's just, it's not a story. I think it was in the book too. Like she wasn't getting in trouble until recently or I don't know. No, actually I take it back. That was Lucy's grandma.
Julia: That was in the book. Yeah.
Carly: But, um, but yeah. Lucy should have had more of a storyline in the movie.
Carly: Claudia should have had more of a storyline in the movie for a movie that wanted to desperately come across as one of the most progressive, intersectional, diverse cast you've ever seen. They really fell short of actually giving people lines and storylines. And it, it's like they, they were trying. And then just fell super flat, or maybe they were trying, but they weren't really asking the opinions of the right people.
Carly: Like I'd love to see who was in that writer's room and like, what outside opinions, like what other opinions were you getting? Were you just
Julia: so. Insular. Yeah. I did read an article about, I forget who specifically, I don't know if it was Amy Poehler specifically, or one of the writers had made a comment about how, you know, they are coming from a white experience.
Julia: So, you know, that's. Um, and it's a lot of what's happening. And when I read that, I thought that's when you call your friends who are also writers in Hollywood, who aren't white to be like, can you consult? Maybe
Carly: just don't just have all white writers when you're specifically trying to tell a story that includes.
Carly: The voices of others. Yes. I
Julia: agree with
Carly: you. Especially when one of our criticisms is that you're like over here and you're over here and you're over here, like spend that time where you weren't focused, um, bringing in other people's storylines to a better degree and, or developing your points better.
Carly: Like do what you came here to do.
Julia: Yeah, because I think the, the, the, I think the book did it beautifully for what it could do. You know, it's, it's giving you complexities within Vivian because she's, you know, she's learning so much and you're learning with her and then you get more of Lucy in the book. I don't think Claudia was written as a person of color character in the book.
Julia: That's not how it read to me. I want
Carly: to say,
Julia: I don't remember any specific types of references, you know?
Carly: Yeah. I feel like they did once, but I can't remember if I'm remembering that she. Was mentioned as like, I don't know, I think, I think she might've been white in the movie. I mean, in the book, I think,
Julia: I think anyway, the idea of feminism is so scary to people, which doesn't make sense to me because in grad school, we studied feminism, literary theory.
Julia: And I understand this theory to be the combination of elements from psychoanalysis, Marxism, post structuralism, and deconstruction to question the role of gender. In the writing interpretation and circulation of literary texts, like that's the point of feminist feminism, literary theory, in my understanding from graduate school, meaning we look at the ways in which literature reinforces or undermines the representation of women.
Julia: But in my grad school career, that really wasn't part of the conversation. Like we didn't have much discussion about this, this theory and the effects of nonwhite women. And so. To have a book that is so different in what I've read when it comes to white women trying to be woke. And it actually walks her through the process and she's not entitled or pretentious or a savior in it.
Julia: I didn't read her to be a savior in the book. It just kind of bums me out. Do I love that they talked about bikini kill? Yes. Also do better by literary theory, credit feminism, literary theory.
Carly: Yeah. Just be better.
Julia: Yeah.
Carly: That'll be the title. Be better. Is it too much to ask?
Julia: The conclusion from this discussion is that the book is so much better than the movie, though the Moxie movie team really did try. Like I said, this is a replay episode. It's edited down to remove movie specific discussion. So if you want to listen to the full episode, you can head on over to pop culture makes me jealous for that.
Julia: In an interview I found with the author on the website, Screen Queens, she reportedly had little to nothing to do with this film. She also added this quote, something when I wrote Moxie. That was really important to me was that I wanted readers to at least understand or get a sense that living your life as a feminist is really, to me, about liberation, like liberation and joy and living your best, truest self, and that's for boys and girls.
Julia: I linked the interview in the show notes. So if you'd like to read the full thing, you can Carly Adams is a longtime friend. And if you want to learn more about her and her work, Carly Adams is a longtime friend. And if you want to learn more about her and the work she does when she's not on the show, you can find her at tidy revival.
Julia: com or on her Instagram or Tik TOK at tidy revival. Jelly Pops book club is produced, written, and edited by me, your host. If you've loved this discussion, please share it with somebody who is a bookish friend and, or you can write a review and rate us wherever you listen to your podcasts. If you want to chat about this book or movie, you can find us on Instagram.
Julia: At jelly pops books or on Tik TOK at jelly pops book club. You can find me on Tik TOK and Instagram at the Julia Washington. And another way you can stay connected is by joining our Patrion. We have a jelly pops book club tier for 5 a month, which gets you access to our monthly live book club and bonus episodes.
Julia: You can't hear anywhere else. In the meantime, thanks for tuning in y'all. Until next time.
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