49 pages • 1 hour read
Jennifer MathieuMoxie
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Zines
Vivian’s Moxie zines symbolize her voice and become the method by which she decides to speak out about the discomfort and unfairness she sees around her. She uses the medium of a zine partly because of her available resources but also because it connects her with the rebellious spirit her mother displayed when she was Vivian’s age. Vivian is afraid to speak up among people other than her close friends, so distributing the zines around school allows Vivian to make her voice heard; her speaking up encourages other girls to use their voices as well. Echoing the Riot Grrrl manifesto, Moxie is a way for Vivian to list what she views as unfair, and it becomes an organizing and communication tool, calling girls to collective action. The asshole stickers represent how Vivian is learning to identify harassment and is becoming more willing to call it out. When she sees reactions to the Moxie issue that criticize it for being more angry than organizing, Vivian learns a lesson about channeling anger and using social justice movements for concrete results.
“Rebel Girl”
Vivian listens to music that helps her get in touch with new aspects of her identity. Part of her feminist awakening results from becoming familiar with the Riot Grrrl movement, which is closely identified with the music of Kathleen Hanna and her band Bikini Kill. Vivian also reads the zines, including Hanna’s Riot Grrrl manifesto, and watches a documentary about the artist to learn more about her feminist beliefs. When Vivian listens to the song “Rebel Girl,” it inspires her to become a rebel girl of her own; the song’s anger, clarity of lyrics, and intensity focus her thoughts and spur her actions. A shared interest in music also connects Vivian and Seth. In particularly, the Runaways sticker he has on his binder, when Vivian has a Runaways T-shirt she inherited from her mom, suggests that Seth is not only an appropriate love interest but also a potential feminist ally since they share an admiration for Joan Jett.
The Football Team
The football team represents the larger culture of East Rockport that Vivian finds uncomfortable and oppressive. Adulation of the football team in school illustrates how the students’ education is being undermined while their principal diverts funds to the football program. The fact that the entire town, invested in the fate of a high school team, participates in the football season speaks to the dearth of other cultural activities or interests that the small town provides. More importantly, the football team perpetuates the sexist culture at their high school and symbolizes such attitudes in mainstream culture more generally. This culture permits the unchecked misbehavior of boys, even when those boys target girls with inappropriate sexual attention or harassment. The rationale that “boys will be boys” shifts the blame to girls for the way they dress, behave, or complain. That football star (and son of the principal) Mitchell Wilson is not held accountable for his pattern of sexual assaults represents how patriarchal systems hide or delegitimize violence against women and attempt to silence women who speak out or don’t conform. Telling Claudia that she should take a boy’s sexual interest at a compliment, even when he forces physical contact without her consent, is a further example of how sexist logic privileges the freedom and sexual expression of men over the health and safety of women.
