You may remember boy state, the 2020 documentary in which filmmakers Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss delve into the decades-old program that lets teenagers get a taste of the political process. Watching as hundreds of young Texans played out false versions of campaigning, strategizing, floundering and either sticking to their ideological guns or compromising their values for votes, you could easily see the reflection of the real thing in miniature. These politicians-in-training were learning how miraculous, how malleable, and how broken our 21st-century policymaking system is, thanks to first-hand lessons in civic duty and dirty tricks. You could feel both optimistic watching the film (these kids are our future!) and cynical (these kids are our future?!).
The American Legion has run an equally exciting program for young women, too, and while it wasn't inevitable that McBaine and Moss would train their cameras on their original subject's respective XX chromosome, you crossed your fingers that they'd consider visiting the highs and lows of this exercise from across the gender aisle. Less continuity than a sibling, State of girls shares a few things in common with the original doc besides their creators: Both follow a handful of fresh-faced, would-be political sharks and minors over the course of a single session's intense weeklong run, and both hit the seemingly endless river of streaming services — Apple TV+, in this case — in what can safely be called contentious election years. There are many huge ones le diférences this time, though, and not exactly the kind that inspires you to throw a hearty one Ask in front of them.
This time, McBaine and Moss are rotating from the Lone Star State to the Show Me State, with a bit of luck on their side: For the first time in 80 years, Missouri will have both programs on the same campus. Their closeness comes with some caveats…for the female half of the equation. Don't walk anywhere alone. Do not wear tops that are backless. Don't fraternize with dudes who are practically side by side on your show, and ladies, don't make us explain why. In short, remember that you are a young woman living in a nation still defined by two meters and two meters. Also, stop asking advisors about this, they will close this chat. But I am doing Feel free to sing rousing songs during rallies, with choreographed moves that don't suggest future presidential or gubernatorial candidates so much as New Year's cheerleading squads. “If boys don't have to do this,” says one Girls State hopeful, “I'm going to be pissed.”
We've only just met the young women the filmmakers will follow, and already a sense of growing frustration is emerging from the ranks. As for the subjects themselves, they seem to represent a nice cross-section of teenagers with an eye on shaping the country's future. Emily has aspirations of being a rock star, a journalist, or POTUS in 2040, though maybe it will be all three. She's also conservative, and very self-consciously defensive of all those young liberals – which she is loves, don't misunderstand her — prejudging her for it. Nisha is Indian-American, painfully shy and admittedly socially awkward, which doesn't stop her from making friends, especially with her fierce competition for a seat on the high court, Brooke. Tochi is a first-generation Nigerian-American who politely fends off requests to say something in Igbo and would make one hell of a prosecutor. Faith was voted “Most Critical” at school. Her politics were closer to the alt-right because of her family, but then I “grew up” and her views evolved. Cecilia is from St. Louis, she's outspoken and not afraid to call out the program about the fact that she and her peers don't need to be told how to dress, thank you very much.
Brooke Taylor and Nisha Murali, in a scene from 'Girls State'.
State of girls it replicates the pattern of its companion piece—and most contemporary docs with a contest at their center—with testimonial interludes, tag-alongs at group gatherings, and tension over who will and won't realize their ambitions. Familiarity does not breed contempt here, just a slight sense of déjà vu. There's a formula at work here, a winning and well-proven one, and McBaine and Moss stick to it. Minds are changed and opened, unlikely bonds are formed, wisdom and inspiration flow from the mouths of babies (as in younger ones, and not the often pejorative term used for women). It is a document that recognizes that we live in an age in which Tracy Flick is now rightly regarded as his hero Election, rather than the de facto villain. These participants certainly leave their week in faux-politics different from when they arrived.
Yet the word “Dobbs” keeps popping up in every other conversation, and with good reason: The leak of the Supreme Court's then-potential overturning of Roe v. Wade happened right before this session began, and it's here that State of girls distinguished from its fraternal twin. The very real threat of these young women being stripped of their basic rights and autonomy over their bodies has naturally introduced top notes of anxiety into the air. And the fact that, unlike the Boys State events happening right on the other side of campus, it takes the program almost halfway to let them discuss it in a public forum only underscores the overall difference. “I'm a bit tired of the fluff,” says one participant. “I bet they're talking about the 2nd Amendment,” another woman muses a few days later. “I bet they're not talking about crop tops.”
Boys State it had the advantage of being able to target larger symbolic failures about what we talk about when we talk about the political process and its effect on the American experiment. State of girls it would like to address the exact same issues, but like society itself, it finds itself forced to repeat basic concepts of freedom and sexism and inequality instead of addressing fundamental issues. And like the young women we spend nearly two hours with, we also emerge feeling a sense of empowerment and a palpable sense of deflation. Following the Supreme Court's bogus ruling on privacy issues surrounding abortion clinics and mandatory counselling, Brooke is asked about the exercise. It was exciting, he admits. But then he realizes that none of this changes the fact that old people in the real world are about to make real twists that will make this kind of arbitrary, and “I feel kind of sad, too.” Soon after this session ends, Roe v. Wade will indeed be overturned. We know exactly how he feels.
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