Former MAGA to undercover conservative, characters make 'Girls State' a fascinating watch

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic

Thu, April 4, 2024 at 12:01 PM UTC

5 min read

Timing is everything.

That’s one takeaway from “Girls State,” the excellent, thankfully inevitable follow-up to the also excellent “Boys State.” Both are directed by Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss; both follow students through the weeklong program that immerses them in government. But not JUST government.

As Maddie Rowan, one of the participants, says at the beginning: “There’s a funny feeling in the air. There’s something in the air. And it’s politics.”

Is it ever.

“Boys State” came out in 2020, but the events took place in Texas in 2018. Gun control and abortion rights were central to the debates as the boys running for office shaped their platforms.

“Girls State,” however, takes place in the summer of 2022 in Missouri, and timing is everything.

When does 'Girls State' take place?

It’s set in the strange time between the leak of the Supreme Court draft that outlined the decision to kill Roe v. Wade and the announcement of the decision itself; the decision was handed down six days after "Girls State" ended. The inevitability colors everything, playing out like a slow-motion car crash, one in which you know impact is coming but you can’t do anything to avoid it.

Tochi Ihekona — who at the outset muses that for some of the participants from smaller, more rural communities, she might be the first Black person they’ve ever interacted with — personifies the real-world political stakes when she is tasked with with defending the state’s requirement that women seeking an abortion must undergo mandatory counseling. Tochi is smart and does her job well, but her beliefs don’t line up with the state’s.

As with “Boys State” — as with any good documentary — the film’s success is dependent upon the characters, and once again McBaine and Moss have found a crop of compelling ones. They flit through a flurry of girls at the outset, as the participants check in and decide what they want to do with their time there. Nisha Murali, for instance, uses her campaign to be on the Supreme Court as a means of overcoming her shyness (though she is plenty passionate about issues). There’s also a funny bit where another girl who is running for the Supreme Court is asked what case has affected her most. She goes with the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard defamation case without hesitation.

The participants in 'Girls State' are products of the times

Of course, the most ambitious girls know from the start what they want and scheme to get it. Governor is the highest office, and it’s in that race the star of the film, if it can be said to have one, emerges.

Emily Whitmore announces herself as “that girl” in her high school, the one who not only participates in everything, but more or less runs it all, too. She hasn’t lost an election since grade school, and not only does she plan on running for and winning governor at Girls State, she plans on being President of the United States in 2040. She has plans, you might say.

Ah, but the best-laid plans and all that. It’s no spoiler to say that things won’t go exactly the way Emily imagines they will — no spoiler because do anyone’s, ever? She has kept her conservative views under wraps so far, she says, so that she won’t turn off any potential audience — the “Republicans buy shoes, too” reasoning that Michael Jordan popularized. (That a high-school girl thinks in terms of an audience already says something about both Emily and the times in which she lives.)

Emily uses Girls State to announce her conservative views — but she also insists that she has no interest in forcing them onto anyone who disagrees with them. She’s never going to get her MAGA credentials with that attitude. One of her rivals, Faith Glasgow, WAS a MAGA follower, thanks to her family and community. But she has rejected their beliefs and runs as a hard-charging progressive. (She was voted Most Judgmental in her Girl Scout troop, she notes with a touch of pride. She’s not there to make friends, she says. She’s there to talk about politics.)

'Girls State' shines a light on inequality, in mock and real government alike

For the first time, Boys State and Girls State are held on the same Missouri college campus, though there are strict rules against any interaction. The girls, who have a stricter dress code and other more rigid requirements, begin to chafe at the inequality.

Why, for instance, does the actual governor of Missouri swear in the boy who wins Boys State governor, but not his female counterpart?

This leads to a somewhat surprising and hopeful development, though inequality, whether seen through how much say women have when making choices about their bodies or through the disparity in spending on Boys State and Girls State, remains prevalent throughout.

If the purpose of Girls State is to give high-school students a taste of how government works in real life, “Girls State” makes a case that it does its job only too well.

'Boys State' review: An enlightening, depressing documentary about politics