One girl was asked about a significant Supreme Court case and picked \u201cthe one with Johnny Depp and Amber Heard.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Someone thought it was a good idea to have the opening night icebreaker activities include a bracelet station and cupcake decorating. And yet, the worst political judgment in \u201cGirls State,\u201d the documentary follow-up to the award-winning \u201cBoys State,\u201d is the decision of the Governor of Missouri to appear at the ceremonial swearing-in for the high school boys\u2019 gathering, ignoring the girls\u2019 meeting at the same time and in the same location. It is not the only disparity between the two programs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Boys State, sponsored since the 1930s by the American Legion, and Girls State, sponsored since the 1940s by the American Legion Auxiliary, are programs in every state but Hawaii that bring high school students together for a week to create a government, including appointment of a Supreme Court and election of a governor. Like its predecessor, this film is perceptive about these impressive young women who display dedication, seriousness of purpose, and genuine public-spiritedness. It also shows us some endearing naivete (one says she wants to be President of the United States, a broadcast journalist, and a rock star), and their embarrassingly accurate imitation of what they have absorbed from careful observation of some of the failures of our national politics. At least a few of the participants figured out that teachers may tell you a candidate gets more votes by showing competence and reliability and a forthright statement of policies and priorities, but they have seen\u00a0they can do better with a rousing speech about how right and powerful and deserving the voters are.<\/p>\n
This film was made in the spring of 2022, just after the leak of the Supreme Court\u2019s draft decision in the Dobbs case, showing that the Court planned to overturn the right to abortion, but before the decision was announced. Understandably, this was a topic of intense interest for the teenage girls gathering to debate the most complicated and controversial issues of policy and politics. Indeed, one of the film\u2019s highlights is the extremely sophisticated and thoughtful challenge to Missouri law requiring counseling before an abortion that is the issue in Girls State\u2019s sole Supreme Court case, expertly argued by two young women and thoughtfully considered by seven robed \u201cjustices.\u201d One of the film\u2019s most vibrant characters, Tochi Ihekona, from an immigrant Nigerian family, ably argues in support of the law, contrary to her personal views.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The film begins some historic photos of important political gatherings, each featuring just one woman, including Justice Sandra Day O\u2019Connor with her colleagues and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the Oval Office. And then the first speech we hear from the Girls State podium frames the issue in the present. One of the young women tells the attendees that she wants to be like Glynis Johns in \u201cMary Poppins,\u201d calling for women\u2019s suffrage in a \u201csoft, fluttery voice\u201d that \u201cexudes strength.\u201d \u201cShe is powerfully feminine,\u201d the speaker continues, cautioning her fellow participants to resist the temptation to get loud.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One girl was asked about a significant Supreme Court case and picked \u201cthe one with Johnny Depp and Amber Heard.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Someone thought it was a good idea to have the opening night icebreaker activities include a bracelet station and cupcake decorating. And yet, the worst political judgment in \u201cGirls State,\u201d the documentary follow-up to the award-winning …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[58,43],"class_list":["post-1345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-documentary-movies","tag-apple-tv","tag-documentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}