Both Maddie Rowan and Emily Worthmore — thoughtful, smart teens from the St. Louis area — had reason to be nervous about being paired as roommates at the weeklong government and leadership camp known as Girls State.
Maddie is a liberal, queer activist from Kirkwood. She remembers telling Emily about her girlfriend and learning that her roommate is a conservative Christian from Mehlville.
That was just one of many character complications in the new Apple TV+ documentary, “Girls State,” which will begin streaming April 5. It’s a film by the same directorial team, Amanda McBlaine and Jesse Moss, who made the acclaimed “Boys State” documentary in 2020. When they completed that project, which filmed in Texas, they began looking nationally for a Girls State program to follow.
In 2021, they were drawn to Missouri. The divide between our blue cities and red suburban and rural communities seemed to capture the hyperpartisan divide in the country, at large. We’re a state of political extremes — both Rep. Cori Bush and Sen. Josh Hawley represent Missourians in Congress.
People are also reading…
So, what would it look like when hundreds of young female leaders from across the state descend on Lindenwood University to learn how to build a government from the ground up?
Macae Mickens, the American Legion Auxiliary Missouri Girl State director, said they were excited to show what makes their program unique and special. She was apprehensive about some privacy and safety concerns. For example, they didn’t want any male crew members in close spaces with the female participants. The production team agreed to their stipulations and brought in a 30-member crew to document the weeklong camp in June 2022.
McBaine said one of the factors that intrigued the filmmakers as they conducted hundreds of interviews during the casting process was how many girls didn’t share their parents’ political views.
“They didn’t fit neatly in boxes,” Moss said. “Their politics were not predictable.”
This was especially true for girls who grew up in conservative, small towns, they said.
Additionally, this year would be the first time that both Boys State and Girls State would be held on the same campus during the same week — albeit in completely separate programs.
It turns out, the girls’ experience was considerably different than the boys.
This realization dawned on the girls when their sessions started with talks about empowerment and supporting one another rather than the rigorous political debates they were anticipating. The boys’ program jumped into those policy discussions right from the start.
The film follows the journeys of an ensemble cast of girls as they try to make friendships, compete against one another for elected positions and navigate their differences.
Maddie and Emily develop a close and supportive friendship despite their political differences.
“In politics we need to have more of these uncomfortable conversations in which we are really listening to each other,” Maddie said. “I don’t think I was really doing that before, and I don’t think adults are doing that now.”
Neither of them have changed their political beliefs, but they did find ways to try to understand each other’s perspectives.
Another participant, Nisha Murali, who graduated from Parkway Central, said it’s difficult to watch herself in the film as she goes through the program. She made a concerted effort to be vulnerable and talk honestly about her insecurities and struggles.
“It was one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever done,” she said. Murali said she’s had to work on turning off the hypercritical part of her brain while watching herself on screen. The students selected for this program are all ambitious, high achievers, deeply involved in their schools. The girls talked about the pressure to portray a confident and “perfect” image in their lives. The feedback Murali has gotten from those who have seen the documentary on the festival circuit has been overwhelmingly positive.
“To hear it resonated with other people, it really drove home to me how special the experience was and how much I grew from it,” she said. Murali, who is now studying engineering at Texas A&M, says she also learned that being politically and civically engaged can happen in many ways.
“There is more than one way to speak about government, and we’ve learned it matters,” she said.
Her fellow cast members say they have come to similar realizations. Maddie is studying to become a special education teacher at Illinois State University. She plans to continue to advocate on issues that are important to her.
“There’s a lot of hate in the world, but there’s also a lot of hope,” she said.
Emily had one of the most emotional storylines in the film as she ran for the top elected position of governor. In one scene on a particularly difficult day, she is in the cafeteria picking up a plate of potato salad. The plate drops from her hands, and she begins to cry.
She asks the camerawoman who had been following her to please delete that footage. She doesn’t want it to end up in the film.
“I can’t do that,” the crew member said. “It’s part of documenting things.”
It ended up as one of the film’s more poignant scenes because it illustrates the pressure that so many of the girls placed on themselves. Emily ends up taking on a journalism project in which she investigates the programmatic differences between the girls’ and boys’ camp experience.
She discovers that Girls State has a fraction of the funding that the Boys State program has. She asks the program director about dress and behavior codes that seem to hold the girls to a different standard than the boys. The girls note that Gov. Mike Parson shows up to swear in the winner of the governor’s race for the boys but not the girls.
Emily’s story runs in the camp’s publication, albeit with a different headline than what she had originally written. She’s now majoring in communications with an emphasis in broadcast journalism at Lindenwood.
McBaine said she’s noticed a different response to parts of the film based on the gender of the viewer. For many women, the systemic differences that come to light in the film — the softball programming for girls while boys immediately delve into politics, the vast disparity in funding, the stricter rules for girls — illustrate the sexism that is baked into so much of our society. The film is about more than a coming of age story of a group of unlikely friends. It’s a story of being a woman in America and how politics impacts their bodies, choices and opportunities.
Since the film was shot, the instructional components of the boys and girls state programs have merged. Both program participants get the same classroom content together. They’ve added an athletic program for the girls, which the boys already had. The Girls State leadership is also pursuing more partnerships and sponsorships to try to close the funding gap between the two programs.
“We’re a couple decades behind,” Mickens said. “We’re at a point where we are trying to catch up.” She was thrilled by how the film spotlighted the spirit and heart of the program.
Meanwhile, the young women are excited for their friends to finally have a chance to see the project that captured such a transformational experience in their lives. Emily said she was initially worried about how her conservative views would be shown in the film, but she’s happy with how she is portrayed.
“Now the whole world will see where I stand on things,” she said. It’s been a huge confidence booster for her to speak out about what she believes.
Maddie said she was struck by the response her 17-year-old brother had after seeing a screening. He told her it made him see womanhood in a different light.
“I hope that feeling is brought to other people,” she said. “I hope it sheds some light and opens some eyes.”