Boys State

MOVIE #1,609 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 05.07.24 This is interesting but truly getting anything out of it suggests one needs a preexisting desire to give a shit about politics and I'm checked out on that front, fam. I wish they had gotten into the American Legion who put on this clown show a little more because finding out who is responsible for this nonsense seems important. The juxtaposition between these totally aggro budding fascists and the more progressive individuals is mildly entertaining, but maybe not in the way the movie wants it to be. I was struck by how performative the whole charade is. These high schoolers are like fully-formed replicas of the real deal (it's so depressing these kids even know who Ben Shapiro is! go smoke a joint!). Even the ones who strive for the inoffensive middle, the dreaded centrism, seem to be doing so purely because they think it might sell or catch on with the group.

I don’t think there is some moral or societal rot at play: politics is just another game for attention-seekers, one that on some level takes, by far, the least amount of talent to break into. It's been this way for a long time. So it's not the ideas that are bad which is the issue, but the platform that provides a breeding ground for them to begin with. No high-schooler should give a shit about any of this! Hell, normal adults shouldn't. In other, more succinct words: If I watch another child do the Obama finger point and voice cadence thing, I'm gonna scream. I don't give a shit about this patty-cake Lord of the Flies. I’m not sure what the American Legion’s whole deal is, but they should be disbanded for putting this event on, tbh. I hate these stupid T-shirts and these dumb-ass lanyards.

Watching them all on their iPhones in the cafeteria eating the shittiest looking garbage food and wolfing down sponsored soda is perhaps the most telling scene in terms of making a statement about America in this decade. And therein lies the problem: I think the filmmakers have to be ‘politics people’ to a degree and they’re showing their ass on that front big-time. But, hey, I’m now a person who knows what “boys state” is and I wasn’t one yesterday. And oh goodie, I get to watch ANOTHER movie about this absolute bullshit but with GIRLS! I am nothing if not a glutton.

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Boys State is a 2020 American documentary film directed and produced by Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine. It follows a thousand teenage boys attending Boys State in Texas, coming to build a representative government from the ground up. It was released on January 24, 2020.