In the summer of 2017, husband and wife documentary filmmakers Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine read a news story that caught their attention. They learned that lawmakers in Texas voted to resign from the union – only the lawmakers, in this case, were teenage boys who participated in a comprehensive simulation of the week called State.
Boys State, a summer program sponsored by The American Legion, would perhaps be described as the political equivalent of Model UN as a moot court. Every year, 1,100 teenagers in states across the country gather to build a mock state legislature, debate ridiculous bills and hold ridiculous elections, and culminate in a gubernatorial contest. Leading alumni of the program include Bill Clinton, Dick Cheney and “Quantum Leap” star Scott Bakula.
Moss and McBaine put a zero on the Texas program as the subject of a documentary that would explore questions about the democratic process and the electoral system. (There’s a separate program for girls.) The result, “Boys State,” premiered for reviews at the Sundance Film Festival in January and airs on Apple TV Plus on Friday.
“Boys State” is a Rorschach test. It will strike some viewers as a galvanizing ode to the bourgeois passion and rhetorical talent of American youth, a sign that self-government is alive and well. It will strike others as an alarming portrait of breast-dumping masculinity and political cynicism run amok, a proof that the rising generation has fully embraced what some find most corrosive about the real Washington.
But the film is also a collection of riveting character studies. Moss and McBaine train their lens on four standouts: Ben, a staunch conservative who plays hardball politics; Steven, a humble progressive who preaches moral leadership; Robert, a benevolent jock with a half-formed political identity; and René, a preternaturally gifted orator who is one of the few Black children in the program.
In a recent joint interview, Moss and McBaine spoke to NBC News about the unexpected drama and emotion of their experience with the creation of “Boys State,” and what the film has to say about the future of American political conversation. Here are excerpts from that conversation, edited for length and clarity.
The film sheds light on two boys who seem to represent the current American political divide: Ben is a Reagan worship arch-conservative; Steven is a Bernie-supporting progressive and the son of Mexican immigrants. Do you intend to follow two children who portrayed both sides in our culture war, or did that happen organically?
MOAS: What is so unique about the [Boys State] program in American life is that it brings people together with different policies, and that they actually talk face-to-face with each other. We wanted these views to be reflected in the characters we chose.
When we found Steven, his policies were kind of unusual by Boys State standards, which is mostly conservative. It was a lucky discovery. Ben, as you say, is a Reagan-loving conservative who has a Ronald Reagan doll on his bookshelf. His political boredom and ambition appealed to us.
I think it was also a happy accident that the main drama of “Boys State” really pits these two ideologies and views against each other, because that is the national conversation.
It struck me that the film is as much a chronicle of a ridiculous election process as it is a study of modern masculinity, including what some might call toxic masculinity. Do you have any realizations regarding gender identity when you worked on this production?
McBAINE: How could I not? I was the only woman in a room of 1,100 17-year-old boys.
We went to the program with questions about the health of our democracy and hyperpolarization, and how it has the next generation. But then, once we were there, we saw that we had this unusual window in the youth circa 2018, circa #MeToo, circa conversations about toxic masculinity.
I immediately recognized that I had brought a certain amount of prejudice about how that group was dealing with this and what I would see. I expected to see “Lord of the Flies” and pandemonium and machismo – and I did. I also saw this range of masculinity I had not expected, especially in Steven: empathic leadership, listening, hunger for conversation and compromise.
In the end, I think the biggest surprise for me was how emotional the week was. We saw a lot of crying. I really had to ask my own thoughts on what masculinity is – what I think is a powerful reason I make documentaries is because I want to force myself to ask myself questions.
I was particularly fascinated by the evolution of Robert, who introduces himself to the other child as an anti-abortion hard-liner, but, in a remarkable scene, privately confesses to the camera that he is pro-choice.
MOAS: Robert has not really decided who he is, what he stands for, or how he will behave. I think we would be interested in that internal wrestling match really unexpected and fascinating. At first when we met him, it looked like he was outraged by “Dazed and Confused.” He was a handsome, happy-go-lucky kid with a lot of confidence.
We knew he was smart and complicated. We were just not sure until he revealed to us that he was not really completely truthful about his views as a method of political calculation.
Steven, despite his humility, had an inner self-confidence. Robert, despite his outward self-confidence, was really less controlled about himself. I think the extent to which these young men knew themselves during the intense week was truly unexpected for us.
The ridiculous election at the heart of the film is really riveting and surprising, so I do not want to give too much away to our readers. Suffice it to say, the film follows children whose intentions are noble and other children who do things that many viewers may not like. Did you get away from this experience more hopeful than scared about the rising generation of political aspirants?
McBAINE: [Laughs.] We both ran out of this program a bit of both, but most hopefully, honestly, because I think two of our kids in particular navigating this environment was so inspiring.
The level of involvement of the children is exciting. I do not remember that at the age of 17 I was quite politically active. They know so much about politics and they are so eager to do so, in part because they inherit a world that has problems. It’s exciting to be reminded that you need that kind of energy when democracy is in such a fragile state.
MOAS: I think that’s right. We see two young men of color – Steven and René – enter this space, which is quite conservative and mostly white, and put themselves out there. We see voters turn up to support them. We see Steven calling up her better angels. We see René elected chairman of the [fictional] Nationalist Party.
We see them negotiating over this space while maintaining their politics and integrity, and it reflects the struggle we are now seeing and have seen forever in this country. They achieved success that was substantial enough for us to be encouraged. Meeting young people with such a sense of self, and moral leadership, was deeply encouraging.
The film would not be honest if we did not encounter a dark side and show that we all know we are everywhere in the politics around us – and no surprise, we see it at Boys State.
We are reminded that even in this unlikely corner of Texas, there is a space where people from different politics come together. They may sometimes strongly disagree, but they can still talk civilly to each other and find common ground. That, perhaps, is not something we see very differently, and that is a really hopeful message.
McBAINE: The Texas Boys State Legislature in 2018 Votes for a Universal Background Check – in Texas! – which is not what Washington did. That’s where I get my hope.
