Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

Who wouldn’t love a documentary about earnest young women plying their neighbors with everyone’s favorite treat – the Girl Scout cookie? They are cute, the cookies are cute, the people who buy are supporting wholesome values, and the meanies who don’t buy are just mean.

This documentary has very little of that treacle.

Instead, it offers a deep dive into the cookie selling season for four different Girl Scouts. Their journeys are unique as are their incentives and goals, but the tie that binds them is their connection to their troops and the larger organization.

The film guards the girls’ identifying information by listing only first names and showing them with parents or elder siblings. We don’t know their troop numbers, their schools, their mother’s maiden name or the names of any pets.

On one level, the movie explores the excitement and effort of the sale. Each Scout sets her own goal and we see them doing this with family input. Something I did not know was that a family would be financially responsible for unsold cookies from their order. That’s a huge economic barrier.

The film also doesn’t distinguish pre-sales from community sales.A little confusing, but this isn’t a deep dive into all things cookie sale.

The girls are diverse with unique interests that they use to help with the sale while also bringing lessons back. One girl is a keyboardist, we see her performing several times. Toward the end when the clock is ticking, she comes up with the idea to set up her keyboard at her selling space and sure enough it draws people over.

While I appreciate the diverse cast, I was disappointed that they framed everything through the experience of the young white girl who was a “super seller” for many years. She’s an impressive young woman, thoughtful, analytical, and willing to challenge herself. She asks herself and her supporters if she’s focused on being a top seller because it is helpful to the troop or because it defines who she is. Would the other girls value her if she didn’t sell 10,000 boxes?

Her anxiety is real, but that’s different than the director’s choices. She’s a kid.

The movie ends with her being invited into an advisory role with national. It felt like of course the young white woman with many advantages sets the pace and the others are included.

The film also fails to acknowledge socio-economic differences. The white girls family does not worry about the economic responsibility, instead helping their daughter focus on understanding capitalism. Other families are notably anxious about supporting their daughters’ vision with their own finances. That felt softened and under explored. So to with the rewards – one girl earns a trip to camp, another a trip to Europe? What?

There was no information about their identities except context clues. I do know for sure if any of the Scouts were trans, queer, or nonbinary. Maybe that’s the point, but it felt like a missed opportunity. There was also little attention to pronouns. Including pronouns would have been the illustration of trans and queer competency versus outing a particular Scout.

However I applaud that the film showed us their stories instead of telling us. One powerful and painful scene involved an older sister – also a Scout – repeatedly questioned about being too old to be a Scout. The struggle to reconcile those comments with her own choices was real and played out on her face.

Parental involvement is key. Parents help the girls set goals. They work out a plan to sell. Parents sacrifice six weeks of their own lives to help them sell. They talk with the girls about each step. One father reviewed cookie ingredients with his diabetic daughter. A mom kept checking in with her daughter about her engagement and interests. She assured her it was okay to take a step back.

The documentary reveals tender care for each girl through the dignity of each shot. Alto, the incorporation of Girl Scout values into the dialogue. I love the girls various forms of bravado, determination, and hard work.

When I was a Girl Scout, I had a few big years selling cookies. What I did not know was that my father had intentionally bought hundreds of boxes that he took into his workplace at a local steel mill, a space where men were hungry and more inclined to buy a box of cookies than hit the vending machine. I don’t remember the year or how many I told or if we had rewards, I just remember my Dad doing that for me.

I wasn’t a great cookie seller – nervous about approaching people with an ask because I envisioned them yelling at me. That would have been a good character trait to address, but this was the 80s. We stuffed weakness inside and tried to vanish.

I wish the documentary had included a little more information on Scouting and cookies. There was a feeling of reverence for the Girl Scouts when in reality $6 for a box of cookies isn’t affordable and offering trips to Europe to girls seems a bit over the top.

Nonetheless, I love that this documentary was about the girls, not the history of the program or recipes or big people problems. A wee bit more info would have helped.

I’ve long thought selling cookies should be equitable. There might be individual achievements, but the sales go into the common pot. Everyone goes camping or to Europe. Acknowledging top sellers means acknowledging lots of other things – creative sales tactics, compassion and helping skills, making sure everyone is included. I bet some of those Scouts are great with a spreadsheet, designing flyers, identifying prime locations to table. It can be a team activity where everyone contributes and everyone benefits.

Socialism, you say. Hardly. The Girl Scouts could not be more of a modern liberal political based construct. Lots of values with the exception of sharing. There’s vibe of rugged individualism that underscores how unsustainable it is. Even requiring families to cover the costs of unsold cookies is a bit well, cruel.

Thus, we come to the fundamental flaw of cookie selling – it is based on capitalism. So while the movie didn’t touch this, it is true that Girl Scout cookies sales are experiencing the throes of late stage capitalism. There’s a part of me wondering when the joy of going to camp morphs into consumer culture.

On my end, several boxes were purchased from a friend’s daughters as well as from the list of trans Scouts and troops compiled annually by journalist Erin Reede. I didn’t want all of those cookies – I was being supportive. Some of the cookies west to my nephew and others to a friend’s sons – we had a cookie tasting party. But it was expensive and I do consider it a donation, not buying tasty cookies.

I recommend this film. It is insightful, these girls are brave and lovely and smart. It is the best of Scouting. These kids are pretty great.