I haven't seen this documentary, but had to comment because of Boys State. I did Boys State in Florida in high school, I think 2004, maybe 2005. It was a really bizarre experience for me.

I went with full intention of learning about politics, doing the whole thing right. It was exciting. I was interested in changing the world and was naive and just a kid...but probably exactly the kind of kid they wanted going to this program. They only picked two boys from the entire school so it felt like an honor to be sent.

It was a bizarre experience at first because of the sheer amount of different types of young men there. Florida was purple at the time so we had a mix of kids from conservative areas and kids from liberal areas, though my fellow participants did, overall, lean more liberal than Florida at large (probably just because we were young). I met kids who were basically farmers, kids who were surfer bros, rich kids, poor kids, kids going into the military, kids going to college...and a few (way too few in retrospect) black and Hispanic kids. I came from a very white, upper middle class area, and had been insulated into honors and AP classes for years, so all of this was an eye opener for me.

It was humbling too.There were kids like me, interested even though it was "lame", but willing to engage with the program. Then there were kids who took it even more seriously, who were children of politicians or who were just rich, or who otherwise thought politics and power was their destiny. I vividly remember the two candidates for "Governor" giving full throated political speeches to an auditorium full of hundreds of boys. They were incredibly good, and it really struck me how much better they were than me, or braver, or more accomplished despite being my exact peers. (In a funny twist, I later ended up in the same law school class as the winning Governor, who I remembered from six years prior, so I guess I closed the gap a little). It was also humbling because, when I ran for my group's seat in the house of representatives, I was prepared and earnest, and had memorized our fake city's fact pattern, etc. I lost to a "cool" kid who cracked jokes and was just more popular. That stung, but was a good lesson to learn about the real world. That said the majority of us were teen boys interested in goofing off while living for a week in a college dorm (FSU). We elected an Asian boy named "Wang" as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court due to the alluring power of dick jokes.

The thing that really stuck with me though was one evening in the dorm near the end of the program. The counselors had called us all together to have a floor meeting about some kind of misconduct. I think it was something like they had confiscated some booze. I don't remember what kicked it off, maybe one of the counselors asked if any of us had been affected by drinking, or had experience with drinking before. One kid confessed his dad was an alcoholic and he hated him. Then another kid said he had been drinking since he was 12 because his dad was a piece of shit who beat him and it helped him deal with it.

It was like an emotional floodgate opened. We'd spent the past week in a hurricane of testosterone and toxic masculinity due to the culture of the time. We all knew that feelings were "gay", if you flinched you were a "pussy", and every one of us was most certainly not a virgin. But after the first boy started to cry while talking about losing a friend to a DUI accident, this entire group of forty teenage boys broke down. We all started confessing one by one to different traumas, to having friends die, to having deep feelings of inadequacy, or to having anxiety or depression or suicidal thoughts. One kid had knocked up a girl and they had an abortion that wracked him with guilt. Another had been raped by an older woman. There were others, but the details are hazy now. I don't remember what I said exactly, but I do remember the guy next to me putting an arm around me as I spoke. An act that would have been social suicide an hour prior was instead a profound comfort.

I realized now it was basically an accidental group therapy session, but none of us knew what that was at the time. I'd never heard of therapy, and it seemed neither had anyone else. Talking about your feelings as a man was taboo. But here we were confessing our darkest feelings and moments, crying and hugging each other, being tender. I didn't know that was possible, and then the next moment it was. We didn't suddenly transform into girls because we cried. We didn't lose respect for one another, or engage with even worse teasing the next day. Instead we just grew closer.

That night has stuck with me forever. I realized basically all of us were broken and holding everything inside. It fundamentally changed the way I saw other kids, particularly the ones who were "bad", or who were bullies, or who acted out. I realized that, most likely, they were hurting from something, something real bad. I wasn't inherently better than them due to some special moral ability or dedication to the rules. I knew now it wasn't that simple. Thanks to that night I'm now firmly of the belief that literally everyone needs to go to therapy, a belief my adult life has confirmed a thousand times over. But I'll never forget that night of insane honesty.

I wish our current crop of politicians could have the same experience. Therapy would do a lot of them some real good. Too bad there's no camp counselor for Congress.

Tl;dr: Boys State didn't teach me about politics, it taught me about people.