While the Girl Scouts of America do plenty to build up young women, they are best known for their cookies. Which makes sense, given that they are an $800 million industry. In her documentary Cookie Queens, currently in theaters, Alysa Nahmias examines this business through the eyes of four young girls who are trying to sell the most product to win fabulous prizes and make their parents happy. Despite the cute little girls, I found myself more angered by their exploitation and manipulation than charmed by their sweetness.
Told in an observational style, the film follows Ara, Shannon Elizabeth, Nikki, and Olive. Ara is an adorable 5-year-old with diabetes, who has to be very careful about sampling her wares. I haven’t been around a little girl like this in a while, and I forget how earnest they can be. Watching her wait on the boardwalk to sell one box of cookies to the woman who said she would try to come back later is sweet and a little bit heartbreaking. Despite the setbacks she encounters, we see her gain confidence through selling.
Shannon Elizabeth is a Brownie. She sets a goal of selling 2,750 boxes, and all throughout the documentary, we see how that choice weighs on her parents, as they discuss the financial hit they will take if she is unable to sell all of the cookies. Though they do a good job of keeping their concerns from their daughter, but even so, that tension is very present nearly every time they are on screen.
Cookie Queens also introduces us to Nikki, who is part of a Girl Scouts dynasty, with two older sisters who have been top sellers. Because her sisters are now teenagers, Nikki is told that she’s the hook, since she’s cute. They are using the money from the cookie sales to fund a trip to Europe. The older girls help Nikki learn various tricks to become a better salesperson, but as the film goes on, they confess that selling cookies feels more like work than fun.
Finally, we have Olive, who, over the course of her time as a Girl Scout, has raised over $200,000 for her troop. In Cookie Queens, she feels like the titular cookie queen, selling more than 10,000 boxes during her run after deciding that she wanted to have a chill year, originally planning to sell 4,500, but constantly being pushed to increase her sales numbers.
There are parts of all four stories that left me feeling uncomfortable throughout my viewing, but Olive’s story was the one that made me angry. We see that she is a talented little salesperson, upselling at every opportunity, so she quickly reaches her goal in what is an abbreviated selling season. At one point, we see Olive and her mom outside selling, and her mom explains that the business is open later, so they could sell longer, as Olive replies that she does not want to stay beyond what they had already agreed to, as her mom continues to push for one more. Every time she reaches a goal, her mom encourages her to reach the next and the next.
As she nears 10,000 boxes sold, she has a very frank conversation with her mom, explaining that while she is ultimately the one making the decision to keep going, she feels that is expected of her. It is a remarkably well-articulated plea to ease off the pressure that she is feeling. That is met with some of the most blatant gaslighting I’ve ever seen, as Olive’s mother feigns ignorance about how she has pressured her daughter, despite the videographic evidence all over the movie. It is absolutely infuriating to watch a 12-year-old have to beg her mother to let her be a child and have that parent pretend like she hasn’t played a role in that at all.
There is no question that we are meant to feel uncomfortable with aspects of what happens to these girls. But where Cookie Queens failed is that by the end, everything works out fine. Ara makes her own sugar-free cookie that she sells to a neighbor whom she discovered also has diabetes. Shannon Elizabeth sells all of her cookies, and her parents don’t lose their house. Nikki is the top seller, and they earn their trip to Europe. And Olive breaks records and gets a meeting with the top folks at Girl Scouts to plead for more money to go to the troops.
I’m obviously glad that everything works out for these families, but there doesn’t seem to be much of an examination in Cookie Queens of how that kind of Glengarry Glen Ross “always be closing” mentality can warp a young mind. Especially when you throw in the MLM-styled fabulous prizes that you can win if you just sell more, and the nod to how you need to be cute to be successful. By showing that this mindset worked for these girls, it really doesn’t hit home how damaging these ideologies can be. And there’s nothing cute about that.
Cookie Queens is now in theaters.
Learn more about the film at the IMDB site for the title.
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