Variety Pans Meghan Markle-Produced "Cookie Queens" Doc
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- "Cookie Queens" is a documentary directed by Alysa Nahmias and executive-produced by Meghan Markle and Prince Harry that follows four girls during the six-week Girl Scout Cookie season, according to Variety's review.
- Girl Scouts of the USA sell over $800 million worth of cookies annually in just six weeks, with each $6 box netting the selling scout only $1 and the remainder going to the local council.
- The film's four subjects are 12-year-old Olive of Charlotte, N.C. (8,000-box goal), 5-year-old Ara with diabetes, 8-year-old Shannon Elizabeth of El Paso (2,750-box goal), and 9-year-old Nikki of Chino, Calif., one of whose sisters is a past Cookie Queen.
- Olive argues the $1-of-$6 split is unfair and suggests a 50-50 split with the council would be more appropriate, but the documentary drops that thread rather than developing it into an activist narrative.
- Parents are deeply enmeshed in the sales — one mother says she may have to mortgage their house to buy inventory upfront — and the review notes their involvement may be more than it once was, or should be.
- The reviewer criticizes the film for never addressing the history of Girl Scout Cookies (launched in World War I to raise money for U.S. soldiers) and for functioning more like "Dance Moms" meets a preteen "Apprentice" than a documentary.
Why it matters: The review positions the Markle-Harry produced film as a missed opportunity: it spotlights the $800 million cookie trade and the lopsided economics ($1 to scouts, $5 to councils) without ever asking the harder questions its own 12-year-old subject raises, leaving viewers with reality-TV spectacle instead of substance.
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