The much-hyped Bama Rush documentary begins predictably, with a montage of glitzy TikTok videos, taken in August 2021. That summer, the University of Alabama’s sorority-recruitment process captured the nation’s attention online and never let it go.
In some of the videos, young women in preppy clothes explain their outfits of the day and squeal in excitement for “rush week,” the high-pressure period for potential new members to pitch themselves to sorority chapters. In other clips, #BamaRush fans imitate the women and gossip about the who’s who of sorority recruitment.
Soon, the montage jumps to “bid day,” when the women find out which sorority has accepted them. More squealing ensues. As pastel colors and glitter flood the screen, it’s easy to understand why many young women see sorority membership as key to their sense of belonging on campus.
Bama Rush, directed by Rachel Fleit and released on HBO Max last week, follows four young women — three of whom are white, and one of whom is biracial — who have placed their hopes and dreams for college in the confetti-filled basket of the 2022 rush process.
Paranoia ensued on the Tuscaloosa campus last year amid rumors that Fleit was outfitting students with microphones to record rush-week conversations in sorority houses. The University of Alabama’s president even sent a threatening letter to Fleit about the rumors, according to the film. A spokesman for Alabama did not respond to a request for comment from The Chronicle.
Fleit has said secret recordings never happened. In fact, the film doesn’t fixate on what’s wrong with Greek life, beyond brief discussions of racism and classism and a few mentions of “the Machine,” a cabal of fraternity and sorority members that is said to control campus politics.
Instead, it paints a portrait of 18- and 19-year-old women grappling with the pressure to be perfect. They stress over outfits, hair, résumés, and head shots. They share intimate details about their lives and their fears.
The Chronicle asked two experts on sororities and student affairs what they thought of Bama Rush and whether its depiction of sorority recruitment accurately reflects Greek life at other campuses. Here are three takeaways.
There’s more to Greek life than what is shown here.
Jana Mathews, an associate professor of English at Rollins College and author of The Benefits of Friends: Inside the Complicated World of Today’s Sororities and Fraternities (University of North Carolina Press, 2022), said the University of Alabama is at the extreme end of the Greek-life spectrum.
Everything is political, everything is about boys, everything is about politics and about religion, in indirect ways.
Thirty-six percent of Alabama students are in fraternities and sororities, compared with the national average of 10 percent to 15 percent, Mathews said. Greek life at Alabama is a key draw for out-of-state students.
“Just the way in which the university puts so much money into the organizations and into that culture, it is way beyond anything else you will see anywhere else,” Mathews, herself a member of a sorority, told The Chronicle.
The film also focuses on other National Panhellenic Conference sororities, which are historically white. Alabama did not formally desegregate these sororities until 2013.
National Pan-Hellenic Council sororities and fraternities, which are historically Black, have a rich history at the University of Alabama and other institutions. But only a few minutes of the film are devoted to a Black sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, and its integration of Alabama’s sorority row in the 1980s.
Katherine S. Cho, an assistant professor of higher education at Loyola University Chicago, studies and teaches about racial realities at colleges. She said the film doesn’t delve deeply enough into desegregation and discrimination against Black sororities.
“It was so casual about how we’ve integrated,” she said. “We know just because we say something’s been integrated doesn’t mean it’s been integrated. I could say that my salad has been integrated, but that doesn’t mean anything.”
A deeper discussion of race and class in Greek life is needed.
The documentary does discuss the ways race and class shape students’ experiences with Greek life.
In one scene, Makayla, who is half Black and half white, gets blonde highlights and straightens her hair in preparation for rush week.
“There is a look that is well-put-together and showing confidence, and you have to blend in without crazy sticking out,” a “rush consultant” tells the director in between shots of Makayla brushing her hair. “You don’t have to be like everyone else, but you just need to not stick out.” (Yes, some students hire “rush consultants” to guide them through the recruitment process.)
And there’s a scene in which another rush consultant tells a student not to talk about the “five B’s” — boys, booze, Bible, bucks, and Biden — during recruitment.
“I was giggling as I was watching that because the five B’s are exactly right at the core of the fraternity and sorority experience, behind closed doors,” Mathews said. “You don’t say publicly that we are about any of these things. But when you get into the organization, everything is political, everything is about boys, everything is about politics and about religion, in indirect ways.”
The documentary doesn’t go much deeper than these subtle references to race and privilege. The “abolish Greek life” movement, which drew attention to discrimination, hazing, and sexual assault in fraternities and sororities in 2020 and 2021, isn’t mentioned.
Cho told The Chronicle she kept having to remind herself that the documentary was not for educational purposes but for mass consumption.
“This isn’t a racial reckoning,” she said. “This isn’t the controversial documentary that I would have wanted.”
Mathews said that while the documentary could have done more to interrogate its subjects about race and class, there is also a place for the empathetic, narrative approach it takes. There’s no shortage of criticism of sororities and fraternities on the internet. Bama Rush is more nuanced.
“It could have gone a little bit deeper, and I think that was probably” Fleit’s hope too, Mathews said. “She expressed regret when people were dropping out and deciding not to reveal as much as they perhaps wanted to or should have.”
Don’t expect the film to spur another “abolish Greek life” moment.
“Not to be dramatic,” a TikTok user said in a video shown during the film, “but this HBO special could be the end of Greek life as we know it.”
Fear not. The film isn’t as much an investigation of sorority life as it is an explanation of it. People who are unfamiliar with the Greek-life system will learn a thing or two, Mathews said, but it isn’t likely to lead to a judgment day.
“Ultimately, the film didn’t match the expectations of the TikTok craze itself,” Mathews said. “It was never going to be able to live up to that level of hype.”
If anything, the documentary serves to keep things the way they are in Greek life, Cho said. For example, she said, the film introduces, but does not investigate, the idea that fraternities determine sorority rankings — the unofficial hierarchies that reflect which sororities are and aren’t prestigious.
“It felt like an agendaless agenda,” Cho said, “but there clearly is an agenda about upholding the norm.”
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