Bama Rush

Synopsis: Women students at the University of Alabama put a lot of effort into getting accepted as sorority members. (Streaming on HBO Max)

“I hear that sororities are full of mean girls.” That’s me when talking to a woman who is/was in a sorority. And this is what they always say in response, “My sorority’s not like that.”

Bama Rush, a documentary by director Rachel Fleit, explores the phenomenon of ‘rushing’ at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. UA is big on Greek life.  For the uninitiated, that’s sororities and fraternities, not the study of mythology or Athens.

Rush Week is at the beginning of the fall semester and consists of women (usually freshmen) rushing around to meet and greets at sorority houses where they are interviewed and inspected as potential new members (PNM). Rushees submit applications which can include resumes and headshots. The different sororities’ members will vote on who gets to be a new ‘sister.’

#BamaRush blew up on TikTok, aka Rush Tok, with vids of PNMs showing off the elements of ‘fits they were planning for sorority meet and greets during Rush Week. One young woman asks people to pray for her. Yes, can’t forget that. God gets too many prayers on behalf of sick children and relatives looking for jobs.

Conventional wisdom, and TikTok, indicate that the University of Alabama is the trend setter in sororities. There are women who are very invested in getting into their preferred sorority. Note that long blond hair and money help.

A sorority consultant- yes, it’s a real job- counseled a rushee to refrain from asking about or offering opinions on: boys, booze, Bible, bank/$ or Biden/politics. So like, don’t say, ” I really want to get drunk with a cute frat guy.” (We know) or “My family is loaded.” (They know). It’s pretty clear that this is not the scene for a woman wearing a hajib. No, not even if it’s Dolce and Gabbana. Likewise, boosters of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are not likely to find kin among the sisters at UA.

In Bama Rush, current members of sororities are interviewed, but the focus is on four young women; two are high school seniors who are already preparing for Rush.  It seems that Greek life rules the campus with 39 frats and 24 sororities.

And support for the football team is intense– frenzied, some might say. Plenty of selfie ops at the games and if you are in a top tier sorority, you can get good tix.  If you support another team or don’t like football, keep it quiet lest the Crimson Tide roll right over you.

Shelby is a high school senior in Illinois who has been competing in beauty pageants and dance competitions since she was a child. She reports that she founded a non-profit that aids foster children. Shelby has a binder in which she organizes all her Rush materials/aids. She has blond hair.

Isabelle, whose blond hair is getting blonder as Rush Week approaches, is from California. (Hey girl, your state has amazing public options like UCLA and UC Berkeley.) She has a consultant coaching her on being successful at Rush. She says she’s heard UA sorority sisters “don’t like girls who dress ‘too northern.'”

Presumably there is a Southern Belle ethos to uphold; don’t leave the house without hair, makeup and appropriate cute outfit. Some houses don’t allow women to walk around the house with wet hair. Right. Can you imagine the horror of having your morning Caffè Americano and seeing some female person making brekkie with water-soaked hair?

Mikayla is a sophomore at UA who is majoring in criminal justice. Presumably, one cannot major in sorority. Mikayla is biracial and has chosen to not have blond hair. There are traditionally Black sororities on campus, but not as historical as white sororities because UA, founded in 1831, didn’t admit Black students until 1963 when a federal district court directed them to do so. Those feds!

UA moved to end segregation of sororities in 2013 after the campus newspaper, The Crimson White, reported on denial of Black women’s sorority bids outside of traditionally Black sororities. No news on whether biracial women were accepted before 2013. Reportedly, there were white alumnae who threatened to end UA donations if Blacks were allowed into the fancy plantation houses– I mean, sorority houses. Maybe they could’ve harked back to their antebellum values and found it in their hearts to accept quadroons rushing.

Mikayla is close friends with another UA student, Holliday. Holliday had rushed the year before but was dropped when she wore a sticker with one sorority’s letters to another sorority. Inexcusable! Not even her blond hair could save her from being dropped from sisterhood.

Not surprisingly, some sororities are more prestigious than others. And some women on campus say that the fraternity members have decided the popularity of sororities based on how pretty their members are. If you think that’s the worst thing these guys do, you haven’t been a woman at a frat party.

The rushees who are interviewed cite the benefits of sorority membership as they see it: ‘belonging,’ the camaraderie of sisterhood, networking for career and study banks. (LGBTQ presence seems to be ignored, or at least cis hetero identity seems to be the norm.) It’s not a stretch to presume that a bunch of teens are also interested in the status of getting in a particular frat or sorority, access to the best parties and the most sexually attractive members.

Criticisms of the social stratification of Greek life include: increased binge drinking, chance of women being sexually assaulted, higher rate of eating disorders among women, reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the promotion of an old boys’ network in Alabama politics and career-making.

Bama Rush also reports on The Machine at UA. What’s that? A secret society run by fraternities that subvert fair elections on campus. There is documentation that they rigged student government elections. After selecting candidates, they would direct the frat and sorority members on whom to vote for. And maybe even more importantly– they chose Homecoming Queen. There must be something in the Bible against that!

The true believers at UA trolled Bama Rush online, warning director Rachel Fleit, away from criticism. They instructed sorority members to be on the lookout for a bald woman (Ms Fleit) who was trying to interview and possibly mic fake PNMs to get dirt on sororities. She denied the charges. One comment read: The Machine is powerful– watch out HBO.  Yikes.

Whether to rush has a push-pull quality that is articulated by two women. One rushee states: You want to belong. Another woman decides against rush, saying: Be your own person. It seems that rushees see the high pressure of being judged by women a year or two older than them as worthwhile for the benefits of getting what seems like an instant friend group. Non-rushees seem to be most comfortable with an unstructured approach to friendship.

Alexandra Robbins has an excellent book, Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities wherein she reports on her year spent interviewing and observing sorority members. My main takeaway was that the women had solidarity with sisters outside the house, but broke up into subgroups within the house, each woman with her own conflicts and alliances. To me, the exclusionary nature and imposed conformity of Greek life doesn’t seem worth it, but I have to say that the few women I’ve talked to who stayed in a sorority until graduation seemed to like sorority life overall and kept in touch with some sisters.

As to the mean girls question and the answer that ‘my sorority’s not like that’?  Can, I, a non-sister get the truth? Maybe not, but I’d hazard a guess that, owing to human nature, a student is just as likely to find people they like and don’t like living in a dorm vs a sorority house. To each their own. My advice? If you are a transgender person who hates football, this might not be a happy place for you.

*The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa Alabama has a student population of more than 39,000. Roughly 77% of students are white, with 11% Black students. Women make up about 57% of student population– and they are not all in sororities.

In-state tuition is $11,100 and out- of-state tuition is $32,400. More than 1,100 students are National Merit Scholars. College of Nursing graduates have a 99.2% licensing exam pass rate. UA’s MBA program is rated #26 among public business schools according to US News and World Report. Also acc. to USWR, UA has an 80% acceptance rate and is ranked #91 in publicly funded schools. And… K-12 per pupil funding, is $10,077 in Alabama which ranks 40th among the 50 states. By comparison, the top 4 states (NY, CT, NJ & VT) spend twice as much per child.

P.S.  FUN STUFF… a link to sorority sisters’ experiences in their own words.

P.P.S.  SERIOUS STUFF… Click here for info on women’s issues in Alabama

P.P.S.S.  UA’s student newspaper, The Crimson White, reports on The Machine and its relationship to student government.

Movie Loon’s Movie Review Shortcut:

Grade:   B

Cut to the Chase: Worth watching if you are interested in the juiciness of human relationships and learning about various subcultures.

Humor Highlight: Women at UA who say they don’t know what The Machine is. Yeah, and I bet you don’t know that your university has a football team too!