“Bama Rush,” a new documentary chronicling sorority recruitment at the University of Alabama, is now streaming on Max.
Despite complaints from University of Alabama and threats from sorority chapters, director Rachel Fleit and her documentary crew gained access to four women in the months leading up to Tuscaloosa’s annual rush week. As #BamaRush went viral on social media for the second year in a row in 2022, the crew embedded itself in Greek culture on and around campus.
The film explores Alabama’s status as a Greek life haven, the hierarchies within campus sororities, the anxieties women have throughout the recruitment process, racial disparities on campus and the famously secretive organization behind it all, The Machine.
Through interviews with aspiring sorority pledges, active members, rush consultants, journalists and others, we gain unique insight into how it all works in Tuscaloosa in this slick and thoughtful film. Below are 16 things we learned watching Max’s “Bama Rush” documentary. Warning: This list contains spoilers for the film.
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Alabama is the Greek life standard
“I remember when we were going through recruitment at Georgia, we would all be looking at what Alabama was doing,” says Sloan Anderson, a Rush consultant, early in the documentary. “Yeah, they’re just the trend-setters. I think that’s why so many out of state decide to go to the University of Alabama and rush. It’s just this beast, because Greek life is everything at Alabama.”
For some, sororities give identity or ‘branding’
“Something that’s ingrained in us early on is that, yeah you’re a person, but you’re a Sigma Kappa first,” says Rian Preston, an active member of Sigma Kappa. “You’re a woman, but you’re a Sigma Kappa woman first. And that’s a lot of what being in a sorority is -- it’s branding. That’s every single Greek organization. That’s kind of one of the things that we sign on to when we join one.”
Sororities are a ‘proving ground’
“Rush is a social stratification ritual, bar-none,” says “Southern Beauty: Race, Ritual, and Memory in the Modern South” author Elizabeth Boyd, who also said she visited UA to observe sorority rush parties. “Stratification in the sense of organizing people and groups of people into tiers of power, of status, or prestige. It’s a proving ground of competitive femininity, and the contemporary performance of the Southern belle.”
MORE: Who’s in the Bama Rush documentary? Here are the names of 4 students featured
Sororities are ‘ranked’ at Alabama
“I think the competition mostly comes from the rankings of sororities -- trying to get into one of those top or middle-tier houses and not getting into a bottom house,” says Gracie O’Connor, active member of Pi Beta Phi and vlogger.
Director Rachel Fleit asks O’Connor what determines the rankings. “I think a lot of the times people like to rank -- and by people, I usually mean fraternity boys or boys in general. I feel like they’re like, ‘Oh, this house has the hottest girls, so they’re a top house. These freshman are the hottest freshmen, so they’re going to be considered a top house.’”
Rush consultant Sloan Anderson also says fraternity influence determines any rankings. “They have a social calendar, and they get to mix with certain sororities, but it’s only a limited amount,” she says. “And the fraternities want to be mixing with the hottest sororities, of course, because they’re 20-year-old males. So that’s kind of where the ranking system comes from. They want to make sure the girls who are wearing their letters are up to their standards.”
That ‘hierarchy’ really matters
“The hierarchy of sororities that exist here really determines how your experience in the Greek system is going to be,” says Rian Preston, an active member of Sigma Kappa. “There are a lot of things that you’re entitled to when you’re in a top-tier sorority. You’re entitiled to test banks that are going to help you on your exams. You’re entitled to people in your sorority that have better connections, whether their parents are richer or more connected. You’re entitled to a male gaze that might be a little more beneficial to you. So being in a ‘bottom-tier’ sorority, I have to understand that at some point, there’s nothing I can do to change institutionalized rankings.”
Sororities have unusual rules, dating back decades
“Because it started so early on in the 1800s...there’s kind of like those really old-timey, strict rules of what the group is,” says Madyson Rae Certeza, an active member of Zeta Tau Alpha.
Leah Nelson, an active member of Gamma Phi Beta says, “We are not allowed to drink in our letters, whatsoever.”
Chi Omega active member Cameron Carley says, “I don’t think in any of the sorority houses you can have alcohol. It must be a Panhellenic rule because fraternities are always allowed...and it’s, the amount of alcohol in that house is disgusting.”
PNM Hailey Holliday shares another rule she called “really dumb,” which is “no wet hair” on the first floor of the house.
Leah then says a friend told her about one house’s rule that said women could not leave their dorm “unless they had two out of three done, which was either you had to have your hair done, makeup done or outfit on. All it takes is one person to know what chapter you’re in and to reach out to somebody and you can be in trouble the next day.”
Women see ‘Rush Consultants’
Potential New Members (PNMs) are entering a sometimes-overwhelming process that can take its toll mentally as they navigate sorority recruitment. We see doc subjects like Isabelle Eacrett and Makalya Miller visit “rush consultants” before embarking on their respective journeys.
Makalya visits Trisha Addicks in Atlanta and asks what to do when she runs out of things to talk about with active members. “I can help you be prepared for that awkwardness so you’re not gonna have it,” Addicks tells her. Addicks reveals she was dropped from a sorority as a freshman at UA only to try again the next year. “It has made me uniquely understand the feelings that these girls are having,” she says. “I can recall that feeling just like it was yesterday. From that experience, that’s why I started this business.”
The Five B’s
Rush consultant Sloan Anderson tells PNM Isabelle which topics to avoid discussing during recruitment process. “You have to remember who’s recruiting you,” Anderson tells her. “Nineteen-year-olds, 20-year-olds and 21-year-olds.”
She says sororities want PNMs to stay away from five topics, which are called “The Five B’s.” Boys (fraternity boys; “If they bring it up, it’s OK to talk about it, just you don’t want to initiate that conversation.”; Booze (“Just don’t talk about alcohol.”); Bible (“Asking about their religion, what church they go to...”); Bucks (“You don’t want to be like, ‘Does your dad own a yacht off of the South of France?’”); Biden (“All it means is politics.”).
You have to be ‘pretty enough’ to get in
Rush consultant Sloan Anderson says looks matter “to a certain extent” and they “only really truly matter” in round one. But she says there are “four main steps” that help women stand out during recruitment: 1) Getting your name out there, 2) Mindset, 3) Small talk (”the most important”), 4) Optimization strategy (”playing the game”). “Sorority recruitment is a game,” she says. “You have to know how to play it to keep sororities interested in you.”
The Machine is very real
The doc shifts gears to focus on the Machine, otherwise known as Theta Nu Epsilon, a secretive and select coalition of traditionally white fraternities and sororities designed to influence campus politics at the University of Alabama.
Garrett, an Alabama SGA associate justice, says the Machine is the Greek system. “They control everything on this campus,” he says. “So if there’s an election, the Machine is rigging it. If there’s a homecoming queen, it’s the Machine candidate.”
Alex Smith, a Phi Mu alum and former Machine student senator, gives a rare inside look at Machine operations, noting that while she tried to keep the status quo as a campus politician, it didn’t sit right. “At the end of the day, something just felt really dark and ugly about it,” she said. In 2015, Smith wrote a guest column for UA’s student-run newspaper The Crimson White titled “Why I’m leaving the Machine,” exposing her involvement and some of the organization’s activities. When directly asked about the Machine, active sorority members featured in film suggest it doesn’t even exist.
AL.com columnist John Archibald appears in the documentary to discuss the Machine.
“The Machine systematically made sure that a minority group on campus of elite people who got special treatment, lived in special homes, who came from the most affluent and powerful families got an advantage on everyone else,” he said. “It’s a way better teacher of how to do nefarious things for power than you could ever get in a political science class. And I think it’s a threat to people’s hopes and dreams that they may not be able to fit into the crowd and maybe the tax bracket they want to fit into. I think the danger is not belonging -- it’s not being one of the chosen people.”
Listen to Reckon Radio’s podcast series “Greek Gods,” about the secret society that has controlled student government at the University of Alabama for more than a century.
Black women experience racism on campus
The film does not shy away from the school’s famously troubled past, giving a voice to women of color who have endured racist moments on campus. They also discuss their desire to rush with UA Panhellenic sororities instead of any of the historically Black organizations in the National Pan-Hellenic Council, or the “Divine Nine.”
“To be in a D9 sorority, I feel like there is a tie to history that you need to have,” Rian Preston, an Black woman who is an active member of Sigma Kappa, says. “Even had I become more comfortable with who I was in a racial sense, I still feel like I wouldn’t fit in there because I was raised by white people. I think they would have accepted me, but I wouldn’t have accepted myself enough to get the sorority experience that I would have been happy with.”
In 2013, a decade after Tuscaloosa native Carla Ferguson became the first black woman to receive a bid from a UA Panhellenic sorority in 2003, the university made a greater effort to further integrate the campus Greek system. That year, then-UA President Judy Bonner announced 23 minority women (including 14 African Americans) had accepted bids to join traditionally white sororities. This followed student criticism of the system, including an on-campus march to protest. Bonner would credit continuing pressure from students, faculty and alumni of the university for much of the changes.
“Everyone here thinks I’m everything but Black,” says Makalya, who is mixed race. “Like I’m white and Black. They think I’m everything.” She said one guy “swore that I was just white and just really, really tan.”
She said it makes for an awkward experience as a student on campus. “If I’m too white, I’m whitewashed, but if I act too Black, then I’m not white enough. Like, what am I supposed to be because I’m both races? Why can’t I just act myself? I’m not acting a race -- you can’t act a race. I’m just split into.”
The film also interviews UA alumna and former homecoming queen Deidra Chestang Lane, who was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha. She recalls seeing a “smoldering cross” at a fraternity party on campus during the 1980s. “We were terrified, and anger crept in later after we got beyond the shock and dismay of the entire situation,” she says. “I grew up in Alabama, so hearing that crosses were being burned is something that I grew up hearing about, but I never personally seen a cross being burned, and once you see that, you can’t unsee it. And it sticks with you for a lifetime.”
Preston says that while she hasn’t experienced any “overt racism” at UA, there have been micro-aggressions including people commenting on her hair or asking which of her parents is Black.
“I have come to know and love the people in my sorority and to know that they wouldn’t have loved or trusted me 40-50 years ago, it makes me feel upset,” Preston says. “And I honestly for my own self-preservation don’t really like to think about it.”
Rushing at Alabama is expensive
The doc reveals the average annual cost for new members of a sorority at Alabama is $8,300.
In 2022, AL.com reported joining a APA sorority costs a pretty penny in membership fees, starting with registration fee for $350, according to UA’s Division of Student Life Fraternity and Sorority life financial information website. All registration fees are nonrefundable, no exceptions. Each chapter has a financial requirement, which may include membership dues, house fees and room and board if you live in the facility. Membership fees vary by sorority.
New member fees per semester (first year only) range from $4,170.03 to $4,978. This includes a chapter meal plan, local chapter fees, and inter/national fees as well as one-time fees associated with pledging and initiation.
Living in-house fees per semester range from $7,465.17 (average) to $9,445 (high). This includes room, chapter meal plan (if applicable), local chapter fees and inter/national fees. Living out-of-house fees per semester ranges from $3,621.52 (average) to $4,575 (high). This includes includes chapter meal plan (if applicable), local chapter fees and inter/national fees.
READ: Bama Rush by the numbers: How much does it cost to join a UA sorority?
The women constantly worry about body image
The doc shows women cooking at home and counting calories before a meal (”There’s exactly 10 chips in my bowl,” one woman says.)
“I just have this image in my head that I need to be, like, tiny,” Makalya tells her friends. “I look at myself, I see myself as fat. I know you guys say I’m not, but I see myself as that, and I can’t help it.”
Holliday, who reveals to the filmmakers earlier in the film that she previously dealt with an eating disorder, explains that anxiety and self-doubt was partially because of the way young men made her feel.
“I feel like I would never have had an eating disorder or anything if the boys growing up didn’t say what they said to me,” Holliday says. “I feel like women are like...you grow up to cater to men, and it’s sad.”
Isabelle also shares her own experience with body image anxiety. “I have always been an anxious person,” Isabelle says. “I would be so anxious I would cry myself to sleep every night. I always kind of struggled with my body and with feeling confident. These girls would make fun of me every single day in the locker room, like, about my body. Make comments while I’m changing, comments about not eating, or I shouldn’t eat. Or if I wear this, then I look fat, or stuff like that.” She said it set her into a bad relationship with food, as she developed an eating disorder.
Hidden mics?
During UA’s 2022 sorority recruitment, rumors swirled about a secret documentary crew hiding microphones on several women participating in rush, even prompting an article from The New York Times (as well as a moment that features AL.com discussing the reports), which the film addresses directly.
We won’t spoil the filmmakers’ methods to capture all they could in telling the story of Alabama’s sorority recruitment history and 2022′s rush, but director Rachel Fleit is emphatic about the rumor and the doc’s would-be use of secret microphones.
The filmmakers wanted fairness
After a stunning development involving one of the women participating in the doc, director Rachel Fleit stops to address the audience.
“I think they believe that I’m trying to ruin their tradition,” she says about people who expressed they felt the film was hurting that year’s recruitment. “And I think there’s, like, really good things about your traditions here, and I think there’s really toxic things about your traditions here, and really confusing things about the traditions here. But I came into this, like, literally ‘Roll Tide.’”
The documentary crew feared for their safety
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When The New York Times’ article about the microphone rumor broke and mentioned Fleit by name, HBO decided the documentary crew needed protection while filming on and near the University of Alabama campus.
“I’m really paranoid,” Fleit says. “Like everywhere I go, I’m looking over my shoulder. Our producers are requiring that we hire a security detail to be with the film’s crew at all times because they’re actually concerned about our physical safety at this point.”
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