Bama Rush

[DanaK]

HBO Max documentary on the sorority recruitment process at the University of Alabama

Variety article https://variety.com/2023/film/news/bama-rush-doc-trailer-tiktok-max-premiere-date-1235603466/

Trailer

 

[MCMLXXVII]

I’ll be here with bells on! My dad’s side of the family is in Tuscaloosa and my brother is a graduate.

[EtheltoTillie]

I’m very interested in this. I saw a documentary about sororities at the university of Mississippi many years ago. It was fascinating for this NYC girl. I wish I could find it. It was an indie film shown at the NY Film Festival. I wished I had had subtitles. I could not understand a lot through the accents. I went with a friend who grew up in Alabama, and she had no trouble understanding LOL. 

[EtheltoTillie]

This is disappointing!  They can’t get access to the real proceedings so they only focus on a few troubled outsiders. It’s sad too. 

[Irlandesa]

This was very terrible.  It wasn't just that they didn't get much inside information.  But I have to imagine that they could have found ex-sorority members willing to speak. 

It's that they glossed over racial issues, sexual assault and other aspects of not only Greek culture but "The Machine."

That all would be bad enough but the director decided to shoehorn herself into the story even though she doesn't have experience with rush.  Maybe she should have done a doc about alopecia.  After her first comparison of "rushing or masking", which was already too much, she should have kept her camera on her subjects.

[Angeleyes]

I agree. The director made the whole thing about herself. I wonder if that’s all the narrative she was left with when so many refused to participate? The Alopecia talk really should have been a whole different documentary and the director should not have inserted herself into the narrative.
 

It was jarring and sad that the one girl had been roofied three times and was found lying in the woods the last time. Also sad that she and the director seemed to treat it like no big deal. 

I was proud that Makayla saw that was becoming someone she was not and didn’t like and that she had the strength to get out. 

[EtheltoTillie]

Yes, when I posted earlier I hadn't finished watching.  Your comments are totally on the mark.  We don't really learn about the racial and social issues except superficially, and once I saw the director trying to find an analogy with her alopecia story I couldn't believe it. 

[EtheltoTillie]

Not getting much action on this thread!

[zenithwit]

On 6/2/2023 at 2:54 PM, EtheltoTillie said:

Not getting much action on this thread!

There's a reason for that.

Just finished watching this and yeah.... it was a really surface level documentary.  Which is unfortunate because it had an interesting and robust topic. 

To echo others' sentiments, it feels like the director wasn't able to gain access so she pivoted and added in her personal story.  The fact that she wasn't able to find a creative solution to the access issue honestly speaks to her skill as a documentarian.  There are documentaries out that deal with way more delicate and dangerous situations.  Sororities aren't that scary and if they are, that's worth exploring more.  

What I don't get is why the director didn't take a more factual approach.  Tell me about each day of Rush step by step (surely there is publicly available information there?), show me how the girls prepare for each day (outfits, etc), show me how they film their tik toks, etc.  

Overall, I think I learned more about rush from the fictional ABC Family show "Greek" than this documentary.

[EtheltoTillie]

@zenithwit you are right.  I more ordinary journalistic approach would be better.  Alternatively we'd probably learn more from TikTok.

BTW, I'm the one who wrote above about the old 1980 documentary Rush.  I really searched for it, but it seems not to be available anywhere.  It was only an hour long, but I still learned more.