This is an opinion column.
“Bama Rush” is a documentary about sorority zeal at the University of Alabama.
Apparently anyway.
What I think the film really is is a commentary on acceptance, on learning to see ourselves for who we really are. young or old. Female or male. Classically beautiful or not so much.
It’s about owning the things that some might see as flaws and recognizing that differences need to be valued. Therefore, different people find fulfillment in different ways.
Cool. Impressively.
But the film is also about a culture of body shaming and sexual assault, from a University of Alabama student who said she was mugged in a bar – for the fourth time in her life, she said – and accepted it, without it To press charges for punching someone. The crap from a guy who missed her drugs.
If that’s true, the University of Alabama has a problem. Maybe it’s time for UA to take on some of the responsibility we’ve been talking about.
Bama Rush is also about the overwhelming presence of fraternities and sororities. Their steroid-boosted mansions, funded by the state’s flagship university, teach students struggling to fit in that they just can’t make it.
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The documentary takes a look at “The Machine,” the supposed secret coalition of elite fraternities and sororities that has controlled student life at UA for more than a century and a university administration that pretends it doesn’t exist, and thereby thrives .
Even after decades of incidents including cross burns, suspicious polls, wiretaps and attempted break-ins into SGA offices, reported assaults, threats, dirty tricks, deception and distraction.
Ultimately, this film is about the University of Alabama itself, my alma mater. And UA says nothing. Not in the film I was interviewed for but didn’t have a creative role. Not about the movie.
I asked what the university thought of Bama Rush.
Grilling.
I asked—not for the first time—if the university would go so far as to acknowledge the existence of the machine.
Grilling.
No confirmation. No Answer. No feigned courtesy. This is common practice. Protect the most protected class at all costs. Look away and wait for the inconvenience to go away. It always does. Like a rushee with sleazy demeanor, a quirky personality, and an empty bank account.
The silence says so much. As was the silence of the machine itself modeled after an Alabama power structure that abolished slavery and crafted a constitution that protected the rich and punished the poor. Just as it taxed the poor and gave far-reaching relief to the land barons. Just as it continues to lock up its poorest people and distributes billions of dollars to the world’s richest corporations.
The silence is strategic. Calculated. Check. Intentionally scary. Watch the faces and fear in the film as young ladies refuse to talk about the machine.
“No, you shouldn’t talk about it, you can’t talk about it.”
“Yes, but it’s deep. Yes.”
“We would never join a sorority again.”
“Honestly, it’s even our life.”
“No danger, okay?”
“If there is a choice, the machine manipulates it,” says a young man. “If there’s a homecoming queen, it’s The Machine contestant. You will look at awards as well as various jobs and networks. It all goes to The Machine.”
“I’m a sorority mom,” says one woman on social media in the film. “I wouldn’t compete against the University of Alabama. No way. They don’t call it the machine for nothing.”
And the University of Alabama, king of the SEC, where football, Greek life and systemic elitism just mean more, says nothing.
You can only take one of these with you.
The university remains silent when confronted with evidence and the perception that student life is dominated by a secret cabal of privileged and corrupt puppeteers.
The university turns a blind eye to one incident after another. It makes no sound — except to warn filmmakers to watch themselves — because maintaining privilege is more lucrative and more important to this school than the success of its graduates.
Because Alabama’s kind of politics requires a sleaze farm team and a practice ground, and the University of Alabama offers an MBA for dirty tricks.
So, of course, this university does not want to recognize or destroy the machine. Ultimately, the University of Alabama is the machine.
And the biggest sorority house of all? Sid McDonald Hall. Home of the UA System.
And the chancellor.
John Archibald is an Alabama grad, parent and husband of Alabama grads, and a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner who was educated at UA’s Crimson White.