bama rush movie review

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Common sense media reviewers.

Unsettling docu about Greek system has violence, language.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Sororities, and college living in general, can pro

Young women seek companionship among their peers,

Two of the main characters followed in this film a

There's discussion of being "roofied." One young w

There's discussion of the fraternities ranking the

"F--k," "damn," "bitches," "DILF," "sucks," "butt.

Young women spend over $8,000 to pledge sororities

College students party, talk about drinking, and h

Parents need to know that Bama Rush details the unique process of rushing sororities at the University of Alabama. The college's Greek system is powerful and has become well-known nationally thanks to social media. High school juniors and seniors dream of going to the university and participating in rush. Some…

Positive Messages

Sororities, and college living in general, can provide places where young adults can grow up among peers, gaining independence and making deep friendships. The Greek system at the University of Alabama is also described as a system of social stratification and reinforcement of social advantages for the elite. Young women feel a lot of pressure to look a certain way, under the male gaze and to fit in among other women.

Positive Role Models

Young women seek companionship among their peers, sharing traumatic experiences, highs, and lows. They also buy into a Greek system with roots in "competitive femininity," and they spend significant time, energy, and money to look and act the part required to get into the top-tier sororities. Two college women show how they edit images on social media to make themselves look thinner.

Diverse Representations

Two of the main characters followed in this film are Black, the rest are White. Most are blonde. Most are from the South. One of the Black women describes how it feels to stand out in such a White environment, and the other talks about some awkward comments her sorority sisters make about her race. There are all-Black sororities.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

There's discussion of being "roofied." One young woman says she was roofied and woke up in the woods and has been roofied three times before. Another young woman explains through tears that she was sexually assaulted. Two young women lost their dads when they were young. There is a sequence discussing alleged violence against student government candidates. The documentary crew needed security after news leaked about their film. Several young women describe problems with anxiety, depression, bullying, body shaming, and eating disorders.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

There's discussion of the fraternities ranking the sororities based on looks and some images of kissing. A man plays in a suggestive way with the fabric penis of another man's Halloween costume.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

"F--k," "damn," "bitches," "DILF," "sucks," "butt."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Young women spend over $8,000 to pledge sororities; the cost is too high for some students. Some women spend even more if they hire coaches to help prep them for the rush process. University of Alabama and its Greek system are on full display, and there are images and discussion of TikTok, Instagram, clothing brands, influencers, media outlets.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

College students party, talk about drinking, and have liquor in their homes. A woman says she doesn't remember what happened the night before.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Bama Rush details the unique process of rushing sororities at the University of Alabama. The college's Greek system is powerful and has become well-known nationally thanks to social media. High school juniors and seniors dream of going to the university and participating in rush. Some young women hire coaches to teach them how to look and act. One academic calls the process "competitive femininity." The young women profiled open up about their experiences with bullying, eating disorders, anxiety and depression, sexual assault, and getting roofied. A man plays in a suggestive way with the fabric penis of another man's Halloween costume. Language includes "f--k," "damn," "bitches," "DILF," "sucks," and "butt." College students party, talk about drinking, and have liquor in their homes. A woman says she doesn't remember what happened the night before. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

• Parents say (1)

Based on 1 parent review

Lots to discuss

What's the story.

BAMA RUSH follows a handful of high school seniors and college first-years as they prepare for the annual "rushing" of sororities at the University of Alabama. The women talk about what inspires them to want to be a part of a sorority, how they're preparing for the rush process, and what they hope to get out of it all. Along the way, they reveal a lot more about their lives, friendships, hopes, and dreams.

Is It Any Good?

Ostensibly about the cutthroat sorority rushing process at one college, this documentary actually offers significant insight into the mental health and other challenges many young women face today. We know this when Bama Rush director Rachel Fleit turns the camera repeatedly on herself, to compare her own journey of accepting her alopecia to the process of young sorority wannabes just trying to fit in. The fact that Fleit couldn't gain access to the sororities to film the actual rush activities means she had to put her focus elsewhere. It's almost like she just put her camera in the bedrooms of these young women and got them to open up.

They reveal sexual assaults, friendship troubles, eating disorders, and more. Surely Fleit's gentle demeanor, compassionate questioning, and the way she identifies with the women helped get them to share. Then again, this is a sharing generation, and their social media feeds are both fodder and inspiration for this documentary (and the rush process at U of Alabama itself). Ultimately, this film feels very unsettling. There's a major lack of self-confidence on display, and the idea that there's a cottage industry of rush coaches will come as a surprise to many viewers. One woman nonchalantly describes her fourth experience getting roofied (waking up in the woods), and another tearfully admits she was sexually assaulted in the middle of the making of this movie. All of the young women in the film seem to be placing a whole lot more emphasis on having the right outfit to get into the right sorority than anything else in their lives.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about why fraternities and sororities exist at colleges, and what you think about the rush process depicted in Bama Rush .

Do you feel the filmmaker empathizes with the young women she's interviewing? Does she judge them, and if so, where do you see that in the movie?

Which of the young women had the most compelling story for you, and why?

Because of rumors and online anger, the filmmakers couldn't get in to film the rush process. Did this negatively impact the movie's ability to finish up its stories or not, and why?

Movie Details

• On DVD or streaming : May 23, 2023
• Director : Rachel Fleit
• Inclusion Information : Female directors
• Studio : Max
• Genre : Documentary
• Topics : Friendship , High School
• Run time : 101 minutes
• MPAA rating : NR
• Last updated : May 24, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Bama Rush’ on Max, A Documentary About The Highs, Lows, Secrets, And Sacrifices At Work In Rushing A University of Alabama Sorority 

Where to stream:.

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In the new documentary Bama Rush (now streaming on Max), filmmaker Rachel Fleit ( Introducing, Selma Blair ) explores the #RushTok trending topic that is trying to join a sorority at the University of Alabama. It’s a ruthless, competitive process that involves the closely-held traditions of a campus culture full of decorum, hierarchy, male gaze, and the lasting impact of racism and segregation. But for many young women, to rush at Bama is also an attempt to find their place in the world. As Fleit’s interview subjects prepare for “Bid Day,” the director also encounters pushback from forces who would rather keep rush closed to the outside world. Roll Tide.

BAMA RUSH : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?  

The Gist: In August 2022, the social media chatter was abuzz with #RushTok . “I’ve never smoked crystal meth, but this is how I would imagine one would feel on a 72-hour crystal meth binge.” The world was following along with the frenzied OOTD posts and ostentatious displays of rush gear promulgated by young women determined to achieve acceptance by a sorority at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, and a “top tier” organization especially. But word was also out on campus that a documentary was being made. “Hey you guys, we have more tea coming through about, is someone filming Rush this year?” In Bama Rush , filmmaker Rachel Fleit follows four individuals with big sorority dreams, who all approach the process with varying degrees of intensity. 

Flashback to about one year earlier. It’s October 2021, and Shelby couldn’t be more excited to rush in the fall. The Quincy, IL resident seems preternaturally disposed to sorority life, and has developed an earnest preparation process that involves curated outfit demarcation, professional headshots, and binders packed with letters of recommendation and daily affirmations. For Isabelle of Rancho Cucamonga, CA, rushing Bama, which she first saw on TikTok, will validate her self-worth. “I’ve always needed a thing to be a part of, like as part of my identity.” And for current Alabama students Holliday and Makalya, roommates who intend to rush their sophomore year, it will be a way to find acceptance on a campus utterly dominated by Greek life. 

For potential new members (PNMs), rush is a four-part process with pitfalls around every corner. Whether it’s the sociable “conversation” meet-and-greets or trying to remember what not to say – don’t talk about boys, booze, or the bible; don’t put any sorority sister on the spot – the whole thing is fraught with pressure, and seems tailor made to exacerbate the anxiety many of them feel about trying to fit in. Still, they’re committed, even if the competition is totally subjective and unfairly judged. “Active members are looking for girls that we can see futures in,” says Madyson of Zeta Tau Alpha. “If you’re not meeting a certain criteria, you’ll kind of just be dropped.”

Fleit sticks with her subjects’ respective journeys as Bama Rush enfolds, and along the way interviews a few academics for context into rush as an integral part of the culture at Alabama. But it’s also full of whispers. Theta Nu Epsilon, also known as “The Machine,” is a secret campus society that is said to control all aspects of student life, from government to football tickets and which young people get into what coveted sorority. But no one will talk about it, and Fleit can barely get her cameras into the monumental houses on Sorority Row. Is rushing a system like this really the only way the kids she’s following will find the acceptance and personal meaning they desire?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? The 2022 documentary Hazing , directed by Byron Hurt, examines the secrecy and groupthink at work inside the recruitment mechanisms of fraternities and sororities, and the sometimes dangerous lengths college students will go to belong. And for a lighter but still resonant look at sorority life and the wages of inclusion, there will always be the 2001 Reese Witherspoon classic Legally Blonde . Elle Woods is even mentioned in Bama Rush as one kind of archetype for the young women who will be interviewed and questioned by the sororities as potential new members.   

Performance Worth Watching: Rian, who is not a hopeful but already an active member of a Alabama sorority that’s known as bottom tier, is also refreshingly outspoken about the ins and outs of the entire Greek system. “Yeah, you’re a person, but you’re a Sigma Kappa first. 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.” And Rian says that from academics to professional connections, there are tangible benefits to becoming a member of one of the more coveted top tier organizations, who are “entitled to a male gaze that might be a little more beneficial to you.”   

Memorable Dialogue: Gracie O’Connor, an active member of Pi Beta Phi who’s well-known on social media as “the original #BamaRush influencer,” and rush consultant Sloan Anderson – there is an entire industry of rush consultants; Anderson and one of her professional peers appear throughout Bama Rush – each stress that what’s understood as the ranking system of sororities at Alabama is something external to the accredited female membership organizations or even to women in general. “The ranking system, I truly believe,” says Anderson, “is based on fraternities.”  

Sex and Skin: Nothing overt. But Fleit’s interviewees speak frankly about topics including their experiences with sexual assault, and as young women in a collegiate environment, the nearly constant threat of and fallout from being roofied. 

Our Take: “Rush is a social stratification ritual, bar none,” author and academic Elizabeth Bronwyn Boyd tells director Rachel Fleit in Bama Rush . “Stratification in the sense of organizing people and groups of people into tiers of power, of status, of prestige. It’s a proving ground of competitive femininity.” And that ritualism is something Fleit certainly seems interested in conveying. At one point in the doc, slow-motion footage captures young women, all of them dressed similarly and pushing million watt smiles into the world, as they congregate on Sorority Row at the University of Alabama; vaguely horror movie-esque music completes the scene. In a way, it’s a moment framed as lambs being led to slaughter, and the motif is repeated as the young people profiled in Bama Rush attend a Crimson Tide football game, with all of its righteous pageantry and rigid performative acts. It’s like the place itself is built out of stratification, out of organized groups and behaviors designed for ultimate compliance, a sentiment that ultimately sways one of her interviewees to renounce her attempt to rush. “I don’t really care about disappointing anyone.”

What Is The Machine? HBO’s ‘Bama Rush’ Doc Exposes University of Alabama’s Sinister Secret Society

This is also something Bama Rush can’t quite define, whether because of static and roadblocks thrown up by “The Machine,” the insidious power of social media rumor, or the reality that the mores of life on Alabama’s campus are so ingrained as to be omnipresent and larger than any one documentary can penetrate. “It kinda has a bad rap,” a rush consultant tells Fleit in an interview, “because it’s a cutthroat process, which is uniquely Alabama…” but she trails off. We never learn exactly why the rush process is unique to the state, but the hints and allusions are more than enough to offer a compelling bit of intrigue. 

Our Call: STREAM IT. Bama Rush reveals what it is able to about a very public process that is simultaneously secretive and racked by shadowy traditions both good and bad. But the documentary offers the young women it profiles respect, as well as the space to speak freely about their experiences, which ultimately allows it to find a different way into the motivations behind rushing in the land of Roll Tide.  

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter:  @glennganges

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‘Bama Rush’ Goes Inside the Toxic, Faux-Feminist Hell of Sorority Life

The University of Alabama's viral sorority recruitment, known on TikTok as Bama Rush, is the subject of a sobering Max documentary about the sexism, elitism, and racism at play.

Nick Schager

Entertainment Critic

Courtesy of Max

The University of Alabama’s Greek life is like no other, and it won global attention in 2021 courtesy of TikTok, which—via the #RushTok banner—became a platform for girls who were either celebrating the impending sorority rush and/or looking to make their cases to the houses they desperately wanted to join. #RushTok was a viral phenomenon, drawing millions of eyes to the school and its ultra-competitive rushing season, and creating countless fans as well as more than a few critics.

It also caught the eye of Max and Introducing, Selma Blair documentarian Rachel Fleit, whose Bama Rush (May 23 on Max) examines the school’s Greek societies through the lens of a handful of individuals determined to rush during the 2022 fall semester. What it reveals is an exclusionary environment that views beauty, wealth, privilege, and conformity as the highest of ideals—and which seems, in some cases, to exacerbate the very problems these young women believe it will solve.

Whether they’re high school seniors eagerly anticipating their arrival in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, or freshmen making their way through their inaugural collegiate year, Bama Rush ’s subjects are all intently focused on getting into the sorority of their choice. To do that, they must endure a gauntlet of interviews, parties, and social events in which they’re judged by active sorority sisters according to benchmarks that are as vague as they are apparently shallow. So intense is this process that many girls hire rush consultants such as Trisha Addicks, Sloan Anderson, and Lorie Stefanelli to coach them on their resumes, their conversational skills, and their looks—appearance being, of course, a major factor on one’s sorority prospects.

The question of how sororities are ranked is central to Bama Rush ’s portrait, since—as multiple speakers, including original Bama Rush TikToker Gracie O’Connor, admits—a given house’s status has everything to do with the hotness of its members, which is largely decided by University of Alabama fraternities. Thus, having the right hairstyle, dress, and Instagram account is of prime importance, and something that can be honed with the aid of paid professionals. For the school’s traditionally Caucasian Panhellenic houses, being white is also a big plus; Black girls now have the Divine 9 houses to rush, even though the school desegregated its sororities in 2013 (yes, it really took that long). All in all, Fleit’s documentary exposes Bama Rush as a popularity contest predicated on physical attractiveness and, along with it, the ability to project a particular brand of cheery, upbeat, rah-rah southern personality.

With such a fixation on appearance, it’s no surprise that anxieties run high among rushing girls. Having been previously booted out of a sorority for a trivial transgression (she wore the wrong house’s sticker!), freshman Holliday wants to give rushing a second go, even as she discusses the eating disorder and body-related insecurities plaguing her. Those problems are shared by incoming freshman Isabelle, who opens up about her hope that joining a sorority will provide her with the love, compassion, and acceptance that she craves. Isabelle and high schooler Shelby additionally chat about their loneliness, self-doubt, and desire to figure out their identities. Both are convinced that sororities will remedy those issues—a strange perspective considering that Bama Rush paints the organizations as cutthroat entities that, by virtue of their priorities, are designed to aggravate such hang-ups.

Fleit initially remains off camera in Bama Rush , yet her own status as a bald woman (thanks to alopecia), and her history of hiding her condition in order to socially fit in soon proves an integral facet of this tale. Fleit’s personal struggles with shame and alienation shed a light on her motivations for wanting to make this film in the first place. Moreover, she serves as an example of the joy and confidence that comes from recognizing one’s own self-worth, free from the approval of others. Once angry rumors spread about Max’s presence on campus, Bama Rush becomes a part of its own story, and the fact that Fleit must eventually don the very sort of wig that was, for decades, a symbol of her humiliation only reinforces the idea that Alabama’s Greek life compels women to toe a particular line rather than embrace their individuality.

Along with the sexism and superficiality of Bama Rush, there’s also the racism, which Bama Rush addresses through interviews with current and former students who have faced it in both overt and subtle fashion. Add in talk about The Machine (a secret society that basically runs the Greek system and, with it, university life), and the film is an eye-opening snapshot of, as author Elizabeth Boyd puts it, “a proving ground of competitive femininity, and the contemporary performance of the southern belle”—or, as is suggested by the numerous TikTok videos presented here, the unholy byproduct of social media narcissism, Kardashian-style celebrity, and debutante ball-via-beauty pageant culture.

There are unquestionably thousands of college students who, like Isabelle, discover that joining a sorority is a fun and empowering experience that gives them exactly what they want, and Fleit’s documentary doesn’t go out of its way to depict Bama Rush in a negative light. Yet as more of its chosen subjects opt to drop out of this Greek rat race, and with close friends Holliday and Makayla severing ties in the process, the less savory underpinnings of this entire enterprise rise to the surface. While sororities may have originally been founded by proto-feminists, there’s not much progressivism on display in Bama Rush ; the values championed by this institution of higher learning’s sororities mainly have to do with upholding rigid image standards, loyalty, and secrecy. It’s elitism in its ugliest form.

Consequently, Fleit grows sadder as she delves deeper into this milieu, seemingly aware that the sorority system makes girls see themselves as inadequate—by pressuring them to kowtow to conventions at the risk of being isolated—in a manner similar to how she felt due to her alopecia. In that regard, Bama Rush shines a spotlight on a unique world, and custom, that cares little for actual uniqueness.

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‘It Wasn’t a Documentary About Bama Rush Whatsoever!’

A new documentary chronicles the TikTok-fueled phenomenon of sorority rush at the University of Alabama. Those who lived through it have thoughts.

By Madison Malone Kircher

Last year, as rumors of a secret documentary swirled at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, many students taking part in sorority recruitment were on high alert.

Listen to This Article

There was talk of a film crew on campus. More dramatically, there were unfounded whispers that some potential new sorority members — known, in Greek-speak, as P.N.M.s — were wearing concealed microphones to capture what went on behind closed doors.

It turned out the rumors were only partly true . There was indeed a documentary being made during the recruitment period, better known as rush, but no one who went through it was wearing a hidden device to record secret rituals.

Rush at the University of Alabama became an international sensation in 2021, when TikTok videos gave people from around the world an inside view of the annual event and its hush-hush traditions.

“Bama Rush” was released Tuesday on Max . Directed by Rachel Fleit, it follows four University of Alabama students from their preparations in the summer of 2022 to bid day, when they find out if they have been invited to join a sorority. (Warning: Light spoilers ahead.)

Working with her team, Ms. Fleit, who directed the 2021 documentary “ Introducing, Selma Blair ,” found her subjects by searching social media for incoming students who planned to rush.

She said she wrote to them and told them: “Listen, I want to make a 360-degree view on the sorority system at the University of Alabama. I really want to center around the experiences of what it means to be a young woman right now. We’re going to tackle all of the big topics that you are up against.”

“That included a lot of the topics that came up in the film,” she said, including “body image, sexual assault, feminism, comparing and competition between young women.”

Ms. Fleit added that no one was paid to participate in the documentary, and the film crew did not record inside sorority houses. She also tried to make sure her presence did not change the usual rush process, she said, as she sought to “make a very quiet, very honest, very intimate portrait.”

The rumors of hidden microphones were “false,” Ms. Fleit said. She added that she “felt for” the students who were caught up in them.

Marina Anderson, 19, was one of the young women whose lives were affected by campus rumors. She said she was dismissed from rush in August after being wrongly accused of wearing a microphone. What caused suspicion, Ms. Anderson said, was a black hair tie she had wrapped around the back of her shirt to make it fit better.

Despite her repeated denials, some of her peers refused to believe she was not participating in the documentary, calling her “HBO girl” for months. (Those accusations came while Max was still known as HBO Max. The platform underwent a rebranding on Tuesday.)

“It was so uncomfortable,” Ms. Anderson said. “I had people recording me in public. It really messed me up my freshman year.” She added that she had come to enjoy her time at college and was excited to return as a sophomore in the fall.

Ms. Anderson, who was not interviewed for “Bama Rush,” watched the documentary shortly after it appeared on Max on Tuesday. Watching it was “bittersweet,” she said. In general, she found the film “anticlimactic,” saying that ultimately it “wasn’t about Alabama rush,” but rather the personal struggles of the women featured in it.

Ms. Anderson added that she had occasionally wondered what she might have missed out on because of the microphone paranoia. “I think the main thing is just that rumors are really dangerous,” she said.

Grant Sikes, another student who rushed in 2022, echoed those sentiments. Ms. Sikes, who became a popular figure on TikTok because of the videos she posted during rush, said she felt “let down” by the film. Compared with the dramatic trailer — which proclaimed, “This documentary could be the end of Greek life as we know it” — the finished product fell short, she said.

“Nothing they talked about wasn’t already known or something you couldn’t Google yourself,” Ms. Sikes, 20, said. “It wasn’t a documentary about Bama Rush whatsoever! It was a documentary about a couple of girls and their life.”

“A lot of people were really hoping this would uncover things so change could happen,” she continued, adding that she wished “Bama Rush” had more deeply explored themes like racism, homophobia, fatphobia and hazing.

During rush, rumors circulated that Ms. Sikes was a “documentary plant,” she said, a falsehood that she believes could have affected her rush chances.

“Why would a chapter want to even speak with me if they thought that I was the plant?” Ms. Sikes, who is nonbinary, said. “I was like, ‘Do you honestly think I was sent here to blend in with a bunch of blond hot chicks? Like, come on.’”

By the end of the process, she was not invited to join any sorority, having been dropped by most houses early on. Ms. Fleit reached out to Ms. Sikes in August about the film, according to DMs reviewed by The New York Times. The pair never spoke, and Ms. Sikes was not involved in the film.

Only two of the people who appear in the film successfully joined a sorority. One of them stopped participating in the film once rush began.

On TikTok, some viewers have criticized Ms. Fleit’s inclusion of her own experience with alopecia and wearing a wig as a plot point in the film. “I really hate how the director of ‘Bama Rush’ made this about her,” one user wrote in a video .

The director defended her decision to make herself part of the story.

“In order for me to express the empathy that I had for what these young women were up against,” Ms. Fleit said, “I needed to stand shoulder to shoulder with them and say, ‘You know what? Me, too. This is what I did to belong.’”

Audio produced by Adrienne Hurst .

Madison Malone Kircher is a reporter for The Times. She writes about the internet for the Styles desk. More about Madison Malone Kircher

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Bama Rush Reviews

I’m not sure that I would call Bama Rush a great documentary, but it is an unwelcome reminder of how superficially brutal Greek life can be.

Full Review | Aug 31, 2023

You might come to Bama Rush looking for a scandalous exposé of Greek life, but the profound insight these young women bring to the film turns it into something much more compelling.

Full Review | Original Score: 68/100 | Jul 27, 2023

Manages to make something boring out of what should be a fascinating subject, thanks to a meandering focus, mere lip service paid to serious and weighty subject

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 16, 2023

Ultimately, this film feels very unsettling. There's a major lack of self-confidence on display, and the idea that there's a cottage industry of rush coaches will come as a surprise to many viewers.

Full Review | May 31, 2023

This is far, far less explosive than it is studious. It more seeks to build empathy for the young women who seek community in college than it does unearth something freshly scandalous about the University of Alabama’s much-discussed Machine.

Full Review | May 27, 2023

There’s a lot about the whole sorority phenomenon that could never fit within the narrow rectangle of a cellphone app. So Bama Rush widens the frame.

Full Review | May 26, 2023

... The documentary offers the young women it profiles respect, as well as the space to speak freely about their experiences, which ultimately allows it to find a different way into the motivations behind rushing in the land of Roll Tide.

Full Review | May 24, 2023

A compelling, if not thoroughly heart-wrenching, watch.

What it reveals is an exclusionary environment that views beauty, wealth, privilege, and conformity as the highest of ideals—and which seems, in some cases, to exacerbate the very problems these young women believe it will solve.

Full Review | May 17, 2023

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What The "Bama Rush" Doc Gets Right From Someone Who Lived It

Olivia Taylor (she/her) is a writer, self-proclaimed reality TV buff and uses "Real Housewives" references unironically. Her camera roll is filled with Twitter screenshots and she will definitely talk your ear off for as long as you will let her. Find more of her pop culture ramblings just about anywhere on the internet.

As I’m sure you’re well aware, Max (the baby of HBO Max and Discovery+ ) just released their highly-anticipated documentary, Bama Rush . Covering the social media phenomenon that is The University of Alabama’s Panhellenic rush, the doc promises a real look into the pledging process at (arguably) the most cutthroat Panhellenic program in the world. I’d like to think I have some insight into this process as a former Alabama sorority girl myself, and let me tell you all of the things the doc got right about this decades-old tradition that has rendered the nation speechless and TikTok obsessed.

For some context – The University of Alabama (UA) is one of 14 SEC (Southeastern Conference) universities, all of which participate in the Southern tradition of Panhellenic rush. With nearly 20 Panhellenic houses, over 2,000 active members and a slew of multimillion dollar chapter mansions lining the streets of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, it’s no wonder the process is such a spectacle to those outside of the insular community.

Of course, I must note that my 2019 rush experience was certainly different from the 2021 recruitment featured in Bama Rush . After all, TikTok was in its infancy, the college admissions scandal was still fresh, and there were absolutely no Kylie Jenner x Timothée Chalamet relationship rumors. However, if there’s anything UA does well it’s tradition, so most of my experiences are probably quite similar to those PNMs will encounter this Fall.

Can you sum up sorority culture at UA?

Well, I can certainly try! Like clockwork, every year hundreds of young women flock to UA’s pristine campus (Mind you, this all happens before classes even begin.) under the scorching August sun to test their luck at landing one of the coveted spots in a “top” house – or just any house for that matter. At UA, reputation is everything , so the house you get into matters.

Socially, the houses are divided into a few categories. You have the tier ranking system (top, middle and bottom) alongside the “Old Row” houses, AKA chapters that are deeply rooted in Alabama and/or the South. These Old Row houses typically have a strong Christian demographic, and recruit *almost* exclusively southern PNMs (potential new members). There are strong legacy ties within these houses, and these are the chapters that have a majority impact on the political interface of UA Greek life.

However, at least when I went to UA, Old Row houses are not equivalent to top houses. In fact, the top three houses aren’t a part of that community at all. This holy grail trifecta has a very niche recruiting strategy – they’re looking for the smartest, most attractive women that will contribute academically and socially to their on campus status. These chapters are notoriously hard to get into, as they almost always pre-determine their MC (member class) before the PNMs arrive on campus. (If you rushed at UA – you’ll definitely remember the deluge of active sorority members reaching out via social media before the no-contact period.)

Courtesy of Olivia Taylor

Once PNMs arrive on campus, they begin a week-long journey to finding their “home,” voting through various rounds (Open House, Philanthropy, Sisterhood, Preference Day) via a mutual ranking system. Essentially, as long as you and a house choose each other, you’ll continue onto the next round. Each round is structured around a common theme for the day, with the length of the sessions increasing as you progress. (By the end of this process you’ll be able to talk to a brick wall, believe me.) Eventually, PNMs that make it through each round will arrive at Bid Day, thus securing their spots in whatever house of their (kind of) choosing.

There are a plethora of rules PNMs and active members must abide by during this process, from a no-contact order to restrictions on what you can chat about (I was taught the Three Bs: No Boys, Bible or Booze). Oh, and you can’t, under any circumstances, bring any technology into the chapter houses. The moment the door songs begin, if you’re caught with any sort of technology (that’s not necessary to sustaining your health) you are automatically out of the process. No ifs, ands or buts.

And yes, all of these events are highly orchestrated, with each detail meticulously curated (from which active member talks to you to where you stand) over the course of months by a select recruitment committee. Every encounter you have has an underlying meaning, so you truly can’t take anything at face value. (i.e. If you’re seated close to the door, that means you’re last to arrive and first to leave, so that sorority may not be as inclined to add you to their MC.)

Securing a spot in any sorority isn’t guaranteed, let alone one in an Old Row or top house, so I can certainly sympathize with the stressors many of the women featured in the doc shared.

Oh, and this process isn’t free. Not only do you have to go through the lengthy process of submitting your application, resumé, and a several hundred dollar application fee, but you’re expected to dress to the nines every day of rush, no matter the weather or 5 a.m. wakeup call. This is nothing compared to the several thousand dollars you’ll be shelling out to maintain your membership per year , but nevertheless.

I should also mention the longstanding (and very patriarchal) tradition was only desegregated in 2013, literally a decade ago. While many UA chapters claim to be inclusive, out of hundreds of active members there are only a handful of diverse women in each house. The Alabama Panhellenic Association has a long way to go in ensuring a safe environment for minorities within their chapters, and I look forward to seeing how the community becomes more inclusive in the future.

Additionally, attractiveness plays a far-too-large role in the rushing process. Even though many houses claim that they do not base their decisions off of “looks,” it’s clear that isn’t true. Many women feel pressured to fit into the “Southern” model of beauty – thin, blonde hair, blue eyes and tan – and will go to extreme lengths to make the cut. I can certainly sympathize with these women, having felt the weight of these standards myself.

Who does "Bama Rush" follow?

Courtesy of Max

The documentary follows four young women as they get accepted to UA and embark on the rush process. The PNMs featured are Alabama natives Hailey Holliday and Makalya Miller, and out-of-state students Shelby Rose and Isabelle Eacrett.

Where are the "Bama Rush" girls now?

Rose went Phi Mu, and is currently majoring in public relations with a minor in digital content engagement.

“I love the University of Alabama. It has given me so much,” she said in a social media post on TikTok. “If I didn’t rush at the University of Alabama, I wouldn’t have stayed through the first semester, because the girls I met have given so much to me…I have nothing but positive things to say about campus and the sororities.”

Eacrett receives a bid from Alpha Delta Pi. She has the iconic tagline, “I’m nervited -- which is like, nervous and excited,” in the doc.

Both Miller and Holliday left the rush process early.

Were any of the women in "Bama Rush" penalized by their sororities?

It’s still unclear whether any participants were punished for working with HBO, however UA condemned rumors about secret filming during rush week. These rumors were, of course, later confirmed when the documentary project was announced.

“The University is aware of reports that outside parties have facilitated unauthorized recordings of our students involved in Panhellenic recruitment,” Shane Dorrill, a university spokesman, wrote in an email to AL.com . “The University unequivocally does not condone surreptitious filming or recording of students, some of whom are minors, without their consent. The University has not authorized any third-party entity to film, record, or document any recruitment activities and does not allow media inside occupied buildings such as residence halls and sorority houses.”

“Further, it has been repeatedly communicated that Alabama Panhellenic Association recruitment rules prohibit potential new members from filming or recording inside any chapter houses,” he added. “To be clear, the University is not involved with this production and finds these reported activities to be deplorable, especially when targeting recent high school graduates.”

The Alabama Panhellenic Association is aware of the documentary, but has declined commenting to various news sites on participants’ comments or questions about filming.

What does Bama Rush get right?

1. 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 Rush Consultant Sloan Anderson. “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.”

2. Rushing can be very, very stressful.

I truly cannot emphasize enough the pressure many women face throughout the rush process. Many Southern PNMs have spent their entire lives hearing their moms and grandmothers recount their sorority experiences alongside sorority-sisters-turned-lifelong-friends, so the pressure to join the right house is monumental. So Miller and Eacrett seeing Rush Consultants is shockingly standard for many of these women, and IMO demonstrates the utter importance of this tradition.

3. It’s a social hierarchy.

“Rush is a social stratification ritual, bar-none,” says Southern Beauty: Race, Ritual, and Memory in the Modern South author Elizabeth Boyd, who also 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.”

4. Sororities are ranked. And yes – rank matters.

“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 Pi Beta Phi active member Gracie O’Connor . “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.’”

Anderson agrees with O’Connor on fraternity influence, saying, “they have a social calendar, and they get to mix with certain sororities, but it’s only a limited amount. 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.”

Current Sigma Kappa member Rian Preston chimed in, sharing her experience with this hierarchical system. “The hierarchy of sororities that exist here really determines how your experience in the Greek system is going to be. There are a lot of things that you’re entitled to when you’re in a top-tier sorority. You’re entitled 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.”

5. There are tons of odd rules.

I touched on this above, but I’m glad it was brought up in the doc. Generally, you can’t drink in your letters, bring alcohol into your sorority house, etc.

Some stricter rules were shared as well, though I never dealt with those myself. For instance, Hailey shares a “no wet hair” on the first floor of the house rule, and active Gamma Phi Beta member Leah Nelson 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.”

6. The Five Bs

I was taught three, but now the Five Bs are: Boys, Bible, Booze, Bucks and Biden (AKA politics). It’s a huge no-no to initiate any conversation relating to these, but if active members bring it up then it’s okay to engage.

7. Attractiveness plays a role, and many women suffer because of it.

It’s not everything, but it is important. Especially if you don’t have strong grades or many sorority connections, you can make up for any shortcomings if you’re conventionally attractive.

“I just have this image in my head that I need to be, like, tiny,” Miller 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.”

8. Racism is far too normal on UA’s campus.

While UA does have historically Black NPHC (National Pan-Hellenic Council) chapters, the Panhellenic and IFC (Interfraternity Council) associations are incredibly white. As I mentioned before, UA Greek life was only desegregated a decade ago (two decades after the first Black women received a bid from a Panhellenic sorority), so you can imagine how much racism still goes on within the Greek life system and on campus.

“Everyone here thinks I’m everything but Black,” says Miller, 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. 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 in two.”

Rian says that while she hasn’t experienced any “overt racism” at UA, she has been subjected to micro-aggressions. “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.”

9. “The Machine” is real.

Otherwise known as Theta Nu Epsilon, the Machine is a highly secretive group of IFC fraternities and APA sororities designed to influence campus politics at the University of Alabama.

“They control everything on this campus. So if there’s an election, the Machine is rigging it. If there’s a homecoming queen, it’s the Machine candidate,” Garrett, an Alabama SGA associate justice, shares.

Alex Smith, a Phi Mu alum and former Machine student senator, gives a rare inside look at Machine operations. “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. In the doc, PNMs and sorority members refused to even acknowledge its existence.

9. Rushing costs money, honey.

A year as a new member can run you nearly $10k, which includes chapter dues, a meal plan and house fees. If you live in the house, it can get even more expensive.

10. Beware of Standards.

The infamous standards board (which has since become synonymous with the patronizing “hey girly” text) have plagued everyone’s general understanding of the dos and don'ts of sorority life. But these judicial groups are very real – and very much a game of favoritism – and one too many violations will get you kicked out of your sorority for good.

11. You definitely don’t want to get blacklisted.

Both frats and srats have blacklists – and the tiniest misstep can secure your spot on one. Hailey dealt with this firsthand. She originally rushed in August of 2021 and chose a sorority house, but after wearing a different sorority sticker she was dropped. As she prepares to rush again, she overhears sorority girls talking about her blacklisted status. She ultimately decides not to rush. After all – sororities are all about branding, so how you present yourself is imperative.

What did the doc miss?

1. “Rank” is determined by more than just frat boys.

It’s a culmination of yes, fraternity influence, but also Southern ties, on campus reputation, high GPAs, and so much more.

2. You’re lucky to get a “chosen family.”

Sororities are branded as this welcoming sisterhood – a place where you’ll meet your future bridesmaids and besties for life. Unfortunately, this isn’t all that true for many members.You may meet a couple of friends, but ultimately most members end up “dropping” their sorority come junior year.

3. Fraternities are a huge issue.

Fraternities have an unnecessarily large role in sorority life, and TBH they need to be taken down a few notches. While reputation is everything for sororities – to the point where members can get kicked out for posting a “scandalous” picture, their male counterparts get away with anything and everything.

Certain frats were known for drugging women as part of an initiation ritual, or for sexually assaulting women regularly . Seriously. One house is actually known for sexually assaulting women, and it’s advised not to go there. Despite this – these men play a massive role in which sororities rank well and “deserve” parties with them, and which do not.

4. Hazing happens but it’s much more common in frats.

I never experienced hazing, nor did anyone I know. In conversations with frat members, though, their hazing rituals were next-level and should be scrutinized more thoroughly.

5. Sororities can be an incredible place of community.

Where can I watch Bama Rush?

Bama Rush is streaming now exclusively on Max.

I must admit – writing this has been quite therapeutic for my ex-Panhellenic member’s soul. From a first-hand perspective, I truly enjoyed watching Bama Rush and seeing the many truths about the process brought out of secrecy, and highly recommend it to anyone with the slightest glimmer of curiosity.

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Review: New doc ‘Bama Rush’ takes a wider look at sorority life in the age of TikTok

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‘Bama Rush’

One of the wonders — and horrors — of our modern social media age is that some decades-old regional rituals and traditions have been turned into miniature reality TV shows, shared online with millions of people worldwide who may not always understand the context for what they’re watching. Rachel Fleit’s documentary “Bama Rush” was inspired in part by the fascination on TikTok with the complicated process by which the University of Alabama’s sororities select new members. Each year, candidates post short videos about their outfits and anxieties, while people watching from afar judge and mock them. Fleit though takes these aspiring sisters seriously, and tries to understand what they really want out of Greek life — and exactly what they’re in for.

Fleit makes herself a character in her film occasionally, talking about how her own challenges — as a woman with alopecia, who wore a wig throughout her youth to fit in — perhaps makes her more attuned to how badly these young women crave acceptance. She follows four freshmen in particular, some of whom hire professional consultants and maintain thick organizational binders to maximize their potential success. It’s a unique challenge: to be “themselves” within acceptably conformist parameters.

For the record:

1:04 p.m. May 26, 2023 The revenge thriller “Wrath of Becky,” starring Lulu Wilson, was incorrectly included in an earlier version of this story. It is playing theatrically in general release, but is not yet available via VOD.

Fleit acknowledges that the rumors about her documentary made many Alabama students too paranoid to participate. Despite the big freeze, she gets a lot of honest insights both from current sorority sisters and alumni, who talk about the downsides of this culture — like body-image issues, a history of racism and sexism, and the ominous interventions of a super-secret society known as “the Machine” — along with the benefits of lifelong friendships, community service and social advantages. There’s a lot about the whole sorority phenomenon that could never fit within the narrow rectangle of a cellphone app. So “Bama Rush” widens the frame.

‘Bama Rush.’ TV-MA, for language. 1 hour, 40 minutes. Available on Max

‘Influencer’

It’s hard to explain what’s special about writer-director Kurtis David Harder’s psychological thriller “Influencer” without spoiling its surprises. In the broadest possible terms, this is a film about four people crossing paths in Thailand and trying to take things from one another. Two of them are tourists who run popular social media accounts: the adventurous Madison (Emily Tennant) and the more jaded Jessica (Sara Canning). Another is Madison’s manager and on-again/off-again boyfriend Ryan (Rory J. Saper). And then there’s CW (Cassandra Naud), a local who has a striking birthmark under her right eye and a knack for altering her personality to suit anyone’s needs.

Harder and his co-writer Tesh Guttikonda give each of these people their turn at being the protagonist, but it’s not always clear which of them is the antagonist. As they meet — not always by chance — each is superficially friendly but hiding an agenda. Madison wants to tap into CW’s worldly authenticity for her feed. Jessica wants to bask in CW’s fake adoration. CW wants to leech off Madison and Jessica’s luxurious lifestyles. And Ryan wants to exploit all three women for clicks and sponsorship deals.

“Influencer” has the same kind of crafty plot as a Patricia Highsmith novel, taking audiences so deep inside the machinations of not-so-nice people that we’re left wondering where our sympathies should lie. Though the movie falls a bit short in character and theme, Harder preserves the story’s shocks by having the players remain aloof and unknowable from moment to moment, which keeps the overall picture’s meaning vague. Still, just on a surface level this is an alluring film, all about what happens when people bring their carefully constructed online personas into the messier, bloodier real world.

‘Influencer.’ Not rated. 1 hours, 32 minutes. Available on Shudder

‘Unclenching the Fists’

The grim domestic drama “Unclenching the Fists” is set in a small mining town in the North Caucasus region of Russia, where a young woman named Ada (Milana Aguzarova) is trapped: by the debilitating wounds from a violent childhood, by a domineering father (Alik Karaev) who represses her femininity and freedom of movement, and by a patriarchal culture that values women mainly for sex or service. Writer-director Kira Kovalenko won the Un Certain Regard at Cannes in 2021 for her stark slice-of-life, which follows Ada as she tries to change her lot — either by following in the footsteps of an older brother (Soslan Khugaev) who left town or by marrying a dimwitted neighbor boy (Arsen Khetagurov). Kovalenko keeps the frame tightly on Ada throughout the film, catching the way she shrinks away from all the men constantly pawing at her and making demands. This is a different kind of prison escape picture, focusing on the stifling confines of a life devoid of possibility.

‘Unclenching the Fists.’ In Russian and Osseti c with English subtitles. Not rated. 1 hour, 37 minutes. Available on Mubi

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Bama Rush Documentary: 11 Things We Learned From the Greek Life Movie

By Aiyana Ishmael

Bama Rush, the internet’s guilty pleasure, is back, only this time we’re not scrolling down our TikTok FYP to get the latest rush week news. The Bama Rush documentary is officially out on Max (FKA HBO Max), and there’s a lot to unpack.

Over two years ago the world was introduced to the ubiquitous rush process at the University of Alabama. Sorority rushing isn’t new, but the merging of southern tradition and social media made the perfect storm for the young women of Tuscaloosa to become TikTok’s own personal mini-series with subplots, main characters, and, of course, antagonists.

The hashtag #bamarush currently has over 2.6B views on TikTok , which alone shows how invested people became in these journeys to choose three Greek letters. Bama Rush Tok became a sensation almost overnight, and as the public flocked to TikTok, viewers and past alumni alike started calling the university and panhellenic council out for its many missteps over the years: allegations of racism, sexism, gatekeeping, and secret societies became vital parts of the Bama Rush discussion, leading to national news coverage beyond a 30-second GRWM video.  The new documentary addresses some, but not all, of the Bama Rush phenomenon, aiming to shed light on the massive mental, emotional, and physical toll that comes with rush week. 

Bama Rush follows four young women — PNMs (Prospective New Members) for short — as they navigate Alabama’s monstrous Greek life process all while trying to find themselves. While on campus, we see these young women balance their pre-rush activities with the excitement of starting a new chapter in their lives. 

The process of making the documentary was itself tinged with controversy and secrecy. Current students and alumni caught wind that a documentary was in the works, so many girls were  allegedly warned to limit their social media activity. The paranoia got so intense  one PNM was dropped from all sororities because others believed her hair tie was a microphone. The warning was clear: anyone currently connected or hoping to be connected to Greek life at Alabama would be ill-advised to participate in the doc.

Marissa Lee was the first Black president of Phi Mu at UA. And while she grapples with the diversity struggles within the Greek system, she still has strong connections to her sorority. So when she was approached to be a part of the documentary, she decided to decline. “Things are a lot more nuanced than they seem and I think it can be hard to capture that in a two hour documentary,” she tells  Teen Vogue . “And then everyone's story and experiences are unique. I was a president, which is a very different experience than the average member whether they are white, Black, or Asian.”

Now that the  Bama Rush documentary is finally here, it’s time to relive the TikTok virality, go deeper into the stories behind The Machine, and contextualize the Greek life phenomenon in our larger culture. What does  Bama Rush have to show us about this process? Here are 11 things we learned after watching the doc.

We all just want to fit in

The documentary closely follows four girls: Shelby, Isabelle, Holliday, and Makalya. And while all four come from different backgrounds, they’re all chasing the same thing: membership in the largest Greek population in the nation.

Their rush process alone shows how vast the landscape is at Alabama, and when you’re 18 entering a massive university, fitting into the campus status quo can be extra appealing — and that means participating in Greek life. Throughout the documentary, these four girls share their journeys to rush week and many talk about their physical attributes and things they want to work on, often referring to their bodies. Closer to rush week, Makalya even gets blonde highlights. UA sorority life, especially those viewing through a small screen on an app see a disproportionate gap in diversity, with white blonde women being a vast majority of its members. 

“It should be noted that the pressures of being thin and beautiful were astronomical when I rushed back in 2013,” former UA Alpha Delta Pi member Maggie Gehlsen-Burnett tells  Teen Vogue . “I even remember hearing that because I had brown hair, I would be dropped by some sororities almost instantly. It was pretty cutthroat. I have never seen anything like Alabama Rush.”

And in 2023, girls are still preparing to tackle Bama Rush by showing up as the version of themselves they believe will get a bid. 

The weight doesn’t fall solely on sororities

The documentary heavily discusses the Greek ranking system and how it came about. In our current age, when you hear that a sorority is top, bottom, or mid tier, you’d think things like community service, charity and social activity would play a role in how they were ranked. In the documentary, we’re shown that the origins of this ranking came from the Alabama fraternity houses who ranked off of who had the most attractive batch of PNMs each year. When we think about the Bama Rush craze happening currently, we tend to put a lot of the blame on the women involved. But, this mere fact alone of tier systems shows how important fraternity men are to this conversation about toxic college environments.

Beware of the all-seeing standards board

The infamous standards board conjoined with a patronizing “hey girly” text have plagued everyone’s general understanding of the dos and don'ts of sorority life. Many former Greek members have gone on to talk about via TikTok how the standards board is a way to police their members' online presence.  TikTok Becca More has previously  posted often about the many things that had her sent to standards when she was in her sorority. A standards board focuses on upholding the integrity and reputation of your chapter; for many members, it stokes the fear they’ve posted something “inappropriate” on social media. In the documentary, a current sorority member talks about how she’d previously been policed for her social media posts. More than anything, we learn how for many current members it’s just a nagging part of being in a hyper-visible organization. 

By Ilana Kaplan

By Ashleigh Carter

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“Standards is basically a game of favoritism,” Gehlsen-Burnett says. “If you were well-liked amongst your peers and those on the executive council, your odds of going to standards for the same activity as someone else who wasn’t well-liked were low. I went to standards once or twice, I think I missed a homecoming activity I was required to participate in. The idea behind standards is that you have ‘consequences’ for your actions, when really that typically just meant if you got too boozy at a fraternity party or a formal event, you’d pay a monetary fine.” 

Sororities can give you a chosen family 

In the documentary, PNM Isabelle talks about finding a chosen family through Greek life. “Being a part of a sorority will give me a chance to find people that love me no matter what,” she says in the project. 

There’s truth to this. Sororities give you a chance to form lasting bonds with women for four consecutive years. You’ll be tied together, and those friendships tend to carry into the rest of your life. Joining an alleged sisterhood is enticing for anyone who doesn’t have that chance at long-term bonds in their normal life. The documentary’s main subjects all in different ways were chasing that sense of family. With Shelby being adopted and Makalya having her dad pass away early in her childhood, they all showcased how vital human connection and a chance to start anew was. 

While the chance at sisterhood is top of mind for many, those who have been through the process and made it to graduation realize how harmful that sisterhood can still be.  

“I think sororities are branded to young women leaving high school as essentially an instant group of friends,” Gehlsen-Burnett says. “I don’t know many 17-year-old women who would turn that down, so it’s a great marketing strategy. When I rushed, it was said to me on multiple occasions that if I didn’t rush, I would have an exceptionally difficult time making friends at UA. There’s a real sense of FOMO. I think there are a couple positives to joining sororities. I made so many lifelong friends in my sorority. I was able to participate heavily in philanthropy. But do I think the bad outweighs the good? Yes. I now recognize that making friends and participating in philanthropic endeavors are things you can easily do outside of the Greek system.”

The Five B’s

During the documentary, we’re introduced to the infamous five B’s of rush week. If you were anywhere on TikTok you might’ve heard about them, but the documentary finally confirms what we knew to be true. When going through rush week, PNMs are mostly notified of the five things you should never talk to a current member about: Boys, Booze, Bible, Box, and Biden. 

Boys simply means discussing anything about potential mixers with fraternities or expressing interest in a specific man (just in case your campus crush happens to be the president's boyfriend). Booze is of course discussing alcohol. Bible is anything religion-based, box is financial standing, and Biden encompasses all discussions about politics. These topics might come up, but it's advised for PNMs to not be the ones to bring them up. Conversing about those topics is a sure-fire way to get dropped during rush week. 

Sometimes you might need a fairy rush-mother

Alabama Greek life is so large that some prospective members hire a rush consultant to guide them through the process. Throughout the documentary we see Makalya navigating rush preparation alongside her consultant, who helps her pick out dresses to wear during rush week, prepares her for small talk with current members, and helps her spruce up her résumé. 

As a former PNM and Phi Mu president, Lee understands firsthand how intense the UA rush process is, so she recently decided to launch a  rush consultancy business alongside her sorority sister. Similar to the rush consultant in the documentary, she’s decided to help the young women of Tuscaloosa find their footing in the massive realm of recruitment. “I end up getting a lot of DMs and comments with questions around rush time anyway, so we put this personalized coaching together because it's not just about wearing the right color,” Lee says. “If you're coming from out of state and this is new to you, you're overwhelmed, we want to provide guidance and comfort. We’re offering something for the moms who get super involved and we’re focused on social media to help prospective members polish their pages so they can put their best foot forward.” 

Students are still not ready to talk about The Machine

The infamous “secret society,” The Machine, is discussed during the documentary. The organization is more than a century old, and it originally formed as a branch of Theta Nu Epsilon, itself a branch of Yale’s Skull and Bones. It’s not a recognized Greek org, but rather a sorority and fraternity coalition that historically has had the power to influence university politics, campus elections, and more.

Their influence has continued into present-day. But while the producers attempted to explore topics around The Machine and the impact they have on campus, every single interviewee opted out. Current sorority members claimed they didn’t even know what The Machine was. The PNMs in the film quickly chose to say they would not discuss that at all. Mentioning The Machine was grounds for getting blacklisted for any org you might be interested in.

“I was Machine-adjacent,” 2016 UA graduate and Chi Omega member Katie Plotts tells  Teen Vogue . “I was Machine-backed as an SGA senator and also paid the Machine dues as treasurer and president. They screwed me over in 2015, and it was a huge wake-up call to how terrible this organization really is. I can definitely understand not wanting to talk about it, especially if you want to stay in Alabama. UA is an extremely social school. There's a popular crowd, then there's  the popular crowd of the popular crowd. It can be very easy to be iced out from these groups. Speaking out is not kosher in Alabama. No one wants to be the one to disrupt the status quo. Those who speak out against it are often a pariah in their friend groups and sororities. Hopefully this starts to change soon though as more people realize the damage this group is doing to democracy.”

The Machine’s actual dominance throughout campus is never seen, but for many current and former students, it's felt. “The Machine has dictated everything from SGA elections to Homecoming Queen for years, and there’s speculation it’s dictated much more, from city council elections to the Governor’s race,” Gehlsen-Burnett says. “I think people fear what tries to remain hidden or mysterious; the Machine still exists because of the fear of shedding light on what it actually does and how it’s inherently rooted in classism and racism.”

UA Greek life has a tense past with racism and The Divine 9

The documentary also focuses on the racist past connected to white UA students and their Black counterparts. In 1986, the Theta Sigma chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., had a cross burned into their yard in front of their sorority house. Their house is the only Black sorority on Alabama’s sorority row. UA has a longstanding history with the mistreatment of its Black and brown students, and we see first hand how that history still plays a role in how students interact. 

“Diversity is at most a check box at Alabama,” Plot says. “Although it's been a few years since I graduated, Alabama has never taken accountability in their extremely racist history, and still to this day I see troubling things at the university that wouldn't fly at other schools. Tradition takes on a whole new meaning at this school, and it can be hard for them to separate what is good and what is shameful.” (Teen Vogue has reached out to the University of Alabama for comment.)

The secret blacklist does exist

We’ve all heard through TikTok about the possibilities of getting blacklisted, and the documentary shows one of the lead subjects Holliday dealing with it firsthand. She originally rushed in August of 2021 and chose a sorority house, but after making the mistake of wearing a different sorority sticker, she was dropped. Now in the documentary we see her prepare to rush again, but close to rush week she overhears sorority girls talking about how she was already blacklisted. She ultimately decides not to rush. While many current sorority members deny blacklisting to be a real thing, many young women at Alabama have spoken out about being put on that list. It usually comes down to small mistakes a senior in high school might not even realize they’d done until it was too late.

“Blacklisting is real,” Gehlsen-Burnett says. “Certain PNMs would be removed from our list if they had a ‘troubling’ social media post, including alcohol in photos, overly sexual pictures, things of that sort. Sororities are all about branding. If someone threatened to ‘ruin your brand’ then they’d be cut.”

Students are stuck in a love/hate relationship

The reason this documentary can only really touch the surface of Greek life at UA is mostly because of how many students are still ride-or-die for it. It’s very hard to convince people to betray a place they love dearly. Watching the documentary, you learn quickly how important tradition and legacy are to so many of these students, which is why there continues to be complacency and pushback on the practices that are continuously harming some of the student body. It is a hard line to walk, and it’s something Lee continues to deal with as an alumna who wants to see her beloved university evolve.

“I love UA so much,” Lee says. “I never want to be a part of something that could look like I don't love it or look like I support only the negative narrative against Alabama, but I also think loving something is wanting it to be its very best, holding them accountable. So in the same vein, we need to continue to get better each day and not let these small moments of diversity and change be a blip in the radar.”

Diversity is still an uphill battle

When looking at the population of current sorority members, diversity is still on the backburner. The university only made a formal effort to  integrate the Greek system in 2013. 

In the documentary, we meet several women of color currently in Greek life who share that while they weren’t met with outright racism, they did experience microaggressions from their sorority sisters. Lee was a part of the first crop of Black women to experience rush week. She’d then go on to become president of Phi Mu alongside her two close friends who were also Black women that became president of their respective panhellenic sororities. So while Lee garnered access and inclusion amidst this organization, she still believes there are many strides that still need to be made. Sometimes it’s not even a glaring diversity issue, but something as simple as mixers with their partnering fraternities.

“It’s kind of like when you watch a reality TV show and if everybody there was cast and they say their type is blonde, blue eyes and fit, then when they put the Black girl on the cast, obviously it's going to reinforce the fact that they're not going to be chosen,” Lee says.

Bama Rush is now streaming on Max.

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“We could talk about feminism, and we could talk about competition between women, body image, racism, sexism, classism, and sexual assault on campus or in general.”

“There’s more there than I am seeing, and I’m forever changed by that.”

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• Cast & crew
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It centers on women as they rush the sorority system at the University of Alabama in 2022. It centers on women as they rush the sorority system at the University of Alabama in 2022. It centers on women as they rush the sorority system at the University of Alabama in 2022.

• Rachel Fleit
• Shelby Rose
• Isabelle Eacrett
• Makalya Miller
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• Trivia At approximately -42:27 minutes left in the movie, while Abby and her friends are cooking: The next scene shows food being scooped into a striped bowl from a saucepan, and there appears to be a cockroach crawling on the counter above the stove!! Yikes!

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• Runtime 1 hour 40 minutes
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Directed by Rachel Fleit

Acceptance is everything.

Follow four young women as they prepare to rush at the University of Alabama in 2022. Against the viral backdrop of #BamaRush on TikTok, and the long-held tradition of sorority recruitment at the University of Alabama, the film explores the emotional complexities and high-stakes of belonging in this crucial window into womanhood.

Shelly Rose Isabelle Eacrett Makalya Miller Grace O'Connor Cameron Carley Sloan Anderson Rian Preston Kaiya Scott-Jordan Elisabeth Boyd Alyssa Kreuger John Archibald Alex Smith Emma Ruppert Melissa M. Rose Hailey Holliday Diana B. Turk Madyson Rae Certeza Trisha Addicks Lorie Stefanelli Katie Neville Lauren Dowsett Leah Nelson Jack Parker Garrett Burnett Deidra Chestang Lane Abby Bell Rachael Fleit Sophie Jordan Collins

Director Director

Rachel Fleit

Producers Producers

Danny Gabai Zachary Luke Kislevitz Andrew Freston A.J. Del Cueto

Editor Editor

Cinematography cinematography.

Lidia Nikonova

Executive Producers Exec. Producers

Rachel Fleit Lizzie Fox Casey Meurer Kama Kaina Eric Lavoie

Composer Composer

Wynne Bennett

Sound Sound

Tim Korn R.J. Mills

Vice Studios

Alternative Title

Documentary

Underdogs and coming of age Fascinating, emotional stories and documentaries Show All…

Releases by Date

23 may 2023, releases by country, puerto rico.

• Digital R Max

100 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Aaron Nolan ★ 7

Using Alabama sorority rush as a Trojan horse to talk about your battle with alopecia is easily one of the most bizarre directorial choices in the history of film

Review by Sam ½ 5

Do you wear wigs? Have you worn wigs? Will you wear wigs? When will you wear wigs?

Review by aaron ★★ 2

and is the exposing documentary about the machine i was promised in the room with us right now?

Review by rease 🪩 ★ 1

the girls: we are real people! not just sorority girls!

the director every 10 minutes: i have alopecia

Review by Dave ½

- a recruitment commercial for Alabama  - a therapy session for a filmmaker with alopecia  - a TikTok ad

This isn’t 

- a good or interesting documentary

Review by HauntTamale ★ 2

Girl, softly: My dad died Another girl, casually: I used know exactly how many calories were in a meal because I had an eating disorder. Now I know exactly how many calories were in a meal because I go to the gym! Other girl, nonchalantly: I’ve been roofied 3 times Director, dramatically: And I had to wear a WIG 😔

Review by Max ★ 2

kappa kappa alopecia

Review by meredith ★½ 1

glossing over the cross burning mention and spending 1/4 of the doc over the director’s alopecia sob story was A Choice.

Review by Sam ★ 2

the director is just like me fr bc i would also figure out a way to insert my narrative into a documentary that has literally nothing to do with me

Review by Abby ★

so what you’re saying is the machine won

Review by Kaia Yamamoto ½

It is extremely hard to watch the director not only minimize her own experience with alopecia by relating to a bunch of rich white privileged southern girls who have lives a million times easier than hers (the situations are so painfully unrelated) but also her commentary makes it clear this documentary was never intended to be about the of history and sorority truths. Instead it highlighted the “hardships” that these girls face while rushing that are all basic life problems every person has but for them is the end of the world for them and their easy ass lives.

I feel so embarrassed for this director because this documentary was hyped up to be something that explored the racism, discrimination…

Review by coolhotgirl69 ½ 1

girl if you wanted to talk about your alopecia you should have made a doc about that

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Review: Bama Rush (2023)

Bama rush (2023).

Directed by: Rachel Fleit

Premise: A documentary about female college students rushing the sorority system at the University of Alabama in 2022.

What Works: Documentaries are not always renowned for their cinematography but Bama Rush has a lot of extraordinary images. The colors frequently pop in ways that accentuate the students’ colorful outfits and the designs of sorority paraphernalia. The landscapes are also well photographed. A few scenes taking place at the waterfront are quite beautiful and frame their subjects in interesting ways. This exploration of the University of Alabama’s sorority culture is also an examination of young womanhood in the age social media. Bama Rush visualizes the way in which women are pressured to adopt a particular look and persona in order to integrate into the campus culture. The women’s stories reveal the place of social media and how it has amplified assimilationist and sometimes toxic behaviors. The social media angle also articulates the way we live in a surveillance society that lends itself to the policing of every aspect of these young women’s lives.

What Doesn’t: The problem with Bama Rush is that it ultimately doesn’t reveal much. There’s a lot of negative implications but the filmmakers just don’t have the story. The film acknowledges the influence of “The Machine,” the phrase that’s used to describe the cabal of elite students and Greek organization that run campus life. Some of the interviewees acknowledge it but the film doesn’t reveal who these people are or give concrete examples of what The Machine is doing. The film similarly comes up short in depicting the toxicity of sorority life. Here again, the film hints that something is wrong but the problems these women face, such as eating disorders, are not unique to Greek life and many of the women in Bama Rush had these issues before they even enrolled in college. Bama Rush also acknowledges the legacy of racism and how the University of Alabama’s Greek system did not desegregate until 2013 . Bama Rush does include interviews with alumni who encountered racism but the documentary doesn’t say much about contemporary students. Director Rachel Fleit inserts herself into the story. Fleit has Alopecia which has caused her to lose her hair. Fleit attempts to connect her own social anxiety with the experiences of these women. It’s a reach. Her reflections about living with Alopecia are intelligent but they don’t belong in this movie.

Disc extras: Available on Max.

Bottom Line: Bama Rush is a well-intended documentary. It is critical of campus Greek life but it’s not a hit piece. Ultimately, the film just doesn’t reveal much about anything.

Episode: #963 (September 2, 2023)

Bama Rush (2023)

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A compelling watch, even if the words “TikTok sensation #BamaRush” are all Greek to you.

What it's about

If you’ve ever been puzzled by “Greek life”, this documentary will go some way to demystifying that somewhat baffling phenomenon of American college culture. Bama Rush follows four hopefuls as they “rush” the University of Alabama’s sororities, a TikTok-viral weeklong recruitment process so cutthroat some candidates spend months preparing for it. The documentary digs deep into why these young women put so much time, energy, and money into joining what the film hints is a largely unforgiving and reductive element of campus life. What it finds is pretty affecting: they’re really just looking for acceptance and belonging.

Threaded throughout are director Rachel Fleit’s reflections on her own history with those motivations, having grown up with alopecia. Though it does illustrate that rushing isn’t so dissimilar from other quests for acceptance, this parallel is sometimes clunkily drawn — and can seem somewhat self-indulgent in places, given the documentary’s comparatively surface-level exploration of more systemic issues. A late development shifts Bama Rush into an even deeper self-reflexive mode, as the film itself becomes a contentious issue in the process it’s documenting. Despite its flaws, turns like this — and its participants’ extraordinary candor — help make Bama Rush an often illuminating look into an opaque world. 

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Bama Rush Isn’t a Takedown, It’s a Revolt

An ominous voiceover in the new MAX documentary Bama Rush makes a lofty, revolutionary declaration: “This documentary could be the end of Greek life as we know it.” It’s clipped from a TikTok video about the mere rumor of director Rachel Fleit’s project, which inevitably overtakes the University of Alabama during its 2022 production, causing one of Fleit’s subjects to ghost her and forcing the director to wear a disguise around campus for her own safety. These hysterics surrounding the buzzy TikTok-inspired documentary aren’t surprising, but anyone who can let go of the hype and actually watch the film is likely to realize they’re completely unnecessary. Far from being a juicy exposé on sorority culture at the university, the film explores what it means to be a part of American society as a young woman — particularly when that society is itching to watch your world get torn down by a documentary on a streaming service.

While Fleit did not gain access to a highly coveted sorority house, or any Greek house at all, she did enter the inner lives of the young women who fill them. One of Fleit’s subjects is Isabelle, whom we meet in California during her senior year of high school. She’s seemingly unafraid, even eager, to submit to the rush process, firm in the belief that she will find herself through her new sorority. When I reached her by phone ahead of the documentary’s release, she hadn’t yet seen the film, but she’d certainly seen the comments on the trailer. “I was 17 years old at the time we started filming,” she said. “And when I see these videos or comments from women that are in their 30s, or even 20s, just trying to pick apart every little piece that we say, and trying to find something hateful about it, it’s hurtful.” But she considers the film a record of her personal growth from a high schooler searching for a sense of self to a sorority woman who feels empowered, and inspired, by the women who surround her. She includes Fleit in that list of women. “I see my future self in her, in a way,” she said. “I want to go into film. I want to be able to be independent. And I never saw that in a woman, in a real person, like her. She really did change my life.”

Fleit creates an intimacy with her subjects that’s only possible because of her own vulnerability; early on in the film, she turns the camera on herself and begins sharing her story of growing up completely bald due to alopecia. She posits that her ritual of hiding her condition with wigs around the clock, fueled by her fear of being outed as “a bald girl,” is akin to the fear each potential new member — and truly everyone on earth — has of being seen as someone who doesn’t belong. The subject is first broached when a girl named Katie, an active member of Zeta Tau Alpha — a “top tier” house at UA — asks Fleit if she wears sunscreen on her head. In lesser, more sensationalist hands, this moment could have been presented as a pretty sorority girl prodding at someone’s insecurity. But it’s not that. And the filmmaker takes care to present the interaction as one of real bonding: a beautiful young woman who has just confessed she’d “kill to look like any of her friends” feels safe enough to ask Fleit an honest question about her own relationship to her appearance. Becoming a subject of the film wasn’t something Fleit had planned, but the suggestion by her editor was a revelation. “It became so clear to me that in order to create the maximum amount of empathy that I could create for these young women, I had to stand shoulder to shoulder with them,” she said. Fleit was interested not in criticizing but in understanding. She succeeds not only in creating a heartfelt portrait of how young women experience the world but in reframing how I viewed my own past life as a sorority member.

Rush is something I did at a university almost obsessed with Greek life, but it’s not something I look back on fondly: Getting dropped, as I did by almost every house I sought to join, is a traumatic thing. “It’s way more dramatic than you’re thinking it is,” one sorority woman tells Fleit of not being called back to a house as a “potential new member,” or a PNM. And it’s just as destabilizing as it feels, even putting aside the fact that top-tier houses at Alabama are part of an underground campus organization called the Machine , which apparently rigs every school-related election and sometimes exerts its influence violently. (John Archibald, who has reported on this, is featured in the film as well.) At any school, the letters you end up wearing mean much more than just what color T-shirt you get. After all, every house on campus has a reputation, and the act of being sorted into one is like being told to your face what everyone really thinks of you. It really is like a Harry Potter sorting ritual, but instead of being determined by a talking hat, your fate is decided by your fellow students privately voting on whether they want to include you. One of the more revealing moments of Fleit’s film happens when both an active sorority member and a professional rush consultant admit what makes a sorority a top-tier house: the opinion of frat boys. Rush, then, serves as a ritual to magnify every insecurity, a grand heightening of the lunch-table politics of high school, a formalizing of the racist, ableist, misogynist scale by which the young women of our country are measured. In a way, it’s a little like if someone made Instagram a competitive sport (something that isn’t lost on two of Fleit’s subjects: Hailey Holliday and Shelby Rose, both former beauty-pageant participants who relish the competitive aspect of it all). Some, including me, might tell you it’s not worth what comes after. However, Fleit isn’t interested in whether people should rush, but whether they could avoid it even if they wanted to.

Sororities were originally built as defensive measures. The University of Alabama did not admit women until 1893, and it did not admit a Black woman until 1956 . The school expelled her due to backlash and did not accept or graduate another until the ’60s . Upon arrival, both of these groups sought the bonds of sisterhood for camaraderie in the face of hostility to their very presence. Kappa Delta, a historically white sorority, opened its doors on campus in 1904, and Delta Sigma Theta — the school’s first Black sorority — arrived in 1974. In a sense, sororities still serve this protective function, as Fleit discovered when she was turned down for interviews by 500 people and her access to any sorority house on campus was firmly denied. “I think a lot of the fear was that their words would be misconstrued and that the film was going to be this takedown,” she told me. “The fear is that, I think, sorority systems have been mocked in mainstream media.” The perceived hostility that exists toward sororities today is usually seen as progressive: These are institutions that champion exclusivity in a world that idealizes equal opportunity. And the film doesn’t shy from a lot of uncomfortable truths about the history of these institutions. While segregation is not something at all unique to Alabama’s Greek system, it is shocking to learn that the school’s historically white houses admitted to cutting Black pledges as recently as 2013 .

What Fleit discovers is that the Greek system at Alabama is not some alien cult. Any school’s Greek life is often a distillation of the community that surrounds it and the values that community champions in its youth. Likewise, every horrifying thing you’ll see in Bama Rush is a horror that women can universally relate to: the almost unfazed reaction one woman has to getting drugged at a bar again. The casualness with which sorority members digitally reshape their bodies in photos to look thinner. The automatic way all of these women, to varying degrees, readily devalue themselves. When two Zetas express anxiety over how they’ll come across, the exchange is heartbreaking. “I just don’t want people to hate us, or me,” says one. “Or us ,” the other interjects, with a laugh. “But you’re likable ,” argues the first, giving us a glimpse of that inner narrative even the women commanding so much envy have running through their heads at all times: You are by default unwanted, unwelcome, unlikable . These are young people who are keenly aware that there is safety in blending in as just another pretty girl among very pretty girls, and that to speak — to become a real person, flaws and all — is a dangerous prospect.

It’s not yet clear if any of the women who spoke with Fleit will suffer consequences for doing so, but the threat of such causes at least one of her subjects, Shelby, to ghost the production. After the trailer dropped earlier this month, she posted a TikTok video disavowing her participation. While the fear of what the film will mean for Bama’s Greek life is real, it also highlights an irony: This documentary pretty much only exists because the sororities themselves are popular on TikTok, which is also what drives women like Shelby and Isabelle to attend the University of Alabama in the first place.

The only tea spilled in Bama Rush is an unfiltered look at the lives of the young women who dance and dress up on TikTok as free advertisements for an extremely large and well-funded university. No one bats an eye at the strangeness of that, because to be a pretty, dancing thing is a role we expect these young women to fill. But it is the only role we expect them to fill. To discover their depth, and to understand their choices, is to admit that we might have made those same choices ourselves in their circumstances. It robs us of the ability to mock them, to roll our eyes, to shrug them off as unserious — all the things we do to women we feel a need to devalue, perhaps because they look like people who would do the same to us. “These young women were the girls I felt scared of when I was growing up,” Fleit told me. “After talking to a few of them, I was like, Oh, wow, we look totally different, but we are totally the same underneath it all . Really, underneath the hood of the car, it was just the same kind of engine that was just wanting to belong, to feel loved, to have friends.”

What I expected to get from Fleit’s film, a bitter catharsis to soothe my old rush wounds, is not what I came away with. Instead, I was reminded that the sorority I ultimately ended up joining was actually a decent influence on my life. It was an organization that required me to be a good student, to drink responsibly, and to act in a way that wouldn’t embarrass my cohort, even if I didn’t necessarily listen. The sorority house itself, a bowerlike structure that had no tolerance for boys or booze, was one of the few spaces on campus where I always felt safe. I can’t argue that sororities are the best way to provide these things for college students or that I got these things because of the Greek system rather than in spite of it. But what I can say is that not going through rush, or even attending a school without a Greek system, wouldn’t have spared me the pain of trying to be liked by strangers as an 18-year-old. That is a ritual no one avoids, even if their version of it is more affordable and involves less dancing.

Greek life is unique, however, in the culture of silence it upholds. “I kept on saying, I really want to know what it’s like to be a young woman right now,” Fleit said, as she recounted the resistance to her project on campus. It culminated in the sale of “f*ck your documentary” t-shirts , and her decision to once again wear a wig to avoid being recognized. “I would just stop hearing from people. It was interesting because you can dance on TikTok, but you can’t talk about your feelings.” Sorority women have long been cloistered, ostensibly for their own protection. What anyone who watches Bama Rush will end up wondering is whether today’s women are still benefiting from that silence. After all, what kind of community would view the voices of young women as a threat? And is that a community worth protecting? This documentary certainly won’t be the end of Greek life as we know it, but it could be the beginning of a different kind of life for the young women who see it, whatever their affiliation.

• documentary
• rachel fleit

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• Everything We Learn About the Mysterious ‘Machine’ in Max’s <i>Bama Rush</i> Documentary

Everything We Learn About the Mysterious ‘Machine’ in Max’s Bama Rush Documentary

I n 2021, sorority rush season at the University of Alabama enraptured viewers on TikTok as potential new members (called PNMs for short) offered a look behind the scenes at their attempts to join their top-pick houses. During the phenomenon that came to be known on TikTok as Bama Rush, young female students would upload their OOTD (outfit of the day) videos and tell viewers where they purchased each piece of clothing or accessory they were wearing.

@kylan_darnell Its bid day #rush #bamarush #bamarushtok #bamarushtok #bamarush2022 ♬ original sound - Kylan Darnell

It all seemed like harmless fun until TikTok users caught wind of something called “The Machine” as more users started uploading videos about an elusive group of people at the University of Alabama. This ominous name refers to a mysterious presence that is said to loom over Greek life in Alabama. A few users attempted to explain what it was while all of this was trending on the app, but Bama Rush , a new documentary out today on HBO’s newly rebranded streaming service Max, takes a deeper look into its mechanics.

The history of a Southern sorority

The documentary is centered around a group of women who are planning to rush sororities at the University of Alabama. They give the documentary crew unfiltered access to the process, talking about the traditions and the process leading up to the moment when rush begins. Viewers get a short history of sororities and the rushing process, how it became known as such, and why it’s such a big deal to these women: for many of these women—all of whom are white, with the exception of one Black woman—it’s a crucial status symbol.

The documentary discusses how the rush process has evolved over time (spoiler alert: not much). Especially when they are accepted into a sorority, these women still have to follow an extremely strict set of rules. The documentary’s first half is a light-hearted look at this trend that took over social media, but the tone shifts significantly when the potential new members were asked about “The Machine.”

“We can’t talk about it”

When director Rachel Fleit asks four of her subjects if they knew what social media was saying about “The Machine,” the tone of the interviews completely changes. The interviewees appear visibly uncomfortable. Two of the women decline to comment, with one telling Fleit, “We can’t talk about it; it would ruin a lot of stuff for us, even our lives.” Following their silence, the documentary then gives the floor to someone who will talk: John Archibald, a University of Alabama alumnus, class of 1986, who says that the Machine helped him get his start in life.

According to the documentary, the Machine is “a secret society” named Theta Nu Epsilon, comprised of representatives from different sororities and fraternities on campus. They meet in fraternity basements, per a student government associate justice named Garrett who appears in the film, and vote on elected school representatives, then bring the information back to their houses and tell their members how to vote.

Their motto, according to allegedly leaked documents shown in the documentary “claiming to be the 2016 constitution of Theta Nu Epsilon,” is “Little is known, and what is known is kept secret.” Garrett says that this omnipresent fellowship is synonymous with Greek life on the university campus. They allegedly rig elections on campus, with homecoming kings and queens, awards, and jobs all going to the members of this secret society.

“An oppressive system”

One of the former Machine members featured in the film, Alex Smith, wrote an exposé in the campus newspaper in 2015 titled “Rage Against the Machine,” which explained why she wanted to leave what she called “an oppressive system.” In the documentary, Smith says that “only a handful of independent candidates have successfully gone against The Machine and beat them” to become Student Government Association (SGA) presidents. She goes on to say that the school had to shut down the SGA for three years from 1993 to 1996 “because of The Machine’s alleged activities,” as the doc shows an Associated Press headline referencing the 1993 attack that reads, “University Closes Student Government After Attack on Candidate.”

The film also sheds light on text from the University of Alabama’s 1993 yearbook that detailed an alleged attack on a candidate named Minda Riley (it’s not clear if she was a non-Machine candidate). “A masked assailant attacked Riley in her home,” it reads, going on to describe her injuries: a bruised cheek, busted lip, and knife wound to the face. One of the ominous quotes: “You f-ck with the wrong people, you get f-cked.”

According to Archibald, the Machine has been responsible for putting a system in place to ensure that a small group of people enjoy special treatment on campus because they came from affluent backgrounds and had a special advantage over everyone else. “It’s a way better teacher of how to do nefarious things for power than you could ever get in a political science class.”

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Write to Moises Mendez II at [email protected]

Bama Rush Doc: HBO Max and Vice Team for Deep Dive Into University of Alabama’s Sorority Rush Week

By Jennifer Maas

Jennifer Maas

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The viral TikTok sensation that is “ Bama Rush ,” a.k.a. sorority recruitment week at the University of Alabama , is getting the documentary treatment from Vice Studios and HBO Max , Variety has confirmed.

Directed by “Introducing, Selma Blair” director Rachel Fleit, the documentary is currently in production in Tuscaloosa, where “rush week” at the University of Alabama has recently concluded with more than 2,500 students rushing 19 sororities.

“This film is a thoughtful and compassionate portrayal of young women in 2022 as they rush the sorority system at the University of Alabama,” Fleit said in a statement via Vice, which was first provided to The New York Times for an Aug. 12 story that confirmed the doc is filming.

A representative for Vice Studios told the Times that “hidden microphones” are not involved in the production, following rumors that surfaced on TikTok about sorority candidates that have been caught with concealed recording devices during 2022 recruitment.

“The university is aware of reports that outside parties have facilitated unauthorized recordings of our students involved in Panhellenic recruitment,” Shane Dorrill, an assistant director of communications at the University of Alabama, wrote in an email to the Times. “The university has not authorized any third-party entity to film, record or document any recruitment activities and does not allow media inside occupied buildings such as residence halls and sorority houses.”

Popular on Variety

Per the Times, the documentary has allegedly been in the works at Vice since “Bama Rush” first became popular on TikTok during the 2021 recruitment season. One recent graduate of the University of Alabama, who was a member of its Alpha Phi sorority, told the Times she was approached last November via Instagram by a person who claimed to be a Vice Studios producer about being part of a film set up at HBO Max, but she ultimately declined the offer.

Sources tell Variety the doc that is currently in production is being produced for HBO Max.

Representatives for HBO Max declined to comment.

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  TV-MA | documentaries | 1 HR 41 MIN | 2023

A fascinating look into the long-held tradition of sorority recruitment at the University of Alabama, following four young women as they prepare for the 2022 rush season.

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A fascinating look into the long-held tradition of sorority recruitment at the University of Alabama, following four young women as they prepare for the 2022 rush season.

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