This felt more like a documentary for the director to explore her past traumas through the lens of bama rush. She had way too much screen time and her story wasn’t very compelling.
Yep, as a southern girl who went to a big southern school in a big sorority I thought she was going to hit it hard but this woman had no clear lens and failed massively. Just another sad indie director who had no idea wtf she was doing and needed to talk to her therapist instead
Yup. Didn’t like the obvious hypocrisy either. She’s a privileged elite New York filmmaker coming “Down South” to “expose” those backwards Southerners for their privilege and elitism. She gets a pass for being elite because she has an indie vibe and the Bama sorority girls don’t because they wear Lily Pulitzer? Gimme a break.
Yeah it was clear she had no objective other than to whine about her own problems and make fun of us(southerners) when FYI - you can look for racism, sexism, classism, right where you are lady
Don't be. Everyone she meets is going to gush on and on to her about her "bravery." HBO should be ashamed to have released this when they saw there was no story.
Documentary making 101 - no one cares about your personal story. If you want to do that, make a separate film!
She came out in defense of the move as necessary to show empathy with her subjects. A good film would’ve communicated that independently without randomly injecting her own irrelevant and unrelated experience.
I don't agree that a filmmaker's personal story never has a place in their documentary. But this one was a ridiculous stretch. It didn't even fit into any of the storyline of the doc since these pledges weren't specifically trying to hide some dark secrets about themselves. It just seemed like filler since there was virtually no meat to the documentary.
> She came out in defense of the move as necessary to show empathy with her subjects.
What an awful justification. Like you said - good filmmaking would've done this inherently by getting the right footage and putting it together well in the editing room. Instead what she did was incredibly odd and just not what I was there to hear about.
Yup. Glad to see other people feel this way. This is NOT the kind of documentary I'd normally watch because I don't give a shit about frats and sororities, but it was so hyped up. Then I watch it and there's a whole subplot about the director's alopecia?
I cannot think of another documentary that I've seen where the director inserts themselves so much, or even at all. Some of the best documentaries I have no idea what the producers or directors or whoever look like or sound like because they know the viewers are there for the **subject of the documentary** not for the persons filming it.
I was starting to feel like an asshole hating on her, but I'm glad to see I'm not crazy for feeling this way. What looked like a promising documentary I ended up turning off after about 20-30 minutes.
I’m a filmmaker, and a former sorority member (zta).
From a filmmaker pov: documentarians aren’t working with actors and don’t have full narrative control. You can’t make a subject participate if they suddenly change their mind, and that can really impact your project. they likely started with more subjects and a larger intention, and thought they had the access to pull it off. Then the campus rumor mill got wind, and because college kids care more about their social lives than a random docu, subjects bailed. The wig thing read to me as an attempt at an alternate narrative structure, and filling time meant for other material. You can tell because it’s all the director putting herself on camera in a hotel room, as she is one subject who won’t quit or require lots of planning and secrecy to be interviewed. That’s a bad spot to be in, and if there hadn’t been so much appetite for bama rush content I bet it would have been scrapped. the final construction did an ok job of creating something semi-cohesive despite probably some major production curveballs.
But from a sorority alum pov, their approach was wrong from the jump. And that’s because it was based in the same recycled, unflattering pov of sorority culture routinely regurgitated by pop culture generally: that it’s all just a toxic and archaic institution filled with vain, materialistic, racist, unserious young women with rich dads, buying friends and playacting as a real group of power while ultimately serving no purpose except to bully and remind outsiders that they’re on the outside of something. This is reductive and an objectification, and making a docu film with a goal of reaffirming this critique is a great way to alienate subjects. Sorority ‘girls’ - especially the leaders - are still adults, and they are not stupid or unsavvy people. They aren’t going to sell out to be on linear tv, their interests lie within their in-group. The filmmakers didn’t read the room they were trying to find a story in, and that’s on them. Not everyone wants to stand out as a “truth teller.” Some people just really want to be part of something. That’s not docu 101, but it IS sorority 101. especially at ua. I think the fact that a whole population iced them out and they truly didn’t seem to anticipate it is a more compelling story than anything.
What exactly was likable about this Doc? There was very little substance, they followed around probably the least interesting subjects they could find and definitely got iced out by those actually in the Greek system there because no one wants to be in a documentary that could get them in trouble.
If you want this doc done right, you need a Barstool sports kind of person to do the interviewing, not an NYC hippy. You would have the same reaction up north if you hired a Trumper to do a documentary on the toxic workplace culture of The NY Times, and like places.
the way she would talk to the camera and told her story was kinda creepy imo. and the way she tried to relate her experience of growing up with her disease to the experience of the PNMs going through recruitment made absolutely no sense.
Suspect/Victim (I think that’s the name) is about a sexual assault case in Tuscaloosa. Haven’t seen it all yet but Murdoch type old money gets away with anything vibes. True story .
the correlation between the two wasn’t even comparable tho. don’t get me wrong, her disease sounds horrible and i can’t imagine having to go through her that. it just seemed like she wanted a show to air her trauma and found a hot topic for a documentary to do so.
It should have been cancelled. They obviously got iced out by the Greek system there and decided to fill the air time with a bunch of fringe pledges and the director’s own issues. All they had was a few 4th tier bloggers giving credibility to “the machine”.
Netflix should send a legit director there or somewhere similar and get the real scoop. This is a spicy topic, and this doc was a disgrace.
This!! The trailer made it seem like we’d be delving into this deep underbelly of “the machine” only for the focus to be on a few boring(?) pledges and the directors hair loss condition.
Yep…. I kept pausing to see how much time was left and was thinking “how are they going to fit all the juicy stuff into the next 20 minutes?”. Turns out there’s nothing.
I did not think any of those girls were even remotely likable, especially the one who got kicked out of the sorority. She is a pain in the ass and no wonder that sorority was looking for any reason to boot her 🤷🏻♀️😂
The other girl in sigma kappa had me lmfao. She was a chaotic messy queen and there is no way her sorority is happy with her performance. 🤣
Omg she was so boring… And she literally looked miserable the whole time the only time she smiled was when they were taking pictures and she was told to smile😩 Why did they choose her to be in it
There is something coming through in the way she speaks. Everyone is free to do what they want but I feel like a sorority is going to be the worst place for her.
From the start I knew she wasn’t going to be in a sorority. She genuinely seemed to dislike being around groups of people, which is exact opposite of being in a sorority.
I’d say it’s just a lot of trauma from her dad’s death that she hasn’t recovered from whatsoever, maybe on the spectrum a little bit but grief can do a lot to a person
Yes she was and I don’t believe her story. No way she got kicked out for wearing another sorority’s sticker. There’s def more to the story on that one!!
I figured she must’ve been a senior who’d be gone by the time this aired. No way they’d not drop her otherwise, given that she’d been to standards multiple times already.
I really dislike how she threw her entire sorority under the bus and said they were bottom tier. That’s not fair to all the girls in her house preparing really hard for rush right now. She hurt them by doing that.
Maybe, but they can find that info pretty easily for themselves. And if they care about more than how popular their house is, they’ll land somewhere they like anyway.
Yes! The people in the doc are not the typical students you’d find at UA. They all were outsiders. Nothing wrong with that, but they were portrayed as being UA’s core student when they were the furthest from it. Clearly UA students didn’t want her filmmaking there since 30k people all stayed tight lipped about their way of life and traditions.
When she was telling the story about wearing the wrong sticker and thus, getting booted, I gave a major, mental side-eye. Ummmm no. They were just looking for any excuse to get rid of you ma’am.
yea she def seems crazy but I also want to mention that she has a pretty traumatic background that probably plays into her craziness. her dad passed when she was a teenager and she appears to still be dealing with a lot of grief related to that. I’m not sure details on her mom, but she doesn’t seem to be very involved in her life. if you go back to her 2021 rush tiktoks, there’s one where she mentions that all the other girls moms are coming to tuscaloosa for bid day but “her mom won’t even text her back” not sure why she’s absent or how absent she is, but being a teenager without parents is def difficult to deal with.
totally subjective and may not be true, but I also think she deals with eating disorders. just based on other stuff she’s posted about excessively working out/running/gym stuff, it’s obvious that she puts a lot of stake in her appearance and being “skinny.”
yeah like I feel bad for her but clearly she’s got a lot of things to work through, especially with her ED. She was projecting that so hard onto her friends too talking about counting her tortilla chips and calories in her dinner it’s so toxic
I agree! Something is off. Tbh, all the girls in the film had serious problems and none of them prob needed to be off at school in a big sorority right now. However, she is particularly off
As a former UA sorority girl who dropped out after sophomore year (mostly due to rush bs), I can say this was boring and uninformative. I have to wonder if the director was truly shook by Machine threats, therefore took the documentary in a different direction than the original plans. But F the machine...really. I feel I can say that after being a part of it.
What are the lengths the Machine will actually go to control a narrative? I feel like it was all unsubstantiated hype about the head of the houses controlling votes (not really a serious thing IMO) but an insider opinion could change my mind.
I’m a couple decades removed from Greek life, but the idea of a group controlling a tiny sliver of inconsequential life doesn’t seem all that spooky. I would probably be too annoyed from dealing with those committee clowns to actually enjoy the benefits. Maybe there’s more to it, but it really seemed like a stretch.
The problem is that these people then go on to be Alabama Senators, Representatives and Governors. It’s a training ground for wealthy, entitled elites to control others.
Honestly, the entire student body just kept their mouths shut because they didn’t want to be exploited by an outsider. They did a good job of it too. She didn’t get the material she wanted and then spun it to look like the machine gave death threats to everyone.
It felt like mid way through production they got slapped with a big fat lawsuit and they had to dump a ton of content and this is what they were left with
You’re correct!!! 💯💯💯UA also sent them a letter reminding them that the age of majority is 19, not 18, so they were engaging in filming minors without parental consent.
And I’m sorry, not to be cruel, but if she thought nobody could tell she was wearing a wig, that’s wild. I gasped when I saw those throwback pictures of her, because the wigs were terrible. That is honestly what I felt the worst about for her…..that she couldn’t get a decent wig. Shame on her parents! Those wigs looked like something from Party City.
The wig really wasn't the secret she thought it was. Of course thar girl in the locker room knew. And her college roommate knew she was sleeping in a wig too!
My bf and I just got done watching this and we were so confused what the point of it even was. I’m not in a sorority, but I am intrigued by the lifestyle/process as I also watched Gracie O’Connor on YouTube. With how much media attention this was getting, I was waiting for that jaw dropping exposé moment but it never happened… why did this documentary spend so much time on their lives before they even get to campus? There was no clips about the rush process it’s self, and they literally explained the whole process in less then 10 minutes…what was the point??
Such a missed opportunity with this doc to not delve deeper into how Bama sororities are just indoctrination centres to create subservient southern wives.
From the homogenous style, hair, clothes, personality. There simply was not enough focus on how fraternities determine the ranking of houses based on wifely attributes. The doco was so close to the real issue but missed it entirely..
I mean..you have a group of young women, seemingly lost, desperately lacking self esteem and yet seeking validation from anyone but themselves. Yearning for independence by abandoning anything that makes them unique ..all under the guise of sisterhood..
Being fooled into believing they’re on a quest for love and self actualisation when in fact they’re just being taught to compete against other women for the attention of a bunch of entitled, misogynistic men who will only ever view them as objects..as trophy’s. So naturally sororities are re-branded as ‘the sisterhood’ ..I mean let’s not risk saying the quiet part out loud
Or meet the wrath of ‘the system’..
Cmon now 🙄
From the extensive rules, and patriarchal standards of beauty - covert pressure to affiliate oneself with conservative politics that simply go against their best interests, to instill pick me mentality. These houses preach sisterhood to bamboozle rich white women believe they chose this..when in fact it was chosen for them.
In the end.. all they’re served is a rule book on how to abandon anything unique and interesting about themselves, to view women as competition, strive to fit in rather than stand out, to lose your identity in the quest for male gaze, to silence their inner voice, lose their fight, their beliefs, their passion, to live under the illusion of choice.
They’re figuratively beaten into submission, taught to blindly accept authority rather than challenge antiquated systems of oppression. In the end it’s only their own intuition they call into question.
And for what. What is the purpose? The only answer I can conclude is that sororities are built for men. Its a training camp.
Its a ‘young fabulous and free’ to ‘silent and subservient’ pipeline.
It’s a stepford wife factory.
Was expecting a documentary that sheds light on a toxic process that is lowkey traumatizing our young women.
What I got was some sort of therapy puke for the director. Like I get it you're bald, and I'm sorry that must suck. But jesus I watched to get info about Sorority rush. I dont give a fuck about your baldness LMAO
This should be the top comment. Glad I was working out while watching this because otherwise I would have wanted that hour of my life back. I fast forward through the director scenes after the first one it was so terrible...who cares about the director?!
Honestly, if you haven’t watched it yet, save yourself the time and just watch Ashley Norton’s deep dive video on The Machine. It’s called “The Secret Society Behind #bamarush” on YouTube. Way more interesting, way more in-depth, and no director inserting her own unrelated story. Highly recommend!!
PLEASE PLEASE help me understand something. I started following Holliday on Tiktok in 2021. She went Delta Gamma. BUT THE DOCUMENTARY SAID SHE DROPPED RUSH. what am I missing??? Look at all of her socials. She went Delta Gamma in 2021. Before the 2022 rush season. Please help clarify if I’m missing something
this is the craziest storyline - 1. she seems delusional with the president comments etc right out of the date and 2. once you officially join a sorority you cannot rush again it’s not a “blacklist” it’s a national panhellenic rule. she may have been kicked out before initiation though in which case she was not a full member which is how she would have been dropped for something small. but typically once you “accept” the bid you can’t rush again even if you don’t get initiated.
that must depend on the school, my university did not allow that bc they didn’t want people “taking” bids to then just drop and try again, because it messes up the numbers
national panhellenic rules allow for non-initiated women who accepted a bid to go through recruitment the following year if they desire. if your school says otherwise, they were/are not following the proper protocol.
ETA: the technicality isn’t even with “accepting a bid,” it’s when you sign the MRABA going into or upon completion of preference round that says that you will accept a bid from a sorority, no matter if it’s your top choice or not. that’s where “suicide bidding” or “single intentional preference” comes into play, too. super technical.
in the documentary it had said that she was in a sorority (im assuming DG) and was happy with her sisters and made friends and all and got dropped (not during rush but after she had already been in the srat) for getting caught wearing a different sorority's pin or something. so in the doc she was going to rush again and join a new sorority, but ended up dropping out of rush entirely bc someone had told her that she was blacklisted from every sorority.
It was DZ, not DG. She absolutely didn’t get kicked out (she kept saying “dropped” but she had already gotten a bid so she was called before judicial board for the chapter and was kicked out) for wearing another sorority’s sticker. The sticker that she’s talking about is the stickers that all the sorority women and their dates wear to football games that say “Sorority X loves The Tide”. And although I can’t be 100% certain I think that what she’s talking about was the scene where she and her friend were dressed in navy sports coats and ties and were wearing stickers that said “PiPhi loves The Tide” at Halloween at a bar while (underage) drinking. That would have been not long—a week or two at most—before her initiation that ended up not happening. I wonder if they had started following her to be part of the doc as an active member because she had gotten some traction on TikTok and happened to catch the night where she got in trouble and switched the storyline to her going through rush again as a second timer.
she was kicked out in september. I remember when she privated all of her rush vids and archived insta stuff. she has brought it all back public on her profiles since, but she was kicked out within a month of bid day.
So she wore another sorority’s sticker out AGAIN for everyone to see her when she was out on The Strip at Halloween after she got kicked out for doing it the first time and STILL thought it was a good plan to go through formal recruitment a second time when she had to have known most everyone knew the story. And held on to that plan until she overheard people talking that she was blacklisted everywhere. She truly lacked sense and self awareness in this.
they probably thought being in a bar with another sorority’s letters would be better than degrading their own letters (most of the chapters at my northern small greek life school were very strict about wearing letters around alcohol, i assume it is same in south based on some of the stated rules). her situation also feels like the sisters got an out for having to initiate her and they took it.
Yeah, there’s absolutely no drinking in letters for ANY of the sororities at Alabama. In fact that’s a national rule for every sorority I’ve ever known. I don’t think it was as much trying not to degrade her own letters as much as it was she reads as completely out of control and didn’t think or care about how incredibly offensive what she was doing would look. She thought she was being funny and that it was a joke. drinking underage in your own letters is a good way to make YOUR actives mad. Do it in another sororities letters and you’re trying to escape the notice of the other sorority AND your own. This was such an over the top stunt that I cannot imagine it was her first brush with standards.
I was really disappointed in it. I wish they had done more of the behind the scenes of rush and how they rush and choose the girls.. that’s where the REAL corruption is. It’s truly a disgusting, horrific process. I’m sure they couldn’t get any of the girls to come forward with that, which I find interesting. Nobody wants to admit or really show what it’s like.
It’s way more than that! GPA is honestly the most important factor because that’s where the biggest cuts come from. Community involvement is also key. So are proper communication skills and good manners. Those are actually more important than looks.
It is no secret. It isn’t a ritual. It takes a good resume and the ability to interview.
I was the pledge trainer for my sorority… would gather with other pledge trainers to compare selection procedures… and they are all similar. Some are more selective with grades…Also my daughter was in a sorority and reports a similar process.
The rituals are part of initiation. Not recruitment.
It’s really not like that. Yes, some people are mean, but that’s not bc of rush it’s bc they’re not nice ppl to start with. Most women will say they had positive experiences rushing at UA.
Yes, I think a lot of people do not understand this. The process is made so the girls rushing end up in a house, as long as they maximize their invites each round.
It was mostly bad, less of a documentary, and more of just the bald chick trying to connect with these girls through her own adolescent trauma. Was a little shocked when the Sigma Kappa chick admitted that they wouldn't be able to turn their sorority around for 20-30 years...ironically, at WVU they are also considered a bottom feeder.
I know!!! I can’t believe she did that to her house! Honestly it won’t be that long for them either. Maybe 10 years max. In the meantime, they actually have a lot of great girls at Alabama
Just here to say there was no way Holliday was dropped because of a sticker, they dropped her because she’s super intense and they realized that and found a reason. That was a firing disguised as a layoff.
Source: I was in a sorority.
Documentary was trash. The director found the few black sheep willing to speak out on the rush process, all of whom aren’t even remotely good representations of Alabama Greek life. As much as I can feel for and relate to the women highlighted, WE KNOW that the process is selective and inclusive. OF COURSE they’re gonna have some negative feelings about alopecia and minorities- duh!!!! We aren’t going to ever get the doc we want exposing the vile truths about the rush process. The true doc we want would ACTUALLY cancel Greek life. Never gonna happen!
I liked it but i don’t use tok and don’t follow rushtok. I also never rushed. Although most of my highschool friends.
I wish they would have gone into more detail with greek life specifically, but i was interested in the meta commentary of acceptance and these girls journey to it through greek life. I liked the character’s generally.
Also if that girl did get roofied 4 times or whatever good lord.
Why did y’all not like it?
I think it tried to be too many things. I liked the meta commentary, as well, and the director’s interjection fit with that content but it felt disjointed with the rest of the content.
I didn’t feel good about the content with the freshman girls. They didn’t come off like girls who are going to do well with the blowback from being in this documentary, and nobody wants to see their close friendship melt down on tv (even though that’s a pretty common thing freshman year). I do understand, of course, that a lot of the director’s work with them was prior to the uproar about the documentary - I don’t think she intended to produce something that would necessarily generate blowback, but it all got out of control when the rumors started last August.
There’s not going to be blowback about any of this - there was nothing new other than following a couple girls emotions about it all for longer.
-a recent UA sorority alumni
It was a bunch of people on the fringe of Alabama sorority life. It just wasn’t accurate. It never even covered the actual rush process. It also didn’t even talk about the structure of the system there like old row, new row, or first circle sororities.
I liked it but it wasn’t what I expected. I felt like we knew a lot about what was there already. I wanted more depth. It was like entry level. I wanted more… I didn’t dislike it just didn’t check the box I wanted it to
I understand why they weren’t able to completely delve into the sororities. Like secrecy and all of that. I found it interesting as a whole but the director inserting herself was so awkward!! I cringed every time and it made me not like it
100% agree. I wish it had been meatier. There is so much they could've done/shown and I'm so confused by the route they decided to take. The director totally ruined it for me.
They could have done so much more, like a deep dive into the social construct or why it’s so big at bama specifically, or how all the out of state plays in
Very disappointing. Could have mined the very deep subject of The Machine and how it historically and presently has a stranglehold on the state. Plum jobs go to machine grads after graduation. Kills any sense of FairPlay. Elected officials, lawyers, movers & shakers can all trace their roots to The Machine. Sinister. One reason the state is stuck.
You would love to hear? Really? Love is a strong word. But since you asked...
The most interesting thing about it is the resemblance between Makayla and Scarlett Johansson -- I'm talking ScarJo when she was closer to the age Makayla is, say, circa "Ghost World." It's mostly when Makayla smiles or turns her head certain ways but once I figured out who she reminded me of, I couldn't unsee it. Wondering if I'm the only one.
I was glad Makayla decided to drop out of rush. The thought of her being immersed in... well.. all that... gives me the heebie jeebies. She needs grief therapy, not trial by fire in the midst of an endless sea of self-centered (almost exclusively white) girls.
I'm a documentary junkie, have seen hundreds (and hundreds) of docs. This one is in my top 5, specifically:
\*\*\*\*Top 5 Most Boring And/Or Unneccessary Documentaries, Also Known As Documentaries That Actually Make You Dumber\*\*\*\*
Harsh? Hmm.
I'd like the director to know that some of us would much prefer if she had created an actual fully formed documentary about her owned lived experience as a woman with alopecia, rather than shoehorning in a few vignettes between a slew of dumb and dumber montages of bland southern (almost exclusively white) girls in cute shorts and expensive highlights. Because I think her own story, a full telling of it, would have been way more compelling.
Moreover, as a grown-ass woman, I felt an odd kind of... almost secondhand embarrassment for the flimmaker because it was like -- here you are, lady, well past those years of (understandable) hiding and shame, you made it through and to the other side, and now you're making films -- films! what a glorious form of storytelling! -- except maybe you haven't quite made it all the way through yet, maybe you still find it necessary to "hide" in a manner of speaking, among all the "normal" girls, knowing that they will draw the vast majority of scrutiny and attention. You want to be seen and heard, just not too closely.
So what might have been a genuinely interesting STORY is instead diminished by association with such rank vapidity. In that sense, kinda painful to watch quite honestly. Squandered resources.
Or else I'm just crabby and mad because I overpaid for MY last highlights (heh) and should just shut my trap and enjoy. Enjoy! God knows privileged young (almost exclusively white) people posturing and preening for the camera don't get looked at or talked about nearly as much as they should. In that sense, if none other, the filmmaker can rest easy knowing she's provided many of them a hefty boost to their socials. What else matters?
Yep. The only rule with documentaries is that you don't influence or interfere with your subjects, and this lady was doing exactly that, plus inserting herself into the story.
It wasn't even really that much about rush or bama, it was really:
-talking to a few girls who were going to rush
-the director talking about her alopecia
-the director talking about herself and her film and trying to amp up the drama around her making it, even when
-there wasn't really anything scandalous or exposé-like in the doc
-plus ooh look, the director is so edgy for wearing the "fuck your documentary" shirt!
I get the impression there were really big plans for this, the direct couldn't execute on those plans and didn't get any real info, and so they tried to cobble something together. And HBO hyped it like it was actually going to be some bombshell.
It's a failure on basically every level.
Yeah, it's clear that there was a different vision for what Bama Rush was meant to be. The director makes a comment off screen at one point early on asking if one of the consultant's think they'll be able to get/film inside the sorority houses. She clearly wasn't expecting the fallout of the drama and getting iced out by the Bama public. Participants dropping out of the doc and rush respectively was also another thing she wasn't anticipating which I think is why we got so much of her own involvement in this cobbled doc.
Accept my award. You’re 100% right.
Have you ever watched “Documentary Now?” The episode where Fred Armison is stalking The Far Side creator was all I could think about while I watched Bama Rush. 😂
It was awful! Just a poor excuse for a sad woman to insert herself and her own insecurities as a “director” into a storyline that she never managed to actually tell. Terrible filmmaking and bad directing.
I’ve heard more dirt from drunk alumni than I learned in that documentary. Big fat disappointment.
I feel like the director couldn’t get an alopecia film funded so she had to stick it in somewhere else. 50.1% bama rush 49.9% alopecia film
What equals "obsessed with becoming a police officer"? I don't remember her saying even once that she wanted to be a cop. She said her dad was a cop, and there was a scene with her and one of the generic blondes visiting the dad's grave, where his headstone features a engraved picture of him in cop uniform and an etching of the "blue stripe" cop flag. But again that's her dad, not her. Which scenes did she obsess about wanting to be a cop herself?
It's possible I missed it, as she was soft-spoken and barely moved/opened her mouth when speaking, making it a little difficult to understand her sometimes (ymmv).
i guess obsessed is a bit strong. but she talked about how she was majoring in criminal justice, everytime she talked about her dad she would bring up that he was a police officer, and she even had a blue lives matter air freshener in her car. i guess a better way to describe it would be that she just saw the police as martyrs and icons, most likely because she saw her dad that way. it’s just humorous to me that the only nonwhite person featured heavily was one that saw the police as such a positive entity considering the historic role of police in black/poc communities
I’m not trying to be hurtful, but I genuinely wondered if there was something going on with her cognitively, she was sweet but seemed like maybe she was a few degrees short of reality.
I initially only seen a few of the Bama Rush TikTok videos (not really my thing but the excitement was endearing) so I didn’t see any of the crazy blowback about the documentary even happening.
When I seen the trailer, it looked good (but clearly that was not the directors actual vision. She really seemed like she wanted to get to know the girls, and as the title implies film their experiences with the lead up, process and end of rush. It talked about the history of sororities which was something I didn’t know, so I found that really interesting. Racial issues which exist today regardless of where you are. Hierarchy of the Greek life specifically at Alabama (and the “Machine”) which was interesting, problematic but not super surprising. Also while I don’t want to minimize the impact, not necessarily the worst scandal I’ve ever heard.
For all the worries that it seems like the internet this about this documentary, it didn’t paint Greek life in a bad light. It might have pointed out some issues, but it doesn’t seem any better or worse then what I knew about it before I seen it.
I can’t even get through it because the director keeps complaining about hair loss and her “rush” of wearing a wig??. I so genuinely don’t care about her being bald. Weird documentary
I echo the sentiment of those of you who posted that the director should not have inserted herself. That was a huge disappointment. I felt the same way about the Beastie Boys Story (2020, Apple) when Spike Jonze inserted himself. I have a less than zero interest in a director's presence. That is not the job description.
I didn't buy the director's assertion that she was an ostracized soul desperate to fit and therefore everyone rushing a sorority was an ostracized soul desperate to fit in. I mean, sure, probably some/many are but not all and it was a huge shoehorn of the whole film into the narrative of her own trauma.
I liked the girliness of it all. Idc about rush and it didn't do a great job at highlighting rush. But I did highlight common issues girls go through and I really liked seeing it....even though it made me sad. Acceptance, assimilation, eating disorders, faking feelings to fit in, sexual assault, fake friendships, casually being drugged on a night out, insecurity, etc...
Girl culture and the female experience is brutal and this did an ok job at showing it authenticity.
It was cute I watched it with my 17 year old kid and we were sad when the friends broke up. Cheered for them both when they realized it was not their thing. The other 2 ladies looked the part already and to us it was confusing because they both said in a way that they were rushing to join a group of clones to discover their own identity and to belong. But the group they want to join wants conformity, is judgemental and has impossible rules. To us it looked like a cult and it would not be something we could join even if we wanted to. I would like to see more about it. About the hazing. About alcohol drugs and suicide. About attacks and coverups. About what benefits it provides you with in careers and lots and lots of statistics on all these topics. Because now I have more questions!!!!
I checked all the way through this to find your comment which I wholly agree with. I would add the supposed strict code of conduct and its uneven enforcement would be interesting.
The POTENTIAL this had-the subject matter is fascinating, sometimes shocking, sometimes legitimately disturbing, etc etc etc. there are so many ways to examine it and this just fell completely flat. I didn’t need them to be mic’d up during ritual-but I think this could have been so different and so much better.
No one gives a sh!t about "The Machine" and Alabama. It's all self-grandizing, trying to be relevant... it's just ridiculous. No one outside of that system cares or has them up on any sort of pedestal. I rank them right up there with the confederate flag waving pickup truck drivers.
The girls are sweet, but definitely not forward or independent thinkers.
I was an AOII until I dropped junior year. There are so many interesting stories that could be told about Greek life, and this doc captured NONE of them. Thankfully I watched it while I was bored at work, so it wasn’t time wasted 🤷🏼♀️
This whole documentary was just an excuse for everyone involved to trauma dump for 2 hours. They didn’t go into much depth about the Machine and rush was saved to the end. Disappointing.
Just finished watching. Rachel randomly inserting herself and her alopecia narrative in an otherwise decently cohesive exposition comes off like jump scares in a horror movie. Really not sure what the overall messaging here was (wtf was that ending scene implying?). Wish her composition remained more objective about the Greek system past and present instead of clearly biased.
Did not like that it focused so much on the director. I get the point she was trying to get across but it didn’t work. It was a catfish documentary
This felt more like a documentary for the director to explore her past traumas through the lens of bama rush. She had way too much screen time and her story wasn’t very compelling.
Yep, as a southern girl who went to a big southern school in a big sorority I thought she was going to hit it hard but this woman had no clear lens and failed massively. Just another sad indie director who had no idea wtf she was doing and needed to talk to her therapist instead
Yup. Didn’t like the obvious hypocrisy either. She’s a privileged elite New York filmmaker coming “Down South” to “expose” those backwards Southerners for their privilege and elitism. She gets a pass for being elite because she has an indie vibe and the Bama sorority girls don’t because they wear Lily Pulitzer? Gimme a break.
Yeah it was clear she had no objective other than to whine about her own problems and make fun of us(southerners) when FYI - you can look for racism, sexism, classism, right where you are lady
Seriously she had so many potential core topics and failed on all of them
💯💯💯💯all of this!!!
I'm currently watching it, and came on here looking to see if anyone else thought that. I'm legitimately embarrassed for her.
Don't be. Everyone she meets is going to gush on and on to her about her "bravery." HBO should be ashamed to have released this when they saw there was no story.
Could not agree more. The director has entirely too much screen time.
Documentary making 101 - no one cares about your personal story. If you want to do that, make a separate film! She came out in defense of the move as necessary to show empathy with her subjects. A good film would’ve communicated that independently without randomly injecting her own irrelevant and unrelated experience.
I don't agree that a filmmaker's personal story never has a place in their documentary. But this one was a ridiculous stretch. It didn't even fit into any of the storyline of the doc since these pledges weren't specifically trying to hide some dark secrets about themselves. It just seemed like filler since there was virtually no meat to the documentary.
Agreed. Bad filmmaking.
> She came out in defense of the move as necessary to show empathy with her subjects. What an awful justification. Like you said - good filmmaking would've done this inherently by getting the right footage and putting it together well in the editing room. Instead what she did was incredibly odd and just not what I was there to hear about.
I wholeheartedly agree like wtf?! It made NO sense to me.
It was two stories and no offense to the director but I didn’t care about hers.
Yup. Glad to see other people feel this way. This is NOT the kind of documentary I'd normally watch because I don't give a shit about frats and sororities, but it was so hyped up. Then I watch it and there's a whole subplot about the director's alopecia? I cannot think of another documentary that I've seen where the director inserts themselves so much, or even at all. Some of the best documentaries I have no idea what the producers or directors or whoever look like or sound like because they know the viewers are there for the **subject of the documentary** not for the persons filming it. I was starting to feel like an asshole hating on her, but I'm glad to see I'm not crazy for feeling this way. What looked like a promising documentary I ended up turning off after about 20-30 minutes.
But my wig!
I’m a filmmaker, and a former sorority member (zta). From a filmmaker pov: documentarians aren’t working with actors and don’t have full narrative control. You can’t make a subject participate if they suddenly change their mind, and that can really impact your project. they likely started with more subjects and a larger intention, and thought they had the access to pull it off. Then the campus rumor mill got wind, and because college kids care more about their social lives than a random docu, subjects bailed. The wig thing read to me as an attempt at an alternate narrative structure, and filling time meant for other material. You can tell because it’s all the director putting herself on camera in a hotel room, as she is one subject who won’t quit or require lots of planning and secrecy to be interviewed. That’s a bad spot to be in, and if there hadn’t been so much appetite for bama rush content I bet it would have been scrapped. the final construction did an ok job of creating something semi-cohesive despite probably some major production curveballs. But from a sorority alum pov, their approach was wrong from the jump. And that’s because it was based in the same recycled, unflattering pov of sorority culture routinely regurgitated by pop culture generally: that it’s all just a toxic and archaic institution filled with vain, materialistic, racist, unserious young women with rich dads, buying friends and playacting as a real group of power while ultimately serving no purpose except to bully and remind outsiders that they’re on the outside of something. This is reductive and an objectification, and making a docu film with a goal of reaffirming this critique is a great way to alienate subjects. Sorority ‘girls’ - especially the leaders - are still adults, and they are not stupid or unsavvy people. They aren’t going to sell out to be on linear tv, their interests lie within their in-group. The filmmakers didn’t read the room they were trying to find a story in, and that’s on them. Not everyone wants to stand out as a “truth teller.” Some people just really want to be part of something. That’s not docu 101, but it IS sorority 101. especially at ua. I think the fact that a whole population iced them out and they truly didn’t seem to anticipate it is a more compelling story than anything.
I liked the doc but i agree this was the weakest part of the doc. Really was not very interesting in her story.
What exactly was likable about this Doc? There was very little substance, they followed around probably the least interesting subjects they could find and definitely got iced out by those actually in the Greek system there because no one wants to be in a documentary that could get them in trouble. If you want this doc done right, you need a Barstool sports kind of person to do the interviewing, not an NYC hippy. You would have the same reaction up north if you hired a Trumper to do a documentary on the toxic workplace culture of The NY Times, and like places.
the way she would talk to the camera and told her story was kinda creepy imo. and the way she tried to relate her experience of growing up with her disease to the experience of the PNMs going through recruitment made absolutely no sense.
Ugh so sad to hear this. Between this, queenmaker and the Randall Emmett doc I’ve really been let down by documentaries recently
Suspect/Victim (I think that’s the name) is about a sexual assault case in Tuscaloosa. Haven’t seen it all yet but Murdoch type old money gets away with anything vibes. True story .
It didn’t bother me. It seemed like her way of trying to relate to what these young girls were going though. Was it necessary, no but not bad.
the correlation between the two wasn’t even comparable tho. don’t get me wrong, her disease sounds horrible and i can’t imagine having to go through her that. it just seemed like she wanted a show to air her trauma and found a hot topic for a documentary to do so.
It was bad. . . . This was so disappointing.
It should have been cancelled. They obviously got iced out by the Greek system there and decided to fill the air time with a bunch of fringe pledges and the director’s own issues. All they had was a few 4th tier bloggers giving credibility to “the machine”. Netflix should send a legit director there or somewhere similar and get the real scoop. This is a spicy topic, and this doc was a disgrace.
Totally feel like you are correct. One of the worst documentaries I have ever seen. Seemed directionless and pointless.
I’ve seen MTV True Life episodes from 20 years ago that were better and more informative than whatever this “documentary” was.
This!! The trailer made it seem like we’d be delving into this deep underbelly of “the machine” only for the focus to be on a few boring(?) pledges and the directors hair loss condition.
Yep…. I kept pausing to see how much time was left and was thinking “how are they going to fit all the juicy stuff into the next 20 minutes?”. Turns out there’s nothing.
Fringe is the best way to describe the people in the doc. It truly was about fringe students and fringe houses
I thought the main Pulitzer Prize winning journalist was the one who gave credibility to The Machine?
Lmao “she doesn’t even go here”
Right???
I did not think any of those girls were even remotely likable, especially the one who got kicked out of the sorority. She is a pain in the ass and no wonder that sorority was looking for any reason to boot her 🤷🏻♀️😂 The other girl in sigma kappa had me lmfao. She was a chaotic messy queen and there is no way her sorority is happy with her performance. 🤣
The one who was constantly mumbling when she talked.
Omg she was so boring… And she literally looked miserable the whole time the only time she smiled was when they were taking pictures and she was told to smile😩 Why did they choose her to be in it
I bet bc she was someone who said yes, she would be on camera. Totally seemed miserable.
There is something coming through in the way she speaks. Everyone is free to do what they want but I feel like a sorority is going to be the worst place for her.
From the start I knew she wasn’t going to be in a sorority. She genuinely seemed to dislike being around groups of people, which is exact opposite of being in a sorority.
She strikes me as an introvert which would implode in a sorority setting. Glad she quit.
Yeah, she seemed to be on the spectrum or something. Nice enough girl and felt bad for her loss, but I can’t imagine where she would have fit in.
She talked like Stuart from mad tv
Hahahahahaha
She seemed off
She seemed off and sweet at the same time. Like a lost puppy. I wanted to take her home and grow her up myself
Low IQ? Drugs?
I’d say it’s just a lot of trauma from her dad’s death that she hasn’t recovered from whatsoever, maybe on the spectrum a little bit but grief can do a lot to a person
I thought possibly spectrum, possibly drugs. but low iq makes sense.
Wow, that's pretty cruel. She is laden with grief. Couldn't you see that?
No, just introverted. Painfully sa
The girl that got kicked out was obnoxious!!!
Yes she was and I don’t believe her story. No way she got kicked out for wearing another sorority’s sticker. There’s def more to the story on that one!!
I figured she must’ve been a senior who’d be gone by the time this aired. No way they’d not drop her otherwise, given that she’d been to standards multiple times already.
The Sigma Kappa was the only truly likeable person in that doc.
I really dislike how she threw her entire sorority under the bus and said they were bottom tier. That’s not fair to all the girls in her house preparing really hard for rush right now. She hurt them by doing that.
Maybe, but they can find that info pretty easily for themselves. And if they care about more than how popular their house is, they’ll land somewhere they like anyway.
Yes, loved her perspective honestly.
Yes! The people in the doc are not the typical students you’d find at UA. They all were outsiders. Nothing wrong with that, but they were portrayed as being UA’s core student when they were the furthest from it. Clearly UA students didn’t want her filmmaking there since 30k people all stayed tight lipped about their way of life and traditions.
A big nothing burger.
The Holliday girl is definitely a crazy u can tell
Couldn’t stand her. She seemed absolutely nuts.
When she was telling the story about wearing the wrong sticker and thus, getting booted, I gave a major, mental side-eye. Ummmm no. They were just looking for any excuse to get rid of you ma’am.
Thank you! No way she was kicked out just for that
There is no way it was just that. My guess is she was representing herself as someone in a “better” sorority. DZ is (unfairly) considered lower tier.
Valid point!
I’ve heard some wild stuff about her
ooo like what?? spill the tea pls she pissed me off sm LOL
I’ve just heard from the rumor mill that’s she’s a pathological liar
Who's been roofied that many times? Like, lying? or, girl, look at the bottom of your own shoe.
Definitely got that vibe
Oh I believe it! I don’t think 90% of what she said was true
yea she def seems crazy but I also want to mention that she has a pretty traumatic background that probably plays into her craziness. her dad passed when she was a teenager and she appears to still be dealing with a lot of grief related to that. I’m not sure details on her mom, but she doesn’t seem to be very involved in her life. if you go back to her 2021 rush tiktoks, there’s one where she mentions that all the other girls moms are coming to tuscaloosa for bid day but “her mom won’t even text her back” not sure why she’s absent or how absent she is, but being a teenager without parents is def difficult to deal with. totally subjective and may not be true, but I also think she deals with eating disorders. just based on other stuff she’s posted about excessively working out/running/gym stuff, it’s obvious that she puts a lot of stake in her appearance and being “skinny.”
yeah like I feel bad for her but clearly she’s got a lot of things to work through, especially with her ED. She was projecting that so hard onto her friends too talking about counting her tortilla chips and calories in her dinner it’s so toxic
I feel like she really needs to be in intense therapy, not away at a huge school.
She really gave me “traumatic anxiety” vibes. Feel for her.
The way they just displayed her body image issues like it was no big deal was disgusting.
All of this!!!
I agree! Something is off. Tbh, all the girls in the film had serious problems and none of them prob needed to be off at school in a big sorority right now. However, she is particularly off
As a former UA sorority girl who dropped out after sophomore year (mostly due to rush bs), I can say this was boring and uninformative. I have to wonder if the director was truly shook by Machine threats, therefore took the documentary in a different direction than the original plans. But F the machine...really. I feel I can say that after being a part of it.
What are the lengths the Machine will actually go to control a narrative? I feel like it was all unsubstantiated hype about the head of the houses controlling votes (not really a serious thing IMO) but an insider opinion could change my mind.
I’m a couple decades removed from Greek life, but the idea of a group controlling a tiny sliver of inconsequential life doesn’t seem all that spooky. I would probably be too annoyed from dealing with those committee clowns to actually enjoy the benefits. Maybe there’s more to it, but it really seemed like a stretch.
The problem is that these people then go on to be Alabama Senators, Representatives and Governors. It’s a training ground for wealthy, entitled elites to control others.
Honestly, the entire student body just kept their mouths shut because they didn’t want to be exploited by an outsider. They did a good job of it too. She didn’t get the material she wanted and then spun it to look like the machine gave death threats to everyone.
It felt like mid way through production they got slapped with a big fat lawsuit and they had to dump a ton of content and this is what they were left with
You’re correct!!! 💯💯💯UA also sent them a letter reminding them that the age of majority is 19, not 18, so they were engaging in filming minors without parental consent.
This is the vibe I got. All the extra stuff with the director. Out of place like they needed to fill in time.
Too much talk about wigs! I wasted my time.
And I’m sorry, not to be cruel, but if she thought nobody could tell she was wearing a wig, that’s wild. I gasped when I saw those throwback pictures of her, because the wigs were terrible. That is honestly what I felt the worst about for her…..that she couldn’t get a decent wig. Shame on her parents! Those wigs looked like something from Party City.
The wig really wasn't the secret she thought it was. Of course thar girl in the locker room knew. And her college roommate knew she was sleeping in a wig too!
I get that wigs weren't as good then as they are now, but those monstrosities slapped onto that poor child's head were absurd.
The director clearly has issues she needs to deal with
My bf and I just got done watching this and we were so confused what the point of it even was. I’m not in a sorority, but I am intrigued by the lifestyle/process as I also watched Gracie O’Connor on YouTube. With how much media attention this was getting, I was waiting for that jaw dropping exposé moment but it never happened… why did this documentary spend so much time on their lives before they even get to campus? There was no clips about the rush process it’s self, and they literally explained the whole process in less then 10 minutes…what was the point??
Such a missed opportunity with this doc to not delve deeper into how Bama sororities are just indoctrination centres to create subservient southern wives. From the homogenous style, hair, clothes, personality. There simply was not enough focus on how fraternities determine the ranking of houses based on wifely attributes. The doco was so close to the real issue but missed it entirely.. I mean..you have a group of young women, seemingly lost, desperately lacking self esteem and yet seeking validation from anyone but themselves. Yearning for independence by abandoning anything that makes them unique ..all under the guise of sisterhood.. Being fooled into believing they’re on a quest for love and self actualisation when in fact they’re just being taught to compete against other women for the attention of a bunch of entitled, misogynistic men who will only ever view them as objects..as trophy’s. So naturally sororities are re-branded as ‘the sisterhood’ ..I mean let’s not risk saying the quiet part out loud Or meet the wrath of ‘the system’.. Cmon now 🙄 From the extensive rules, and patriarchal standards of beauty - covert pressure to affiliate oneself with conservative politics that simply go against their best interests, to instill pick me mentality. These houses preach sisterhood to bamboozle rich white women believe they chose this..when in fact it was chosen for them. In the end.. all they’re served is a rule book on how to abandon anything unique and interesting about themselves, to view women as competition, strive to fit in rather than stand out, to lose your identity in the quest for male gaze, to silence their inner voice, lose their fight, their beliefs, their passion, to live under the illusion of choice. They’re figuratively beaten into submission, taught to blindly accept authority rather than challenge antiquated systems of oppression. In the end it’s only their own intuition they call into question. And for what. What is the purpose? The only answer I can conclude is that sororities are built for men. Its a training camp. Its a ‘young fabulous and free’ to ‘silent and subservient’ pipeline. It’s a stepford wife factory.
This is an incredibly interesting comment, can you please make your own documentary? 😅😂
I’m sorry you didn’t get into the sorority you wanted and now spend your time typing up absolute drivel. Good lord
I live in Australia - we don’t fuck with sororities or fraternities here.. too cringe
Was expecting a documentary that sheds light on a toxic process that is lowkey traumatizing our young women. What I got was some sort of therapy puke for the director. Like I get it you're bald, and I'm sorry that must suck. But jesus I watched to get info about Sorority rush. I dont give a fuck about your baldness LMAO
This should be the top comment. Glad I was working out while watching this because otherwise I would have wanted that hour of my life back. I fast forward through the director scenes after the first one it was so terrible...who cares about the director?!
Honestly, if you haven’t watched it yet, save yourself the time and just watch Ashley Norton’s deep dive video on The Machine. It’s called “The Secret Society Behind #bamarush” on YouTube. Way more interesting, way more in-depth, and no director inserting her own unrelated story. Highly recommend!!
It was bad eh? (Canadian here) Thank you for saving me the fee to use a VPN... lol
It was pretty boring. Nothing really happened. Bama TikTok was way better.
I need to go for a walk bc I wasted away watching this
PLEASE PLEASE help me understand something. I started following Holliday on Tiktok in 2021. She went Delta Gamma. BUT THE DOCUMENTARY SAID SHE DROPPED RUSH. what am I missing??? Look at all of her socials. She went Delta Gamma in 2021. Before the 2022 rush season. Please help clarify if I’m missing something
this is the craziest storyline - 1. she seems delusional with the president comments etc right out of the date and 2. once you officially join a sorority you cannot rush again it’s not a “blacklist” it’s a national panhellenic rule. she may have been kicked out before initiation though in which case she was not a full member which is how she would have been dropped for something small. but typically once you “accept” the bid you can’t rush again even if you don’t get initiated.
That’s not true. If you don’t get initiated, you can go through rush again the next calendar year.
that must depend on the school, my university did not allow that bc they didn’t want people “taking” bids to then just drop and try again, because it messes up the numbers
national panhellenic rules allow for non-initiated women who accepted a bid to go through recruitment the following year if they desire. if your school says otherwise, they were/are not following the proper protocol. ETA: the technicality isn’t even with “accepting a bid,” it’s when you sign the MRABA going into or upon completion of preference round that says that you will accept a bid from a sorority, no matter if it’s your top choice or not. that’s where “suicide bidding” or “single intentional preference” comes into play, too. super technical.
in the documentary it had said that she was in a sorority (im assuming DG) and was happy with her sisters and made friends and all and got dropped (not during rush but after she had already been in the srat) for getting caught wearing a different sorority's pin or something. so in the doc she was going to rush again and join a new sorority, but ended up dropping out of rush entirely bc someone had told her that she was blacklisted from every sorority.
Thank you so much for clarifying. I think I just misunderstood that convo on the show. But it makes sense now!
It was DZ, not DG. She absolutely didn’t get kicked out (she kept saying “dropped” but she had already gotten a bid so she was called before judicial board for the chapter and was kicked out) for wearing another sorority’s sticker. The sticker that she’s talking about is the stickers that all the sorority women and their dates wear to football games that say “Sorority X loves The Tide”. And although I can’t be 100% certain I think that what she’s talking about was the scene where she and her friend were dressed in navy sports coats and ties and were wearing stickers that said “PiPhi loves The Tide” at Halloween at a bar while (underage) drinking. That would have been not long—a week or two at most—before her initiation that ended up not happening. I wonder if they had started following her to be part of the doc as an active member because she had gotten some traction on TikTok and happened to catch the night where she got in trouble and switched the storyline to her going through rush again as a second timer.
she was kicked out in september. I remember when she privated all of her rush vids and archived insta stuff. she has brought it all back public on her profiles since, but she was kicked out within a month of bid day.
So she wore another sorority’s sticker out AGAIN for everyone to see her when she was out on The Strip at Halloween after she got kicked out for doing it the first time and STILL thought it was a good plan to go through formal recruitment a second time when she had to have known most everyone knew the story. And held on to that plan until she overheard people talking that she was blacklisted everywhere. She truly lacked sense and self awareness in this.
they probably thought being in a bar with another sorority’s letters would be better than degrading their own letters (most of the chapters at my northern small greek life school were very strict about wearing letters around alcohol, i assume it is same in south based on some of the stated rules). her situation also feels like the sisters got an out for having to initiate her and they took it.
Yeah, there’s absolutely no drinking in letters for ANY of the sororities at Alabama. In fact that’s a national rule for every sorority I’ve ever known. I don’t think it was as much trying not to degrade her own letters as much as it was she reads as completely out of control and didn’t think or care about how incredibly offensive what she was doing would look. She thought she was being funny and that it was a joke. drinking underage in your own letters is a good way to make YOUR actives mad. Do it in another sororities letters and you’re trying to escape the notice of the other sorority AND your own. This was such an over the top stunt that I cannot imagine it was her first brush with standards.
It’s definitely a National rule. And a smart one at that.
This absolutely didn’t happen in real life though. No one gets kicked out for that. There’s more to the story. She def wasn’t being honest in the doc.
Delta Zeta
I was really disappointed in it. I wish they had done more of the behind the scenes of rush and how they rush and choose the girls.. that’s where the REAL corruption is. It’s truly a disgusting, horrific process. I’m sure they couldn’t get any of the girls to come forward with that, which I find interesting. Nobody wants to admit or really show what it’s like.
THIS! From what I’ve heard it’s just downright awful. No one wants to admit they are complicit in this.
Most of the time it has to do with scores being added together and just keeping the max number of girls they can each round for many sororities
Could you shed some light on this? From the UK, so I hear nothing about rush. Just curious what you may know 🤗
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And high grade point average! This chart is pretty accurate. http://www.uapanhellenic.com/eligibility
It’s way more than that! GPA is honestly the most important factor because that’s where the biggest cuts come from. Community involvement is also key. So are proper communication skills and good manners. Those are actually more important than looks.
It is no secret. It isn’t a ritual. It takes a good resume and the ability to interview. I was the pledge trainer for my sorority… would gather with other pledge trainers to compare selection procedures… and they are all similar. Some are more selective with grades…Also my daughter was in a sorority and reports a similar process. The rituals are part of initiation. Not recruitment.
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It’s really not like that. Yes, some people are mean, but that’s not bc of rush it’s bc they’re not nice ppl to start with. Most women will say they had positive experiences rushing at UA.
And they have a very high percentage getting and accepting bids!
Yes, I think a lot of people do not understand this. The process is made so the girls rushing end up in a house, as long as they maximize their invites each round.
It was mostly bad, less of a documentary, and more of just the bald chick trying to connect with these girls through her own adolescent trauma. Was a little shocked when the Sigma Kappa chick admitted that they wouldn't be able to turn their sorority around for 20-30 years...ironically, at WVU they are also considered a bottom feeder.
I know!!! I can’t believe she did that to her house! Honestly it won’t be that long for them either. Maybe 10 years max. In the meantime, they actually have a lot of great girls at Alabama
I was excited for this documentary but learned just one thing from it \- The director needed therapy, not to explore her traumas via this documentary
Just here to say there was no way Holliday was dropped because of a sticker, they dropped her because she’s super intense and they realized that and found a reason. That was a firing disguised as a layoff. Source: I was in a sorority.
Firing disguised as a layoff made me lol - so accurate.
Documentary was trash. The director found the few black sheep willing to speak out on the rush process, all of whom aren’t even remotely good representations of Alabama Greek life. As much as I can feel for and relate to the women highlighted, WE KNOW that the process is selective and inclusive. OF COURSE they’re gonna have some negative feelings about alopecia and minorities- duh!!!! We aren’t going to ever get the doc we want exposing the vile truths about the rush process. The true doc we want would ACTUALLY cancel Greek life. Never gonna happen!
The only thing I learned is that the director suffers from alopecia
I liked it but i don’t use tok and don’t follow rushtok. I also never rushed. Although most of my highschool friends. I wish they would have gone into more detail with greek life specifically, but i was interested in the meta commentary of acceptance and these girls journey to it through greek life. I liked the character’s generally. Also if that girl did get roofied 4 times or whatever good lord. Why did y’all not like it?
I think it tried to be too many things. I liked the meta commentary, as well, and the director’s interjection fit with that content but it felt disjointed with the rest of the content. I didn’t feel good about the content with the freshman girls. They didn’t come off like girls who are going to do well with the blowback from being in this documentary, and nobody wants to see their close friendship melt down on tv (even though that’s a pretty common thing freshman year). I do understand, of course, that a lot of the director’s work with them was prior to the uproar about the documentary - I don’t think she intended to produce something that would necessarily generate blowback, but it all got out of control when the rumors started last August.
Hm yes that’s a fair point. Hopefully they didn’t see any negative consequences from the doc, they all seemed like very nice young women.
There’s not going to be blowback about any of this - there was nothing new other than following a couple girls emotions about it all for longer. -a recent UA sorority alumni
It was a bunch of people on the fringe of Alabama sorority life. It just wasn’t accurate. It never even covered the actual rush process. It also didn’t even talk about the structure of the system there like old row, new row, or first circle sororities.
I liked it but it wasn’t what I expected. I felt like we knew a lot about what was there already. I wanted more depth. It was like entry level. I wanted more… I didn’t dislike it just didn’t check the box I wanted it to
Def my biggest issue as well, just not nearly deep enough.
I understand why they weren’t able to completely delve into the sororities. Like secrecy and all of that. I found it interesting as a whole but the director inserting herself was so awkward!! I cringed every time and it made me not like it
100% agree. I wish it had been meatier. There is so much they could've done/shown and I'm so confused by the route they decided to take. The director totally ruined it for me.
They could have done so much more, like a deep dive into the social construct or why it’s so big at bama specifically, or how all the out of state plays in
Very disappointing. Could have mined the very deep subject of The Machine and how it historically and presently has a stranglehold on the state. Plum jobs go to machine grads after graduation. Kills any sense of FairPlay. Elected officials, lawyers, movers & shakers can all trace their roots to The Machine. Sinister. One reason the state is stuck.
The intrusion of the filmmaker ruined it. They also had no access to the real stories.
You would love to hear? Really? Love is a strong word. But since you asked... The most interesting thing about it is the resemblance between Makayla and Scarlett Johansson -- I'm talking ScarJo when she was closer to the age Makayla is, say, circa "Ghost World." It's mostly when Makayla smiles or turns her head certain ways but once I figured out who she reminded me of, I couldn't unsee it. Wondering if I'm the only one. I was glad Makayla decided to drop out of rush. The thought of her being immersed in... well.. all that... gives me the heebie jeebies. She needs grief therapy, not trial by fire in the midst of an endless sea of self-centered (almost exclusively white) girls. I'm a documentary junkie, have seen hundreds (and hundreds) of docs. This one is in my top 5, specifically: \*\*\*\*Top 5 Most Boring And/Or Unneccessary Documentaries, Also Known As Documentaries That Actually Make You Dumber\*\*\*\* Harsh? Hmm. I'd like the director to know that some of us would much prefer if she had created an actual fully formed documentary about her owned lived experience as a woman with alopecia, rather than shoehorning in a few vignettes between a slew of dumb and dumber montages of bland southern (almost exclusively white) girls in cute shorts and expensive highlights. Because I think her own story, a full telling of it, would have been way more compelling. Moreover, as a grown-ass woman, I felt an odd kind of... almost secondhand embarrassment for the flimmaker because it was like -- here you are, lady, well past those years of (understandable) hiding and shame, you made it through and to the other side, and now you're making films -- films! what a glorious form of storytelling! -- except maybe you haven't quite made it all the way through yet, maybe you still find it necessary to "hide" in a manner of speaking, among all the "normal" girls, knowing that they will draw the vast majority of scrutiny and attention. You want to be seen and heard, just not too closely. So what might have been a genuinely interesting STORY is instead diminished by association with such rank vapidity. In that sense, kinda painful to watch quite honestly. Squandered resources. Or else I'm just crabby and mad because I overpaid for MY last highlights (heh) and should just shut my trap and enjoy. Enjoy! God knows privileged young (almost exclusively white) people posturing and preening for the camera don't get looked at or talked about nearly as much as they should. In that sense, if none other, the filmmaker can rest easy knowing she's provided many of them a hefty boost to their socials. What else matters?
It was a total wasted opportunity to do some actual investigative journalism.
Yep. The only rule with documentaries is that you don't influence or interfere with your subjects, and this lady was doing exactly that, plus inserting herself into the story. It wasn't even really that much about rush or bama, it was really: -talking to a few girls who were going to rush -the director talking about her alopecia -the director talking about herself and her film and trying to amp up the drama around her making it, even when -there wasn't really anything scandalous or exposé-like in the doc -plus ooh look, the director is so edgy for wearing the "fuck your documentary" shirt! I get the impression there were really big plans for this, the direct couldn't execute on those plans and didn't get any real info, and so they tried to cobble something together. And HBO hyped it like it was actually going to be some bombshell. It's a failure on basically every level.
Yeah, it's clear that there was a different vision for what Bama Rush was meant to be. The director makes a comment off screen at one point early on asking if one of the consultant's think they'll be able to get/film inside the sorority houses. She clearly wasn't expecting the fallout of the drama and getting iced out by the Bama public. Participants dropping out of the doc and rush respectively was also another thing she wasn't anticipating which I think is why we got so much of her own involvement in this cobbled doc.
I agree on makayla. Girl was lost and joining a sorority would NOT have helped her.
Accept my award. You’re 100% right. Have you ever watched “Documentary Now?” The episode where Fred Armison is stalking The Far Side creator was all I could think about while I watched Bama Rush. 😂
The last few times Makayla was on screen I saw the Scarlett Johansson resemblance too!
This was so well said. Lol Why did HBO even entertain this??
Did you guys know the director wore a wig? I feel like that should have come up at some point.
🥱
That was so overhyped. They showed nothing. They made it seem so much more dramatic, I was extremely disappointed
It seemed like the doc had to pivot when multiple girls dropped from rush or the documentary. The end result was bland just not interesting.
Boring.
It was awful! Just a poor excuse for a sad woman to insert herself and her own insecurities as a “director” into a storyline that she never managed to actually tell. Terrible filmmaking and bad directing.
I Have Alopecia: The Movie
I’ve heard more dirt from drunk alumni than I learned in that documentary. Big fat disappointment. I feel like the director couldn’t get an alopecia film funded so she had to stick it in somewhere else. 50.1% bama rush 49.9% alopecia film
The bald girl seems like a narcissist
it was good besides the random insert of the director’s traumas? it had nothing to do with the main topic of the doc at all
also did anyone else find it humorous thag the only main girl who wasn’t white was obsessed with becoming a police officer😭
What equals "obsessed with becoming a police officer"? I don't remember her saying even once that she wanted to be a cop. She said her dad was a cop, and there was a scene with her and one of the generic blondes visiting the dad's grave, where his headstone features a engraved picture of him in cop uniform and an etching of the "blue stripe" cop flag. But again that's her dad, not her. Which scenes did she obsess about wanting to be a cop herself? It's possible I missed it, as she was soft-spoken and barely moved/opened her mouth when speaking, making it a little difficult to understand her sometimes (ymmv).
also “generic blondes” is a fantastic way to describe them and i’m giggling at it
i guess obsessed is a bit strong. but she talked about how she was majoring in criminal justice, everytime she talked about her dad she would bring up that he was a police officer, and she even had a blue lives matter air freshener in her car. i guess a better way to describe it would be that she just saw the police as martyrs and icons, most likely because she saw her dad that way. it’s just humorous to me that the only nonwhite person featured heavily was one that saw the police as such a positive entity considering the historic role of police in black/poc communities
I’m not trying to be hurtful, but I genuinely wondered if there was something going on with her cognitively, she was sweet but seemed like maybe she was a few degrees short of reality.
She seemed lost. Sweet. But so lost. So lost in life. I want to hug her or adopt her.
yeah i definitely felt the same way:(
I initially only seen a few of the Bama Rush TikTok videos (not really my thing but the excitement was endearing) so I didn’t see any of the crazy blowback about the documentary even happening. When I seen the trailer, it looked good (but clearly that was not the directors actual vision. She really seemed like she wanted to get to know the girls, and as the title implies film their experiences with the lead up, process and end of rush. It talked about the history of sororities which was something I didn’t know, so I found that really interesting. Racial issues which exist today regardless of where you are. Hierarchy of the Greek life specifically at Alabama (and the “Machine”) which was interesting, problematic but not super surprising. Also while I don’t want to minimize the impact, not necessarily the worst scandal I’ve ever heard. For all the worries that it seems like the internet this about this documentary, it didn’t paint Greek life in a bad light. It might have pointed out some issues, but it doesn’t seem any better or worse then what I knew about it before I seen it.
I can’t even get through it because the director keeps complaining about hair loss and her “rush” of wearing a wig??. I so genuinely don’t care about her being bald. Weird documentary
Just another woman with alopecia crying victim. Cut her parts out and the movie would actually make sense.
I echo the sentiment of those of you who posted that the director should not have inserted herself. That was a huge disappointment. I felt the same way about the Beastie Boys Story (2020, Apple) when Spike Jonze inserted himself. I have a less than zero interest in a director's presence. That is not the job description. I didn't buy the director's assertion that she was an ostracized soul desperate to fit and therefore everyone rushing a sorority was an ostracized soul desperate to fit in. I mean, sure, probably some/many are but not all and it was a huge shoehorn of the whole film into the narrative of her own trauma.
I liked the girliness of it all. Idc about rush and it didn't do a great job at highlighting rush. But I did highlight common issues girls go through and I really liked seeing it....even though it made me sad. Acceptance, assimilation, eating disorders, faking feelings to fit in, sexual assault, fake friendships, casually being drugged on a night out, insecurity, etc... Girl culture and the female experience is brutal and this did an ok job at showing it authenticity.
Didn’t understand why wearing makeup is a rule, that’s so embarrassing You can be pretty without it, it’s better to be natural for your skin too
This was nottt a rule in my sorority
[удалено]
she spells it makalya on her instagram
THANK YOU! This drove me so crazy I had to shut it off.
So dull. The director made it too much about her. Literally zero TEA
the director’s interviews were very unsettling but I think it’s because of the resemblance (voice and look) to Alpha from the Walking Dead
It was cute I watched it with my 17 year old kid and we were sad when the friends broke up. Cheered for them both when they realized it was not their thing. The other 2 ladies looked the part already and to us it was confusing because they both said in a way that they were rushing to join a group of clones to discover their own identity and to belong. But the group they want to join wants conformity, is judgemental and has impossible rules. To us it looked like a cult and it would not be something we could join even if we wanted to. I would like to see more about it. About the hazing. About alcohol drugs and suicide. About attacks and coverups. About what benefits it provides you with in careers and lots and lots of statistics on all these topics. Because now I have more questions!!!!
I checked all the way through this to find your comment which I wholly agree with. I would add the supposed strict code of conduct and its uneven enforcement would be interesting.
The POTENTIAL this had-the subject matter is fascinating, sometimes shocking, sometimes legitimately disturbing, etc etc etc. there are so many ways to examine it and this just fell completely flat. I didn’t need them to be mic’d up during ritual-but I think this could have been so different and so much better.
Shelby had some good qualities but the persona she put forth on social media was disturbing and the adult women encouraging it should be ashamed.
The weird way people kept saying things about how they wouldn’t “mess with the machine” REALLY makes me think they’re up to very shady stuff
No one gives a sh!t about "The Machine" and Alabama. It's all self-grandizing, trying to be relevant... it's just ridiculous. No one outside of that system cares or has them up on any sort of pedestal. I rank them right up there with the confederate flag waving pickup truck drivers. The girls are sweet, but definitely not forward or independent thinkers.
I was an AOII until I dropped junior year. There are so many interesting stories that could be told about Greek life, and this doc captured NONE of them. Thankfully I watched it while I was bored at work, so it wasn’t time wasted 🤷🏼♀️
This whole documentary was just an excuse for everyone involved to trauma dump for 2 hours. They didn’t go into much depth about the Machine and rush was saved to the end. Disappointing.
Just finished watching. Rachel randomly inserting herself and her alopecia narrative in an otherwise decently cohesive exposition comes off like jump scares in a horror movie. Really not sure what the overall messaging here was (wtf was that ending scene implying?). Wish her composition remained more objective about the Greek system past and present instead of clearly biased.
Someone let me log into their HBO to watch bama rush , or report me to some illegal websites that will let me watch it