Roll Tide!
Bama Rush is a documentary produced for HBO Max which recounts the experiences of four college girls going through the controversial sorority rush process at the University of Alabama. The documentary also explains some of the inner workings of Greek life on campus including its history of racial segregation, the extensive list of rules and standards set in place by sororities, and the mysterious “Machine.”
Bama Rush provides examples of:
- Ascended Fangirl: Shelby’s arc in essence. She begins the documentary as a high school senior completely obsessed with The University of Alabama and its sorority culture. After rushing at the end of the film, she is accepted into a top house.
- Author Appeal: The director, Rachel Fleit, goes so far as to appear on camera and explain that she feels a deep connection with the subjects of the documentary as they remind her of her experiences being ostracized as a child and college student due to her alopecia.
- Bait-and-Switch: “We lost Shelby.” Rachel Fleit’s somber delivery, the dramatic editing, and the droning music all seem to imply that Shelby has died. It’s then explained that she simply dropped out of filming the documentary.
- Big Brother Is Watching: It’s explained that within Greek life at Bama, there exists a secret society called Theta Nu Epsilon, also known as The Machine. The group apparently has wide influence in student affairs and are widely respected and feared by the rest of the campus.
- Crapsaccharine World: The film more or less tries to expose sorority life as such. Behind all the high pitched squealing, parties, and perceived sisterhoood lies extensive histories of racism, sexist beauty standards, and even a secret society.
- Dark Secret: Rachel explains that growing up she wore a wig to conceal her alopecia from her peers, going so far as to sleep in it so her roommate wouldn’t know.
- Death by Origin Story: Holliday and Makayla’s fathers both passed away when they were young.
- Establishing Character Moment:
- Holliday is introduced via B-Roll of her apologizing to a friend for her behavior the night before then bragging about doing shots with “this DILF” establishing her as our resident Hard-Drinking Party Girl.
- Makayla states that she is in a good mood today, which is rare for her in her opening moment. She seems to be the more depressive and stoic one of the group.
- Family of Choice: How sorority sisterhood is presented to the subjects of the documentary, though the validity of this is heavily debated throughout the film.
- Never Trust a Trailer: The trailers for Bama Rush made it seem like the documentary would be an absolute take down of Sorority Life and exposé of the controversial rush process. One girl in the trailer even dramatically says “This could be the end of Greek Life as we know it.” In reality, the documentary limits itself to some discussion on the complexities and faults of Greek life. The rush process isn’t even shown.
- Noodle Incident: Holliday is introduced by apologizing for “whatever she did last night.” It seems not even she remembers what happened.
- Portmanteau: Isabelle explains that she’s feeling “Nervited” (nervous + excited) about rush.
- The Scapegoat: One PNM is kicked out of rush for being suspected of wearing a microphone planted by the documentary crew. Turns out it was a hair tie holding her shirt together, not a mic.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
- After news of the Bama Rush documentary being filmed gets out to the school and causes a mass controversy, Shelby opts out of being interviewed for the remainder of filming for fear it would hurt her chances of being accepted into the house of her choice.
- Makayla remains in the documentary, but drops out of the rush process after realizing the sorority lifestyle was not for her.
- Southern Belle: Many consider sorority life at Alabama to be a modern performance of this trope.
- Squee: A sorority girl staple. One interviewee claims that on bid day the screaming was so loud the ground began to shake.
- The Unreveal: While a decent amount of time is spent explaining what rush is, and we see the girls preparing to rush, we never actually see any footage from rush. Granted after The University found out about the documentary, it became much harder to obtain any sort of recording but the documentary still leads the viewer to believe they will be getting an inside look at rush due to its extensive set up.
