By William Flockton
“Bama Rush”‘s film poster. Fleit deliberately chose to evoke horror movies in the film’s promotional material. (Bama Rush / HBO)
Rachel Fleit, a documentarian whose work focuses on how women interact with society, visited the University of Colorado Boulder on Monday, Feb. 3 for a screening of her documentary, “Bama Rush.”
Within “Bama Rush” Fleit explores how Greek life at the University of Alabama promotes misogyny and devalues women.
“The film is about what it means to be a young woman right now,” Fleit said during an audience Q&A session which followed the screening.
The documentary follows four young women at the University of Alabama seeking admission (or “rushing”) to the University’s sororities in 2022. However, the young women soon become entangled in systems of abuse and misogyny.
Ross Taylor, a journalism professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, had invited Fleit to screen her film at the university around two years ago when he found “Bama Rush” on HBO Max and was “blown away by its intimacy,” as he explained at the screening.
The Sororities force the girls to follow strict rules throughout the film. At the University of Alabama, sororities are “ranked” based on how attractive their members are, and the girls are pressured to keep their “rankings” high.
Fleit’s subjects face an environment of pervasive sexual assault. At one point Holliday, one of the women followed by the documentary, is drugged (“roofied”) at a party with a friend.. When she tells Fleit the story, she treats it as a normal occurrence.
The filming of “Bama Rush” ran into issues when rumors about the documentary spread throughout the University and Greek life members tried to prevent filming. Greek life members harassed Fleit online. Several students were rejected from sororities on suspicion that they were helping film the project.
As a result of the online rumors and threats, Fleit’s producers were worried about her safety, and that of her film crew. Fleit and her team even started wearing disguises to protect their identities.
In many ways, “Bama Rush” is more reminiscent of a horror film than a documentary. Beyond the harrowing filming process and the film’s disturbing subject matter, it portrays the everyday horrors young women face in a patriarchal society.
The documentary was released after all four girls had graduated. After “Bama Rush” was released, the University of Alabama began to crack down on predatory behavior among Greek Life groups, according to Fleit.
. However, the film also earned Fleit a cease and desist order from the University of Alabama and a ban from returning to its campuses. “It’s a badge of honor to make a piece of art that’s polarizing,” Fleit said. “It means that I poked the bear, I struck a nerve and that I did my job.