I can't believe I saw two movies about racial politics in Alabama at SXSW this year -- not what I would have expected. Both approached the issues in different ways, and both films were good. While The Order of Myths (which I reviewed already) focused on Mardi Gras in the Gulf Coast city of Mobile, the documentary Bama Girl takes us further north to the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa to examine a tradition popular at many American universities: the selection and crowning of the Homecoming Queen.
Bama Girl focuses primarily on Jessica Thomas, a senior at the university who is determined to win Homecoming Queen. The problem is that a number of the white fraternities and sororities plus other unnamed organizations have formed a covert group known on campus as The Machine. The way in which the Homecoming Queen is elected on campus favors The Machine, which is why no African-American woman has won the crown since the rules change. This all sounds like paranoid fantasy and crazy student rumors, but when you see a staff member in the Dean of Students office talking seriously about The Machine, you start to wonder. Anyway, Jessica isn't going to let any secret society keep her from what she wants. She and her sorority sisters get to work to get her elected.
I didn't know much about Homecoming Queens even in my own college days -- I didn't wear makeup and tried to write like Dorothy Parker and so I tended to avoid the Greek scene. The amount of effort shown in Bama Girl to run for Homecoming Queen simply amazed me. I mean, when do these people ever go to class or write papers? But we did a lot of other stuff besides studying too, it just didn't involve making signs and Facebook groups and organizing a full-blown campaign of any kind.
Besides the murmurings about The Machine, the racial and social divides on campus are interesting to watch. Jessica visits a variety of student groups on campus to campaign personally for votes -- an organization for international students, a men's honor society -- students that the Greek organizations probably ignore. She's trying to hint that by voting for her, the students have a chance to topple The Machine's power. We also see some of the racially tense events that white Greek organizations host, like an "Old South" week with frat boys in Confederate uniforms and sorority girls in hoopskirts. One of Jessica's sorority sisters jokes, "They're gonna stop by here and leave us their laundry," but you can see the young women aren't happy with these sorts of university traditions. The issues become further complicated when a woman from a rival historically black sorority decides to enter the running.
Bama Girl spends a little more time than necessary in building up the suspense on the Homecoming Queen outcome. I preferred seeing the people behind the story, from Jessica and her hilarious campaign manager to a touching moment at the polls when we see a small but sweet effect of Jessica's campaigning. I also wish director Rachel Goslins and her crew had been able to spend time with the candidates that were supposed to be Machine-endorsed, but they did a good job profiling Jessica and another hopeful, a former sorority girl turned drama student. Overall, Bama Girl was one of the most entertaining movies, doc or feature, that I saw at SXSW this year -- I think it has special appeal for women raised in the South.
[If you want to see more people in tiaras than you ever imagined possible, check out Bama Girl director Rachel Goslins' SXSW blog on AOL. I still have my tiara from the screening!]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-22-2008 @ 5:21PM
Jake said...
This is interesting. I attend UA, and the machine is a very real entity on campus. With any kind of election or vote that occurs on campus the amount of support given to the Greek candidates is ridiculous. Even in the campus newspaper non-machine candidates are blasted, while the endorsed candidates are praised.
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3-23-2008 @ 10:54AM
Don said...
The Machine is indeed real. It is the progeny of Theta Nu Epsilon ("The New Edition") which reportedly began at Alabama. Most national organizations prohibit their members from belonging to TNE and TNE has little influence in other parts of the country. The president at U/A abolished student government elections for, I believe, two years in an effort to defeat The Machine.
The Machine is no longer as powerful as it once was. Non-Machine candidates have been elected to key positions. The Machine is considered by some as a sad attempt to maintain social injustice.
Old South Week was a tradition of one of the men's fraternities. You can see a brief example of the costumes in the movie, "Steel Magnolias" when the groom and some of his groomsmen and friends show up at the bride's home after the wedding. To their credit, that fraternity has worked very hard to eliminate these practices, as have other groups with traditions that perpetuate negative stereotypes, such as FIJI Island.
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4-01-2008 @ 10:23PM
tara shinholster said...
I still attend the University of Alabama and was in a sorority. One thing to make clear is that this documentary is one sided and has holes in its story but maybe if the director and their crew did a better job at researching this topic before they did this documentary that could have been avoid. One fact that was not mentioned was not every white sorority and fraternity are members of the machine. the machine is made up of only a handful of sororities and frats. Secondly Homecoming Queen is not a big deal at Alabama as the documentary states. Most students, including the greeks really could give a damn about Homecoming Queen I know that most the greeks I know don't even go vote cause they could care less, its not important-what the greeks really care about that week is the lawn decorations. Also the machine bashing-get over it it is just like any other political party and it the non-greek students really cared that much about Queen or SGA elections they could certainly ban together make their own political party and beat the machine. The non-greeks have the numbers-greeks are a very small majority on Alabama's campus. Finally the angle of racial discrimination in this documentary is tired. Alabama is one of the most liberal universities in the country. In my sorority we have had members of ethnic backgrounds including African-American. There has always been at least 1 African-American representative on Homecoming Court since the 1990s at least and those girls were always from historically black sororities like Alpha Kappa Alpha and Delta Sigma Theta.....Greek is greek. I am sorry there has never been a black Homecoming Queen but I am even more sorry there hasn't been a Native American queen (my race) or representative. This documentary did not prepare to give a informed view of the topic matter and I do believe the crew, director and participants have a chip on their shoulder and an agenda to serve. tgs
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