For everyone who couldn’t get enough of RushTok, there’s a new documentary coming about the secret world of sorority rush at the University of Alabama—and we can’t wait to dive in
Anyone who was on TikTok (or the internet, really) in August of 2021 is familiar with RushTok, a phenomenon that captivated audiences of all ages where young women who were rushing sororities at the University of Alabama shared their packed social schedules and daily fit checks on the app. People got to know these women by name, unable to stop watching as they shared some insight into the highly competitive process of gaining acceptance in a sorority—and now, a new documentary promises to reveal even more secrets.
The trailer just dropped for HBO Max’s upcoming, feature-length doc, Bama Rush, and to say it looks juicy would be a serious understatement.
According to the production notes, Bama Rush follows four students as they prepare to rush in the summer of 2022. But unlike the glitzy and peppy TikTok videos, director Rachel Fleit is going beneath the surface, exposing some dark aspects of the yearly tradition.
“We put a lot of pressure on ourselves,” one woman is heard saying in the trailer. Another holds back tears as she professes to the camera, “Being in a sorority will help me figure out the person I want to be because I feel like I don’t really know who I am.”
But more than the individual women, the documentary promises to explore the Greek system as a whole—and how it’s been powered by racism, sexism, and exclusion.
“Rush is a social stratification ritual of power, of status, of prestige,” one expert says. This is profoundly paired with a young woman admitting, “There are a lot of things that you’re entitled to when you’re in a top-tier sorority. The rankings come from fraternity boys, so the top house has the hottest girls.”
The trailer flashes back to news articles from when the Greek system at Alabama was integrated—only 10 years ago. We also see a young Black woman telling her friends, “Everyone here will just look at you when you have any color in you.”
There’s clearly much more to #BamaRush than the TikTok trend revealed, and we can’t wait to see it all. Bama Rush drops on HBO Max on May 23.
