Problematic Sorority Recruitment Video?

[Sen's Revenge]

If this thread is moved or deleted, as someone who has been on this site for well over a decade, I would like a private message explaining that decision.

I got this question on another website I moderate as well as in a facebook message: Do any of you all have any thoughts/opinions about the U of Alabama Alpha Phi sorority recruitment video?

Here is my response:

Thanks for reminding me to watch the video.

As I watched it, I was like oh, a white sorority recruitment video. I’ve seen a million of these. Pretty girls, big houses, generic pop music–nothing to see here.

I don’t think you should criticize a sorority that is all white for having their own members in a recruitment video. That’s how these things work. You have who you have and you use them. I also had no issue with the bikinis and shorts. I know that’s not something black sororities would do, but c’est la vie.

HOWEVER,

I neither understood nor liked the random use of the football player. I did not know who he was, but I did find him attractive and he had cheekaleeks which is always a plus. But the message of the video DRAMATICALLY changes for me when you insert the black athlete.

It goes from “tee hee we’re in a sorority watch us be cute” to “Watch us use this black body as a prop.”

I think you shouldn’t use nonmembers in recruitment videos at all (except parents) and that scene was problematic for me as a person of color. Absent that one thing, I had no other strong reactions.

[tinydancer]

I, too, saw this on another site. I wondered if I had just missed it on GC or if it had been removed.

[Titchou]

Obviously you are not a college football fanatic or you would have understood why he was there.

[SoCalGirl]

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...d.php?t=152826

Posted last week.

[Sen's Revenge]

Originally Posted by Titchou

Obviously you are not a college football fanatic or you would have understood why he was there.

You are so rude. Please leave me alone.

[Sen's Revenge]

Originally Posted by SoCalGirl

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...d.php?t=152826

Posted last week.

I missed that, thank you very much.

[Sen's Revenge]

Man, I wish I had seen that thread before it got closed. I am late and out of the loop. lol

[jolene]

I originally laughed at that Alpha Phi video. It's a *recruitment video* not a treatise on life. It's a video of pretty college girls having fun. Now Greeks are, once again, having to justify their existence. Normally I'd brush it off, but then it's creeped onto my FB TL by non-Greek friends and on TV shows. News alert! College kids party and not just Greeks.

I always point out the philanthropy involvement, graduation stats, GPA stats, etc. When Jane Doe independant does something stupid, it's no biggie. If Jane Doe, member of XYZ, does something stupid it makes national news. That mere recruitment vid (yes, it's made to ENTICE co-eds to join--news alert ) has gone viral and made us have to justify ourselves again.

/rant

[SoCalGirl]

I'm not a fan of the over produced, glossy, drone heavy recruitment videos in general. They've become a cliché at this point, in my opinion. This style didn't pop up out of nowhere, I suspect wedding videos and what I call "rich family" photos were the starting ground. It'll die out eventually, hopefully replaced by something I like better.

[tinydancer]

Well, it does have it all - dancing, glitter, piggy backs. I had to laugh a little.

[33girl]

Sen, I couldn't agree more.

If you put a male of any sort in a recruitment video (other than large scale shots of Greek week etc) and he isn't a chapter sweetheart or connected in some way, it's a bad idea. If it's a prestigious for whatever reason male with no connections, it's an even worse idea. And if the prestigious male with no connections happens to be black and everyone shown in the sorority video is white, that amps it up to a whole other level of bad idea.

I'll ask again - who are these videos FOR??

[Nanners52674]

Would it be okay if they used a white football player? I really don't think APhi and Drake gave a second thought to how it would look in terms of "race and diversity", so I'm not sure why the rest of the world is.

If you look at that video and all you take away is a message about race that's your presumption. It's something you are noticing.

Bama is a huge football school so they asked a player to be in the video. He agreed. What's the big deal?

[33girl]

If a guy (regardless of color) is just in there because he's a football player (or student senate president or in a popular fraternity) and has zero connection to the chapter, it kind of looks like they paid him to show up and appear just to look like they know the right people. Chapters are told up and down not to discuss boys during recruitment, I don't understand how this is any different.

[knight_shadow]

Who exactly started the "outrage" about this? I didn't see any source of the outrage; just the thinkpieces/"news" stories saying that there was an outrage.

As a sidebar -- wasn't Bama the school that had the big PR push to show "yay we accept the blacks" a year or two ago?

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by Nanners52674

If you look at that video and all you take away is a message about race that's your presumption. It's something you are noticing.

If you* are able to go through life without noticing race, that's a privilege.

*I mean the general you, not Nanners specifically.