U. of Alabama sorority criticized for recruitment video

Kristen Rein | USA TODAY

The 2015 academic year hasn't technically started yet, but the members of Alpha Phi at the University of Alabama have started the year off on a bad foot.

In their 'Alabama Alpha Phi 2015' recruitment video — a video traditionally used to highlight the positive aspects of a Greek organization and recruit new members —a group composed almost exclusively of white girls (many of them with long, blonde hair) dressed in clothes like daisy dukes and bikinis pretty much do nothing but dance, jump around, and blow kisses and glitter.

The video has been met with a wave of criticism from people who feel the group appeared interested in highlighting little but their looks.

Alpha Phi deleted the video, which had 500,000 views on YouTube before it was taken down, but it has since been uploaded to YouTube by others.

In an AL.com op-ed, writer A.L. Bailey had a lot to say about the video:



Remember all those bikini-clad, sashaying, glitter-blowing, and spontaneous piggyback-riding days of college? Me either. But according to a new video, it's a whirlwind of glitter and girl-on-girl piggyback rides at the University of Alabama's Alpha Phi house.

No, it's not a slick Playboy Playmate or Girls Gone Wild video. It's a sorority recruiting tool gaining on 500,000 views in its first week on YouTube. It's a parade of white girls and blonde hair dye, coordinated clothing, bikinis and daisy dukes, glitter and kisses, bouncing bodies, euphoric hand-holding and hugging, gratuitous booty shots, and matching aviator sunglasses. It's all so racially and aesthetically homogeneous and forced, so hyper-feminine, so reductive and objectifying, so Stepford Wives: College Edition. It's all so ... unempowering.



On Monday, the University of Alabama administration condemned the video.



"This video is not reflective of UA's expectations for student organizations to be responsible digital citizens," Deborah Lane, the associate vice president for university relations said in a statement. "It is important for student organizations to remember what is posted on social media makes a difference, today and tomorrow, on how they are viewed and perceived."

"This video isn't for politically sensitive adults who immediately associate a popsicle with sex," Meyer added. "There is no drinking, no drugs, no nudity. It's kind of sad girls can't play fake football or be in a bikini without the judgement of the entire Internet."

He told the Hollywood Reporter that he was inspired by a University of Arizona recruitment video. The video featured scantily clad sorority women dancing and wrapping American flags around themselves.

"A lot of sororities have been using that [University of Arizona Theta recruitment video] for inspiration because it looked so good and was so successful," Meyer says. Meyer added that Alpha Phi is much more diverse than the video depicted.

Bailey relates the video to recent statements made by Donald Trump during and since the Aug. 6 Republican debate:

"This video has a clear sales pitch: beauty, sexuality, and a specific look above all. They're selling themselves on looks alone, as a commodity. Sadly, commodities don't tend to command much respect. So who is buying what they're selling?" Bailey asks.

"Men, from Donald Trump on down to fraternity pledges, are buying it over and over again with devastating results."

Some on YouTube didn't understand the uproar, however. A "manufactured crisis," wrote one commentator. Likewise, on Twitter many women who said they were in sororities said they saw nothing wrong with the recruitment video.

Initial efforts to reach Alpha Phi, at the local and national level, have proved unsuccessful.

Some commenters, however didn't understand the uproar:







As a former Texas Tech Alpha Phi I see nothing wrong with the Bama AΦ recruitment video. This is crazy!! http://t.co/doTfyQtdRz 🐻🌿

August 17, 2015

I don't really see anything wrong with Alpha Phi's recruitment video from University of Alabama, but that's just me💁🏽 and I'm not white #TSM — Serena Duggal (@SerenaHehe123) August 17, 2015

University of Alabama's Alpha Phi recruitment video looks the same as every other recruitment video. This backlash is unnecessary. — Josey (@joseylonzo) August 17, 2015

Contributing: Mary Bowerman and Morgan Baskin, USA TODAY Network

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.