The only black person seen in the new YouTube video titled “Alabama Alpha Phi 2015” is a man who joins the University of Alabama sorority on the field. With nearly 700,000 views on YouTube since the video was uploaded on August 7, the slick and stylish video is not only being criticized for a lack of diversity, but also for the sorority women reportedly objectifying themselves.
Update: The sorority has removed the Alpha Phi video from their YouTube channel, but it appears on others:
As reported by the Daily Mail, the video displaying the Alpha Phi sorority at the University of Alabama looks very pretty and is a very the professionally produced recruitment video, having been shot and edited by Griffin Meyer, a man with a Hawaii “edu” email address.
However, it’s the cheeky “T and A” factor of the video that’s winning criticism for the University of Alabama sorority’s viral video.
The Alpha Phi sorority, based in Tuscaloosa, have enjoyed so many views on YouTube for their happy, smiling, and stylish video, no doubt because of the controversy and because people love looking at beauty. Most of the women in the video are blonde, tan, and fit, with several shots of their toned calves and jumping, grinning ways making some young women eager to join their sorority.
However, critics say that the video of 72 mainly Caucasian women lacks depth. Instead of showing community work or more substantive pursuits, the sorority’s video has been slammed by AL.com writer A.L. Bailey. She went so far as to write that the recruitment video is more objectifying for women than Donald Trump.
Trump famously criticized Megyn Kelly of Fox News for her tough Republican debate questions lobbed at Trump. The Donald drew jeers afterward for alluding to his thoughts that Megyn must’ve been on her period because she called Trump to the carpet for calling women pigs and fat slobs.
However, it looks like happy land at the Alpha Phi house, where new hopefuls can aspire to become one of the bikini-clad women holding up Alpha flags, swimming in a lake, and blowing glitter into the air. And smiling.
Knowing the volatile happenings that can occur on college campuses and within sorority houses, a tell-all and TV show about the life beyond the smiles would likely go far. As reported by the Inquisitr, FSU quarterback De’Andre Johnson punched a woman in a bar in Tallahassee — and issued an apology later. Those are the kinds of college campus events that would likely draw interest when the story behind the glossy smiling sorority video story is told.
In the meantime, the AL.com writer called the new video un-empowering, likening it to an old movie from decades ago that featured robotic beautiful women: The Stepford Wives.
“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… un-empowering.”
[Image via YouTube]