Everyone loves Elle Woods. Whether it’s her ability to incarcerate someone for their perm or her bend-and-snap method, Elle Woods made every girl want to apply to Harvard Law School. What most teenagers don’t realize is the deep-rooted issues at the heart of the movie. We have a beautiful sorority girl (who, of course, loves the color pink) applying to Harvard Lard School to prove to her ex-boyfriend that she can be taken seriously. While Elle may come out victorious in the end, let’s not forget the conversation she has with her parents shortly after she decides to apply:
Elle’s Mother: Honey, you were First Runner-Up at the ‘Miss Hawaiian Tropics’ contest. Why are you going to throw that all away?
Elle: Going to Harvard is the only way I’m going to get the love of my life back.
Elle’s Father: Oh, sweetheart, you don’t need law school. Law school is for people who are boring and ugly and serious. And you, button, are none of those things.
Here we have the stereotypical depiction of a sorority girl: using her attractiveness and fun personality to get through life. Elle’s father can’t even fathom what else she would need to succeed in life. God forbid Elle was to use her brain; she might end up being one of those boring and ugly law school students!
Not all sorority girls live the life of Elle Woods or are the general stereotype of the tall, blonde airhead. Countless hours are devoted to raising thousands of dollars for charities and participating in service events. While Non-Greeks must simply meet the school’s GPA standards that set them above academic probation, sorority women strive for academic excellence well beyond their university’s Greek life GPA requirements, not to mention their individual house’s required GPA. Even the first American female astronaut, Sally Ride, was a member of the Greek community. Just when, then, will movies and television shows catch up to the 21st century reality of sorority women?
As the media continues to create these unrealistic representations of sororities, the system of Greek life continues to be placed under a microscope. Take, for example, the film The House Bunny. After the Playboy bunny Shelley is kicked out of the mansion, she must find a job, like any working adult. Only her idea of a job is being the “housemother” for a sorority house. This sorority is portrayed in an unruly fashion—they are the unpopular, unfashionable outcasts of their campus. Shelley swoops in as housemother and gives the girls a makeover that is sure to get some attention. Post-makeover, we see the girls walking around in miniskirts with their stomachs peeking out of their crop tops. Suddenly, their likeability on campus goes through the roof.
The problem behind movies like The House Bunny is quite simple. The underlying message says that in order for college girls to “fit in,” they must “conform” to the norm of sorority girls on campus. They must become like Shelley, a Playboy bunny, in order to make it in Greek life. What does a movie like this say to young adults and even college females? With one single click of the Play button, this movie tarnishes what the founders of each sorority sought to establish: a sisterhood in which young women can be themselves and strive for excellence as leaders on college campuses.
In 2007, Amanda Bynes starred in a role that began to dispel the negative image of sororities, yet still missed the mark. Sydney White revolved around a girl who pledges her late mother’s sorority, yet soon realizes that the sisterhood is not the same as it once was. Sydney falls for the on-again, off-again boyfriend of the sorority’s president, Rachel, who is also the most popular girl on campus. As Sydney’s popularity begins to challenge Rachel’s status as the hottest and most popular, Rachel humiliates her in front of everyone at the Kappa sorority’s new member initiation and refuses Sydney’s acceptance into the sorority. They banish her to a condemned house, where she befriends seven outcasts and helps them in their fight to take over the student government and create a campus where nerds and Greeks are equal.
Unlike some films, this one shows that even a girl like Sydney will be fine being herself and not conforming just to fit in. Yet, the movie continues to paint a negative image of sorority women as beautiful, conniving females who won’t let anyone get in their way of being “on top.” While the movie makes some progress in counteracting these stereotypes, they still lie beneath the surface.
Fraternities aren’t represented in any more of a positive light than sororities. The 1978 classic Animal House shows fraternities breaking conduct violations, cheating on exams, and excessively partying. The movie created the idea of the fraternity that can’t be tamed and that won’t let anyone get in the way of its fun. What’s important, though, is that men didn’t have as much to lose with this portrayal. Viewers merely found the film comedic and entertaining, causing little harm to how fraternity men are perceived. When films start placing a woman’s beauty over her intelligence and personality, though, one can agree that there is more to lose in society’s perception of sorority women because of the media’s poor depictions of Greek life.
In early August, the sisters of Alpha Sigma Alpha at Murray State University made national headlines when they gave a bid to Alexis Cain, the first student with Down syndrome to join a sorority at their school. Cain’s mother, Camme Cain, was pleasantly surprised with how the process went. “They weren’t afraid of the unknown and the stigma that comes with having a disability,” Camme said. “These are a bunch of good, accepting girls that would bring her into something like a sorority and just wholeheartedly accept her and support her right off the bat.”
If only more movies and television shows would reflect on the excellence sorority women strive for in their education and the workforce.