'Bama Girl: A Film about Race Relations in America Today

[Moorbey]

'Bama Girl: A Film about Race Relations in America Today


Special Feature from Civilrights.org
David Schraub
July 9, 2008

This review of "'Bama Girl" is from a screening convened in Washington DC on July 2 by LCCREF, Campus Progress and 3Leo Productions.

Rachel Goslins' new and provocative documentary "'Bama Girl" follows University of Alabama senior Jessica Thomas as she campaigns for Homecoming Queen. If she wins, she will become the first Black woman to win the honor in over a generation. But old habits die hard in the Deep South, and Thomas has to gear up for short but bruising battle in what is, at heart, an electoral drama.

The antagonist of the film is "The Machine": a collection of old, all-white fraternities and sororities that have controlled campus politics and policy for decades. The Machine candidate is, predictably, a blonde girl from one of the largest white fraternities.

The easy move would have been to cast Thomas as the proud Black warrior crusading against one of the last strongholds of racist privilege. Yet laudably, the film resists this temptation. In fact, Thomas recognizes the power of The Machine, but she is surprisingly ambivalent about the role the network actually plays on campus.

Thomas often expresses admiration for The Machine's discipline and concedes that if she had a similar organization, she would use it too. As things are, Thomas admits frustration that Black people cannot unify the way that White people do. White people may hate each other, she observes, but when they want something, they know how to come together and get it.

At the start of the film there are hints that the Black community on campus had been working to develop a united front behind a single Black candidate: Thomas. But this falls apart when the athletes nominate a Black basketball player to the competition – breaking an agreement previously made with Thomas' sorority.

With the Black vote divided, Thomas decides to pursue the prize the idealistic way: focusing on her qualifications, her involvement on campus, and her stellar academic pedigree. Most notably, she reaches out to neglected students on campus like the International Students group – in essence, attempting to organize those people who have been left out of the Machine-dominated political scene, regardless of color or creed.

Thomas' tireless effort and personal charisma comes across superbly on screen, and it is clear that she managed to put together a voting coalition never before seen on the Alabama campus. That, in of itself, is an inspiring message, and viewers cannot help but be optimistic about Thomas' future as well as that of her campaign staff.

Yet ultimately, the film is a sobering one. The legacy of racism never disappears from the film (and becomes painfully clear when Machine-affiliated organizations celebrate "Old South day" in Confederate uniforms), but it does not dominate the field. The focus instead is on the stranglehold that an old, powerful network can maintain even in the absence of public displays of racism. The most telling symbol of what Thomas is up against is not the frat boys dressing up as Confederates, but the (all-white) sorority sisters marching in formation to the polls to vote for the Machine candidate.