This makes me want to vomit
 

I was watching "We Were the Mulvaneys" on Lifetime this evening since I read the Joyce Carol Oates book and was curious. While watching the movie, there was a preview for the Lifetime series "For the People". One of the upcoming episodes is all about a sorority "pledge" that dies from a cocaine overdose. The few snippets show these girls in a very negative light. Granted I watch Lifetime because the movies are SO OUTRAGEOUS, but this is just influencing a negative stereotype and not factual at all. One part of the preview has a girl saying how she wants to be a "Zeta". It shouldn't take too long for someone to think this is reality.

Thanks for not empowering us women Lifetime, would it be so had to do a movie about a group of women in a sorority that are there for each other their whole lives, that is touching? Or a factual show about all the philanthropy or a historical show? I think I may have to shoot off an email like I did when they had all these commercials and what not about loving yourself as you are, yet had on weight loss infomercials at night. :mad:

There will be three weeks of sorority bashing on Lifetime. January 5th and 11th you can catch "We The People" and on the 19th that movie with Jenna Von Oy and Hilary Swank "Dying to Belong" is on. How wonderful that this is all on during spring recruitment.

*edited to add dates*

actually I was under the impression that many of the movies on Lifetime were based on true stories. I also don't think that people can/should judge any one sorority based on one person. There are people with worse lifes than everyday common people, and Im sure that happens to non-GLO individuals, as well as GLO individuals. JUst my input. It would be nice to see a nice story about a GLO though.

is "We the People" the one w/ Jo from Facts of Life? I was confused, I thought you were talking about "Mulvaneys" too.

as far as "Dying to Belong" Hillary Swank and Jenna von Oy are both so frigging obnoxious in it, any sane person would agree that the sorority was justified in pushing their sorry asses off the roof. :p

Law & Order had an episode based on the V's but I've never seen it in reruns. I think that once they found out what a load of BS the ripped from the headlines! story was in real life, they pulled it.

To my knowledge "Dying to Belong" was not made by Lifetime. It doesn't show up in their own database. I remember watching it with one of the girls from my church in the summer of 1998, on network television. She was greek at U North Dakota but I can't remember what chapter.

The "We the People Show" has Caroline from "Caroline in the City" on it. The one with Nancy McKeon (Jo from The Facts of Life) is the other Sunday law drama, "The Division". The show coming up with the cocaine death is an original lifetime series. My old roommate was a Law and Order addict and I remember one episode with sorority sisters and they drugged one up to get her raped.

"Dying to Belong" was originally on NBC, I believe.

I can't get too worried about this, even though it's poorly timed bad PR. Maybe the NPC should issue a joint statement to Lifetime about how their timing is a little off, just to make them conscious of the fact that they're doing this. Other than that, not much else anyone can do. Lifetime movies should be taken with a grain of salt. If anyone comes to rush parties thinking that they're going to die of cocaine overdoses or falls from a clock tower--do we want them anyway?

Sending a letter might not be the best idea. I doubt they do it on purpose. If they did it would make sense to run it in late August.

Also a letter is just negative publicity. All publicity is good for a TV station.

Although the negative publicity is never good, it is also important to consider that the highest rated cable channel (probably ESPN or CNN -- I haven't seen any Neilsons lately) still has only a tiny fraction of the viewership of the lowest rated broadcast network.

Bottom line, bad publicity, but not seen by all that many people.

I know we're supposed to hate movies that bash sororities, but some of my favourite cheesy TV movies have had sorority storylines! There's the one "Dying to Belong" that you mentioned, as well as the one with Shannen Doherty, "Friends to the End" where one of her sorority sisters tried to steal her identity and murder her, and then there's a classic one from the 70s - I don't remember the title, but Morgan Fairchild is in it in a small role - where these girls go to university to join a sorority, but find out that it's a sorority of witches. I love it!

But yes, I'd like to see a movie with a positive representation of sorority women, but if there were more of those, what other movies could they show on Lifetime? ;)

Really? I'm kind of surprised that she was in a sorority -- I'm reading her newest book, I'll Take You There, right now, and it puts a really bad spin on Greek life, once again portraying sorority girls as shallow, cruel, and only concerned with boys and partying.

Do any of her other books involve sororities at all, or is this the first?

I know we're supposed to hate movies that bash sororities, but some of my favourite cheesy TV movies have had sorority storylines! There's the one "Dying to Belong" that you mentioned, as well as the one with Shannen Doherty, "Friends to the End" where one of her sorority sisters tried to steal her identity and murder her, and then there's a classic one from the 70s - I don't remember the title, but Morgan Fairchild is in it in a small role - where these girls go to university to join a sorority, but find out that it's a sorority of witches. I love it!

But yes, I'd like to see a movie with a positive representation of sorority women, but if there were more of those, what other movies could they show on Lifetime? ;)

Slightly off topic
 

Is it me, or has anyone else noticed that LMN and Lifetime channel all show movies that portray the leading woman as a victim?

IMHO, that format has gotten *really* old for me. Women are NOT victims by definition, dammit, so why does a "womens' network" cater to that stereotype?

Which is why I switched to Oxygen channel. :-D

(/soapbox)

Adrienne
:)

Anne Rivers Siddons is another greek (Tri-Delta) who puts a somewhat negative spin on Greek life (particularly Greek life in the South during the 1950s-1960s) in her book Heartbreak Hotel. She also writes about sorority suitemates in the book "Outer Banks", but I haven't read that one yet.