Bama Girl

Honeykiss1974 · #1 03-18-2009, 10:31 AM

This morning I watched a documentary on IFC called 'Bama Girl' which is about Jessica Thomas (who is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha @ Bama) experience as she runs for Homecoming Queen. This took place in 2005 so I'm sure some of you may have seen it already, but I hadn't until this morning - and even then I only caught the last 30 minutes.

http://www.bamagirlfilm.com/main/

Quick Summary....

Quote:

Bama Girl follows a young black woman’’s quest to become the Homecoming Queen at the University of Alabama, one of the great Deep South institutions. Homecoming has a rich history there, tied into centuries of privilege, tradition, and racial exclusivity. We follow Jessica Thomas’ as she campaigns for Queen, running against not only 15 other co-eds, but a strictly segregated Greek system, internal black politics, and, most ominously, a secret all-white association called ‘The Machine’ that has been controlling politics at the University for most of the past century.

Has anyone else seen this? I searched and it didn't give me a date as to when it may air again in my area so hopefully I can catch it on PPV some time.

..........................................

Mods, I searched by the title of this documentary and couldn't find anythingg on GC, so please feel free to move to another thread if deemed so.

aopirose · #2 03-18-2009, 12:55 PM

I caught the last bit of it on the Independent Film Channel yesterday. It was interesting to see the process at Alabama because every college does it differently. I would realy like to see Bama Girl from the beginning.

NinjaPoodle · #3 03-18-2009, 09:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aopirose

I caught the last bit of it on the Independent Film Channel yesterday. It was interesting to see the process at Alabama because every college does it differently. I would really like to see Bama Girl from the beginning.

You can purchase it from the Zon'. If you buy it via this link to Amazon,

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ad.php?t=93995

GreekChat receives proceeds.

I thought it was great. I really admire what Ms. Thomas did.

NinjaPoodle · #4 03-18-2009, 09:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Honeykiss1974

This morning I watched a documentary on IFC called 'Bama Girl' which is about Jessica Thomas (who is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha @ Bama) experience as she runs for Homecoming Queen. This took place in 2005 so I'm sure some of you may have seen it already, but I hadn't until this morning - and even then I only caught the last 30 minutes.

http://www.bamagirlfilm.com/main/

Quick Summary....

Has anyone else seen this? I searched and it didn't give me a date as to when it may air again in my area so hopefully I can catch it on PPV some time.

..........................................

I really hope you get a chance to see the whole thing. It's worth discussion.

Seriously_Sweet · #5 03-19-2009, 01:35 PM

I saw it. There was a viewing of it on campus. It's not surprising that a school like UA has a "machine" in place...and I commend Soror Jessica for her accomplishment of at least making the court. After we viewed the film, she actually came in and had a Q&A session with us, which was really cool. The main topic people seemed to want to discuss was whether or not Jessica got support from the other NPHC orgs. She said that getting overwhelming support was difficult, because a lot of people didn't want to vote for someone not apart of their respective org...

NinjaPoodle · #6 03-19-2009, 02:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seriously_Sweet

I saw it. .....The main topic people seemed to want to discuss was whether or not Jessica got support from the other NPHC orgs. She said that getting overwhelming support was difficult, because a lot of people didn't want to vote for someone not apart of their respective org...

From what I gathered from the film, it was just her and the Delta candidate that entered later. During the Q&A, did Jessica say anything about the other NPHC candidate splitting the "black" vote or anything similar?

Honeykiss1974 · #7 03-19-2009, 04:24 PM

/\ I'm interested in knowing that too.

I didnt see this part of the movie, but when reading an article about the documentary, Jessica mentioned that they (black students) had tried to form their own "machine" and had agreed that she would be the only black candidate - but then the basketball team decided to nominate another player who was both black and in a NPHC sorority (I believe it was DST). After that, her plan was to go after groups traditionally left out, such as foreign students and to run on your qualifications and what she could bring to the university as Queen.

NinjaPoodle · #8 03-20-2009, 02:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Honeykiss1974

/\ I'm interested in knowing that too.

I didn't see this part of the movie, but when reading an article about the documentary, Jessica mentioned that they (black students) had tried to form their own "machine" and had agreed that she would be the only black candidate - but then the basketball team decided to nominate another player who was both black and in a NPHC sorority (I believe it was DST). After that, her plan was to go after groups traditionally left out, such as foreign students and to run on your qualifications and what she could bring to the university as Queen.

Is that article still available?

Malaika08 · #9 03-20-2009, 05:34 PM

Next air times: Tuesday, Apr. 7 at 7:40 AM EDT and Tuesday, Apr. 7 at 1:15 PM EDT.

Future air dates will probably be posted here: http://www.ifc.com/movies/n002/n314/n220/n000.php

BamaGirlDir · #10 04-01-2009, 11:07 PM

Hi there- I am the director of the film Bama Girl, and I stumbled onto this forum while searching for another article about my film. Anyway, I really appreciate those of you that saw it and liked it (and even if you didn't). For those of you who didn't get to see the whole thing, I wanted to let you know that it's re-airing on IFC next week, on April 7th, at 7:4o am and 1:40 pm - so set your DVRs.

Thanks again for your thoughtfulness about the film. It does an independent filmmakers heart good.

RG

Honeykiss1974 · #11 04-02-2009, 10:51 AM

/\/\ Cool, thanks for posting. I'm sure once I watch it in it's entirety, I'll have more to say.

NinjaPoodle · #12 04-02-2009, 07:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BamaGirlDir

Hi there- I am the director of the film Bama Girl, and I stumbled onto this forum while searching for another article about my film. Anyway, I really appreciate those of you that saw it and liked it (and even if you didn't). For those of you who didn't get to see the whole thing, I wanted to let you know that it's re-airing on IFC next week, on April 7th, at 7:4o am and 1:40 pm - so set your DVRs.

Thanks again for your thoughtfulness about the film. It does an independent filmmakers heart good.

RG

Thanks for posting here.

I was curious about the process of filming this story. What type of road blocks did you encounter?