|
MTV's version of reality documents Greek life at UB
By DYLAN HALL
The Buffalo News
10/30/2002
When Sarah drag-raced her sorority pledge sister down Main Street one afternoon last month, it seemed like only seconds before a minivan tore past their jockeying vehicles. Its back door was wide open, revealing a cameraman precariously hanging on while trying to film the dueling Land Rovers.
The sorority women knew MTV had them wired for sound, but they were still surprised by how fast the cameras would catch up with them. Did producers see a street sign on the in-car cameras? Or was it global positioning system transmitters under the hood? Not that it mattered. MTV wanted their lives as University at Buffalo sorority sisters on camera, and the sorority sisters want to be on MTV.
They'll be getting their wish since the UB sorority, Delta Xi Omega (DXO), and fraternity, Sigma Chi Omega (SCO), are the subjects of a pair of MTV reality shows currently being filmed here in Buffalo - "Sorority Life" and "Fraternity Life."
In February, MTV will show millions of Americans its version of collegiate Greek life, with footage of 12 UB students living in a world created and shaped by the show's producers.
Thousands of hours of film focusing on six pledges from each organization, existing members and others will be sliced together into 13 easy-to-swallow 23-minute television dramas.
The dozen students that will be most closely followed are living in two lavishly appointed "pledge houses" provided by MTV, one on Lafayette between Elmwood and Delaware and the other on Crescent Avenue, two blocks east of Delaware Park. Some of the neighbors have expressed concern about the filming.
These houses are only the tip of MTV's unusual "reality." For instance, you won't see the students drinking beer around a television screen, since TV is prohibited in the houses.
Surprisingly, some pledges don't mind the absence of television from their daily lives. "I actually think that it makes less conflict because you're forced to talk things out," said Sarah, who said the contract she signed with MTV prohibited her from providing her last name.
(MTV publicists wouldn't agree to arrange interviews with producers, or current cast members for this story. Senior Publicist David French said the producers are too busy making the show.)
The students participating in the reality shows also can't play music at home or in the car, since MTV doesn't have the rights to broadcast most copyrighted material, and the sounds would interfere with their ability to splice clips of footage together.
DXO has banned drinking during the three-month pledge period because the sorority wants to counter the stereotypes and negative attitudes toward sororities and, instead, highlight the positive aspects of Greek life.
MTV offered some incentives paychecks for both the organizations and the people living in the houses) to get the local Greeks involved. It also redecorated and assumed the rent of each organization's existing house, in addition to providing them with six-bedroom "pledge houses," which are far from your typical UB fraternity/sorority house.
They are freshly painted and stylishly decorated with little concern for budget. The DXO house on Crescent Avenue rests on a corner plot with shrubs bearing the careful trimmings of professional landscaping. A freshly painted wooden fence wraps around the back yard, obscuring the passer-by's view of the hot tub.
Mounted to the right of the door is a disclaimer that states that upon crossing that threshold you agree that MTV has the right to broadcast your likeness on cable television.
The switches for any of the lights in or outside the house are controlled by people who can be reached by picking up any of the "production line" telephones. That line must be called first thing in the morning and before going to bed to request a sound technician to wire or remove the microphone
each resident pledge must wear at all times.
"In the bedrooms you could shut off lights, but you have to ask them to do it. I crashed in the living room and they couldn't shut them off," said Ronald Tumiel, a SCO pledge who wasn't one of the six living in the MTV house, but spent a great deal of time there.
Participants say these little details became frustrating. So much so, that Tumiel resigned from SCO's pledge class after two weeks.
"There was a lot more planning to the reality than anything," said Tumiel.
Sound technicians are accompanied in the house by cameramen, camera assistants and directors, who follow the pledges every minute of the day.
The directors must be given details about each pledge's plans for the day so they can decide where to send film crews. Then a plan must be devised to keep those cameras one step ahead of the subjects. The pledges must wait while
crews proceed to their destination and set up cameras to capture them as they step from their cars or pass through doorways.
The camera crews also must get permission to film on private property, including at UB, bars and restaurants.
One evening the SCO group's plan to go to Buffalo Wild Wings was vetoed by MTV when the sports bar wouldn't let the cable network's cameras inside.
Going out in public followed by a camera crew complete with blaring lights can cause quite a commotion. When the Sigma Chi Omega pledges went to a bar at the beginning of the semester, their game of darts managed to interrupt every conversation in the room.
"They were burning holes in the back of our heads more than the cameras were," said Tumiel.
At the beginning of the semester, SCO and DXO pledges gathered on UB's South Campus for a game of softball. The match was interrupted, though, by a student who came running across the field shouting, "This isn't reality TV!"
The local pledges know that MTV may not necessarily portray them in the best possible light, but they said that if they are careful with their words and actions, they don't expect to be surprised by what they see on the small screen.
"I'm sure they're going to make some people look totally stupid, but that's only because they didn't watch what they said," said Sarah.
Anger and regret are what the Buffalo students are most likely to feel when they view themselves through MTV's lens in a few months, according to members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon Pi (SAEP) at the University of California at Davis, which starred in the last season of "Sorority Life."
When SAEP received an e-mail from a member of UB's DXO with questions about coping with the stress of the relentless surveillance, the organization's president, Becca, who spoke under the condition that her last name be withheld, replied: "Why didn't you call me before you signed the agreement?"
The series, the California sorority claimed, did not show members participating in their community service work, nor did it show them participating in their regular Friday night Shabbat dinner or earning A's on their exams.
Instead, America saw footage of the women falling down in drunken stupor, going to strip clubs, and dancing drunken atop pool tables. There were fights over bathroom habits, hogging the telephone and someone was shown crying in nearly every episode.
One episode focused on pledge Amanda's "crush" on her friend Sean. She takes her pledge sisters to meet Sean at a bar, where they all drink heavily. At the end of the night, when Amanda turns to say goodbye to Sean, she finds her friend making out with him. Screaming and crying, she frantically runs to the car.
"I don't know what relevance that has in sorority life," said Leslie Schaffer, who was the vice president of the Davis sorority when the episodes were filmed. "It's never happened to us before and I don't think it will happen again."
|
sorority life 2
there you go...
Linear Mode
