Sorority Sisterhood.. or Sorority Sin?

Real Wild Women/Wild Real Men

The movie Sorority Row is about six girls in a college sorority who are all seeking for their own identities. They are all young, naïve and have distinct personalities separating them from one another. Don’t get me wrong, they still depict the typical sorority girl stereotype of being rich and gorgeous with a hardcore attitude, but you would never see such diverse individuals as friends outside of the sorority. In order for them to truly bond as “sisters” they are brought together surprisingly by a horrible accident late one night. Their personalities are so varied that they must each contribute to the storyline immensely in different ways, which is what makes this movie so intriguing.

The backbone to the storyline sucks in each sorority sister to a bond that they cannot break, even if some of them are unwilling to cooperate. Megan, a very prissy, dramatic individual decides to get back at her boyfriend for cheating on her. She proceeds to “fake” her death in order to freak him out for payback. All the other sisters decide to get in on it and they take her “dead body” to an abandoned part of the desert. Each one of them contributes to the prank that is eventually taken too far. The boyfriend decides to stab Megan to her actual, real death discovering at the same time that she was never dead in the first place. Jessica, the head of Theta Pi, convinces the other sisters to keep it a secret, creating a forced bond between them, until a killer who knows their dark secret comes after them all.

There are a few stereotypes and similar motivations that Jack Boozer has pointed out about certain films. He explains how “heterosexual couples tend to commit crimes out of spontaneous convenience and role-playing” (Boozer 12). Megan and her boyfriend would be a prime example of this typical similarity. Although her boyfriend was not in on the crime originally, the origin of the storyline was based off of Megan impulsively playing a prank on her boyfriend. The end result was the infamous crime of coldblooded murder. You also tend to see quite a few movies with couples who commit crimes out of nowhere. Take for example the movies, Fun with Dick and Jane and Sugar and Spice. These two movies are also about couples who rob banks and stores in order to fulfill their financial needs. In movies where the characters commit serious crimes, they almost always have a significant other, or an accomplice throughout the entire film. It seems to make the storyline more intriguing.

Not only are the sorority stereotypes heavily present in this movie, but there are also a few other female stereotypes that Boozer discusses. Boozer claims the irony in that “the protagonist is increasingly entrapped the more desperately he/she seeks emancipation” (Boozer 209). Cassidy, another sister, is constantly harassed by the other sisters because she does not believe they should keep the murder a secret. Throughout the entire movie she is trying to find a way, but is always sucked in to the sisterhood. But do not let her weakness fool you! We all know the cliches in movies, and she ends up being a significant factor in the ending!

Although this movie is a typical horror movie, it shows how broken female bonds can be mended by even the costliest of crimes. However, one of the more prominent similarities would definitely be gender roles. If the protagonist is a female, then she is almost always a bully with masculine personality features. It’s interesting to ponder the similarities in certain genres of movies; they almost always have more than one aspect in common.