Heaven’s Gate
Part II: Career vs. Family
16 On Edge
“We need more variety in each show,” Frankie said. “Three people talking for an hour isn’t cutting it among our demographic.”
“I agree,” Sarah said. “Post show surveys indicate the audience got tired by the end. They love your opening monologues, and really like the audience interaction. But cerebral discussions were not what we promised them. They liked the comedians. And the musicians. They even liked the author and psychologists, but they went on too long.”
“Even Elaine has four segments in her show. She has two separate interviews with a little discussion between the two guests, then a break for Young Cooking with another guest, and finally a last guest that is often the heart-tug,” Chuck said. “We don’t need to turn XX/XY into a variety show, but it needs more variety.”
Each afternoon, Sarah ran focus groups showing the previous night’s performance. These were followed by a survey and discussion. We were getting good info.
“Well, I’d like to last more than one week,” I laughed. “Even Chevy Chase went two. What can we do to improve next week?”
“Samantha has been on the phone non-stop since the first night. She identified the problem from being in the audience at Gamma House. She has more guests for you next week at Champaign/Urbana. The problem is that our first run at getting guests was for people compatible with your overall theme and message. Some of the new guests she has lined up won’t be in line with our philosophy nor will they be reserved in their nature. They live to be on camera. They will make the show about them,” Sarah said.
“We’ve always known that a show about the agreement wasn’t going to be enough. I’d like to encapsulate the parts where that is the focus rather than trying to spread it throughout the hour,” Chuck said.
I agreed and then had to get ready for the last show of the week at Delta House.
ME: Tonight, as my guests, I have Libby Fallon, author of the new memoir Good Girls Do. We went to great lengths to track down Eric Holmes, the only brother who was willing to talk to us from Alpha Delta at Dartmouth College. Alpha Delta was the fraternity that inspired National Lampoon’s Animal House. We will have a panel of members from the Panhellenic Society to talk about the reputation of Greek organizations on campus. And finally, we have former IU basketball star Lamar Trane, now a practicing attorney, to give a counterpoint to Eric’s tales from the perspective of Lambda House. We’re going to have a good time tonight.
Did we have a good time? Not really! It turned out there was no counterpoint to the position of Alpha Delta. Eric presented the fraternity as a group that had risen above its reputation of the ’60s and was a model organization in the Greek Society. The Panhellenic group basically read their position statement and dared anyone to cast sororities in any light other than as pure, charitable, organizations devoted to the growth of their members. It was Libby, a former Delta herself, who slung the mud at the sororities with stories of drunken parties and serving as a fraternity’s free mount at parties. The ladies in the audience were getting pretty riled at the way Libby painted their sorority and it took Lamar to actually settle things down.
LAMAR: Brian, Eric has presented a pretty straightforward picture of how Alpha Delta has changed over the years. He didn’t deny that the kind of things Chris Miller wrote about in National Lampoon might have happened. Just that it doesn’t now. Libby has written about her experiences just fifteen years ago, right here on campus. We have to assume that what she’s said is at least as factual as what Miller wrote about. Our Panhellenic panel has painted a rosy picture that denies that anything less than noble has ever happened in a sorority. We know what the official posture of the university, the law, and the Panhellenic League is. Hazing is forbidden.
Yet last year, two freshmen fraternity pledges at a major university died of alcohol poisoning during their initiation. You might think Animal House when you consider that, but statistics show that hazing rituals are performed sixty-four percent more in sororities than in fraternities. Based on charges that were brought against members of sororities over the past five years, it is not unlikely that there are pledges on this campus now who have been stripped to have their boobs ranked, have been paddled until they needed medical attention, or have been given a choice between taking an illegal and dangerous drug or performing a public sex act. Last year in the United States, three fraternities and two sororities were put on probation by both their schools and their national organizations for hazing violations.
“But we don’t do that!” screamed a member of the audience. “How can you accept the reform of Animal House and not think that we’ve changed from when she was a student?”
That gave me the opportunity I needed and I thanked Lamar for getting me there.
ME: When we set out tonight, we intended to talk about reputation. It was not to be an attack on Greek life, the Panhellenic League, or Delta House. Someone once said, correctly, it is easier to defend your virtue than to rebuild your reputation. I want you to know that my team did our own investigation and Lamar was a part of it. There has not been a hazing complaint against Delta House in seven years. Were there ever? Yes. Are there now? Not unless you just started something.
LIBBY: May I speak to that, Brian? I apologize to my sisters for making it sound like my experience was the norm for girls today. It was my experience in the seventies. But what gets overlooked is that there is a fairly rapid turnover in sororities and fraternities. Young women usually pledge during their freshman or sophomore years. Most are full members for only three years. Then they are gone. The entire population of the sorority changes every three to four years. It just isn’t the same now.
ME: But, the legend or the reputation can affect people who were never a part of that culture. There are different ways for organizations and for individuals to restore their reputations. One obvious way is to move on or even away. I’m sure we all experienced a change when we left high school and entered college. I was even told by my guidance counselor that I would get a fresh start in college and I shouldn’t take my high school baggage with me. He was referring to the group of us who had all decided to move here together and live together.
Baggage!
Well, for some people that’s all it is. But it requires something internal to get past your past. For me, it wasn’t the friends I was taking to college, it was my view of myself. You might not have noticed that I’m short. I got picked on a lot when I was younger. It requires a mental shift to go from victim to non-victim. It’s really hard to make a living as a professional victim.
Here at Delta House, you have pledges. It is how you get to know possible future members of the house. You don’t want to invite people into full membership who might destroy the reputation of the house. You want to know that the people you invite to share your home and your friendship are people who are worthy of that. And they want to know that, too.
So, think about your next date. Zing! Just got you out of the house. Dating is a kind of initiation process. Are you going to be hazed by your date? Is he going to pressure you to drink a few shots? Is he going to humiliate you in public? Or among his friends? Is he going to force you into choosing between two things that you don’t want to do? Or is he going to treat you like you treat your pledges? Is he going to try to get to know you, help you out, listen and share adventures? Remember, that is a two-way street. Think as well of how you are treating him.
I considered it a less-than-stellar night. For a while, I thought our whole show was going to end up in a fight. The ladies pretty much wanted the guys out of the house by ten, so Eric, Lamar, and I were almost shoved out the door. I noticed, though, that both Libby and the members of the Panhellenic League were welcome and joking around with the sorority members. Who will ever understand women?
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