“My Social Location as a Member of a Fraternity Makes My Voice a Credible One”: Byron Hurt on His PBS Independent Lens Doc Hazing

As someone who never understood (okay, downright loathed) the conformist culture of so-called Greek-letter organizations, I didn’t bother to catch Byron Hurt’s (Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, Soul Food Junkies) latest doc Hazing when it premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival back in the spring. But fortunately, the film — which takes a deep historical, as well as personal, dive into what Wikipedia defines as “any activity expected of someone in joining or participating in a group that humiliates, degrades, abuses, or endangers them regardless of a person’s willingness to participate” — will now be launching the new season of PBS’s Independent Lens, which gave me a welcomed second chance to correct some of my own very wrongly preconceived notions. A certain victim-blaming narrative inevitably pops up every time a frat or sorority pledge is irreparably harmed, or too often dies, at the hands of “brothers” and “sisters” supposedly tasked to look out for them. Refreshingly, the director himself is brave enough to likewise challenge his own preconceived notions, taking a holistic approach that stretches across racial lines to ask probing questions of victims’ families, whistleblowing survivors, academics and even still-proud secret society members. As both a onetime pledge and subsequent tormentor himself, Hurt is able to confront his own complicity in the dangerous silence, and in the process expose the root of the insidious ritual, which can be summed up in one painful word: shame. In order to learn all about this emotionally difficult cinematic journey, Filmmaker reached out to the award-winning, self-described “documentary filmmaker, writer, and anti-sexist activist” a week prior to the doc’s PBS debut. Hazing opens the newest season of Independent Lens on Monday, September 12 at 10 p.m. ET. The film will also be available to stream thereafter on the PBS Video app.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.