HAZING, from award-winning filmmaker Byron Hurt, offers a deeply personal look inside the culture, tradition, and secrecy surrounding hazing rituals in fraternities and sororities, sports teams, marching bands, the military and beyond. In the film, Hurt, who belongs to a fraternity himself, talks to members of Black and historically white Greek-letter organizations and other groups that practice hazing, and gives voice to survivors of severe initiation rituals and the families of those who lost their lives. Expertly weaving these first-hand testimonies with insights from violence-prevention experts, the film provides a nuanced and empathetic portrait of a culture that can confer a sense of belonging even as it too often leads to violence, sexual degradation, binge drinking, institutional coverups, and debased notions of manhood. HAZING is an extraordinary teaching tool for educators and advocates working to reform hazing culture and combat violence – especially those interested in intersectional, bystander-based violence prevention approaches.
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ISBN: 978-1-893521-13-1 Run time: 104 min.
Date Produced: 2022
Subtitles: English
CreditsDirector: Byron Hurt
Executive Producers: Stanley Nelson & Regina K. Scully
Producers: Denise A. Green & Natalie Bullock Brown
Editor: Cinque Northern
Cinematographer: Bill Winters
Filmmaker BioByron Hurt is an award-winning filmmaker, activist, lecturer, and leader in the gender-violence prevention field. His highly acclaimed documentary Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was broadcast nationally on the PBS documentary series Independent Lens. His film Soul Food Junkies, which also aired nationally on PBS, won best documentary at several film festivals. In 2010, he hosted the Emmy-nominated television show Reel Works with Byron Hurt. In addition, Byron has over two decades of experience working with NCAA athletes, members of the U.S. military, fraternities, and everyday men and women throughout the world on bystander-based, gender-violence prevention. His lectures on the topic focus on how hypermasculinity in popular culture normalizes male violence; how commonalities between race, class, and gender link oppression; how homophobia and transphobia make LGBT communities vulnerable to male violence; how positive male leadership and bystander intervention can end gender-based violence; and how to use cis male privilege to ally with women and girls to redefine masculinity and promote healthy relationships. Byron also serves as an adjunct professor at Columbia University, was a filmmaker-in-residence at American University, and has been featured in leading media outlets from The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Source to CNN, MSNBC, NPR, BET, and ABC World News Tonight.
"Hurt is uniquely empathetic to those who fall victim to group-think, and extends this grace to the viewer. Taking a stark look at the psychological, societal, and historical components of hazing, Hurt sparks a captivating conversation around the anxieties and expectations of belonging—and what will be sacrificed to achieve it.”
— Shakira Refos | Tribeca Festival
"A powerful and harrowing film...not to be missed."
— GeekVibesNation.com
“Hazing isn’t simply about the profound harm that is perpetrated on victims and their loved ones. It’s also about the perpetrators, what motivates them, and bystanders, their indifference. It’s about the leaders who fail to offer a paradigm shift—either because they don’t know how or don’t have the will to do so—and the members who are content with such leadership. It’s about more than one fateful night, but rather about a systemic culture that spans space and time. Byron Hurt’s Hazing documentary offers this rich insight but also a glimmer of hope that change is possible.”
— Gregory S. Parks | Professor of Law, Wake Forest University School of Law and co-author of A Pledge with Purpose: Black Sororities and Fraternities and the Fight for Equality
“Byron pulls back the veil of secrecy and reveals the raw truth. His no holds barred examination of hazing is shown from the inside. The brutality and senselessness are laid bare as Byron exposes his own struggle with belonging, betrayal, discovery, and love. He dissects the roots of society’s tolerance that allow for hazing to kill each year. We are challenged to think about our steps forward.“
— David Stollman | President of CAMPUSPEAK, Cofounder of HazingPrevention.org
"As both a sociologist and fraternity member, I recognize the systemic causes, practices, and ideologies portrayed in Byron Hurt’s film. Hazing directly confronts the hypocrisy of Greek-letter organizations that proclaim virtue, yet practice violence. Watch Hazing to understand why one or the other will become either our hallmark or our headstone."
— Dr. Matthew W. Hughey | Professor of Sociology at the University of Connecticut and co-author of A Pledge with Purpose: Black Sororities and Fraternities and the Fight for Equality
“Hazing, a new documentary created by Byron Hurt, touches on the key issues involved in the culture of hazing. The “code of silence” operates throughout hazing culture and makes it difficult for the courts to discover the truth, something that Hurt was able to do. I was particularly glad to see that Hurt exposed the deaths in sororities, since the public has a skewed view as to who gets hurt and who dies in hazing rituals. In addition, interviews with experts were edited perfectly, allowing us to understand the psychological nature of hazing.”
— Dr. Susan Lipkins, Author of Preventing Hazing and Psychologist
“Byron Hurt is one of the most courageous filmmakers of our time, and his documentary Hazing should be required viewing by every high school and college student in the country. Violence within our fraternities, sororities, bands, and sports teams is not inevitable. But it takes a collective effort from organizations and members to solve the problem, and Hazing is the call to action we’ve needed to progress toward a solution.”
— Lawrence Ross, author of The Divine Nine: The History of African American Fraternities and Sororities
“Powerful. Truthful. Challenging. Honest. Real. Byron Hurt covers a deep spectrum of powerful, yet difficult, truths through his new documentary. Evoking varying emotions with each scene as the cruel traumas, lies, and violence of hazing are unpacked, the most pressing feeling is a greater sense of urgency to end hazing culture before another student dies for the sake of secrecy & senseless tradition. Through this film, Byron Hurt compels the legal system, education leaders, and fraternal organizations to stop hiding and take real action to break the code of silence so that another family doesn’t lose their loved one as a victim of hazing.”
— Dr. Jason L Meriwether | Hazing Prevention Scholar & University Vice President, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.
“Hazing is a powerful tool for Greek chapters, teams and other organizations to frame why hazing cultures must change and how to begin those difficult conversations. Byron Hurt courageously shares his experiences and takes the viewer on a harrowing journey with hazing survivors and grieving families to examine the true cost of these brutal rituals. This important documentary illustrates the enduring impact and emotional scars carried by those who are hazed, and those who inflict hazing, long after physical damage heals.”
— Susie Bruce | Director, Gordie Center
“Hazing tears at the social fabric that envelops the cloaked, wounding and often illegal rites of passage that are hazing rituals.“
— Jay Johnson, Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management, University of Manitoba
"Equal parts portraiture, confessional, and investigation, at its core, Hurt’s film is also a study on the dangers of silence, and storytelling as a unique antidote to historically sanctioned abuse."
— LAmag.com
"By viewing hazing through broader lenses including historical, institutional, social, and cultural contexts, Hazing makes itself a valuable resource for those who wish to better understand the issue and prepare young people who are likely to come into contact with it in their lives."
— Video Librarian
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