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Stepping Out of Line?
'Stomp the Yard' takes on the subject of black fraternities—and touches off a controversy.
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Jan. 11, 2007 - During the making of “Stomp the Yard,” the new movie set in the world of black fraternities and their traditional style of step-dancing, producer Will Packer made authenticity his top priority. “I was on the set every day screaming about how everything had to be real,” Packer says. “I went and put up all my old pictures, paddles and paraphernalia so that everybody could get a feel for this.” As a 13-year member of Alpha Phi Alpha, Packer wanted to share his passion for the country’s oldest African-American fraternity with the cast and crew by draping the set with the symbols of his experience. “I kept saying, it has to be right, because if it isn’t, people within these organizations will know.” Yet, of all the places Packer displayed Alpha Phi Alpha’s symbols during the production of “Stomp the Yard,” there’s one place from which the symbols are now conspicuously missing—the film’s final cut.
Prior to the film’s release, Packer and business partner Rob Hardy, who pledged with Packer at Florida A&M University, were forced to digitally remove all symbols and references to Alpha Phi Alpha to comply with a legal request issued by none other than the fraternity itself. In a November letter circulated to the organization’s membership, A Phi A’s general president Darryl Matthews accused the filmmakers of using the marks without authorization and juxtaposing the organization with gang activity. “The fraternity will protect its legacy and its future, and we respectfully request that you not contribute to the illegal acts of the producers of this film by paying money to view it or by promoting it,” wrote Matthews, who has yet to see the film.
Alpha Phi Alpha’s refusal to allow the use of its symbols in a movie—a movie made by two of its own members—demonstrates the ends to which black fraternities and sororities will go to protect their legacies from the encroachment of popular culture. (Alpha Phi Alpha celebrated its centenary last year.) But the dialogue about how best to protect those legacies may open up deeper conversations about how an organization like Alpha Phi Alpha can balance the need to protect both its history and its future, and whether the exclusivity that has been arguably both its strength and its folly will continue to serve it going into its next 100 years.
The idea of a movie set inside the world of “stepping”—a style of dancing that blends rhythmic stomping, clapping, chanting and the disarming precision of a drill team—was one Packer and Hardy had been tinkering with for years. Amid the recent success of dance films like “You Got Served,” the zeitgeist seemed ideal. “Stepping is more pervasive now than ever before,” Packer says, “and there is a question now about the relevance of black Greek-letter organizations. So we felt the timing was really right for a film that shows those organizations in a positive light.”
Each side in the dispute disagrees about exactly what happened before production started on “Stomp the Yard.” According to Packer, the producers tried unsuccessfully to contact A Phi A’s leadership. According to Matthews, Hardy made a verbal request to use the symbols and was denied. But what is beyond dispute is that when Packer and Hardy sent blast e-mails out to individual chapters, thousands of potential extras showed up in their paraphernalia for a chance to represent their organization on the silver screen. Jason Foster, president of Howard University’s chapter, was among those who tried out. “I think it’s a big fuss over nothing,” says Foster, who thinks A Phi A is putting too much emphasis on a fictional movie. “I think the outside perception of the film is what they’re worried about, but what’s more important is what people see Alphas doing in real life."
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