MOVIES
Thursday, March 25, 2021 • ThE BuLLETIN
GO! MAGAZINE • PAGE 19
‘Operation Varsity Blues: The College
Admission Scandal’ may fill viewers with rage
BY MAKENZIE WHITTLE • The Bulletin
I
t’s hard not to be infuriated by the new Netflix original documentary “Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admission Scandal” if you, like many Americans,
are plagued with student loan debts or have had overall stresses about high school transcripts and getting into a “good” school. The documentary follows the
recent scandal that was shocking but at the same time not entirely surprising.
The idea of parents making large dona-
tions to get their kid into a prestigious univer-
sity through a kind of back-door admissions
wasn’t new, but the so-called “side door” tac-
tics employed by college admissions coach
Rick Singer was something different.
Parents would pay him to circumvent tra-
ditional admissions processes by paying ath-
letic directors and coaches to put students
on smaller sports teams like sailing, crew
and soccer, the sports that rely on donations,
not ticket sales (like football and basketball)
to continue to survive.
He also would pay off counselors to get
the students extended time on tests, which
were usually reserved for students with
learning difficulties, and then he would pay
to have the test proctor take the comprehen-
sive exam for them.
He touted his side-door methods as a sure
way to get these students into whatever col-
lege they wanted, stating that the back door
was never a guarantee.
The film uses Singer’s own words as they
were recorded through wiretaps done by the
FBI as the underlying script, then uses actors
to reenact the scenes for dramatic purposes.
What we get is basically a string of phone calls
Singer had with wealthy businessmen and
women, actors and other folks in the upper
Actors Angela
Nicholas and
Matthew Mo-
dine reenact a
scene between
USC coach Donna
Heinel and Rick
Singer in “Opera-
tion Varsity Blues:
The College Ad-
missions Scan-
dal” (2021).
Netflix
echelons of society using his methods to cheat
the system and get a guarantee into the school
of the parents’ dreams. Yes, I said parents.
The documentary paints a clear picture of
the lives of the families utilizing Singer’s ser-
vices and, more often than not, it is the par-
ent who is pushing for their child to attend a
Stanford, Harvard or a University of South-
ern California-type school. One interviewee
saw it as the parent who was unable to at-
tend that particular school, and always had
the dream of it, using their child to vicariously
attend or be a part of it in some way.
Interwoven with these reenactments are in-
Continued from previous page
drug and arms dealer named Alien (James Franco) and
his territory disputes with a rival dealer. It’s brash, explicit
and interestingly can be argued for being either misogy-
nistic or feminist. Either way, it’s not for the faint of heart.
Stream it on Showtime or rent it on Amazon Prime, Goo-
gle Play, iTunes, Vudu or YouTube.
“Where the Boys Are” (1960) — This early example
of a teen sex comedy put Fort Lauderdale on the map of
spring break locations for decades to come. It follows four
coeds as they make their way to the beach looking for love
led by the forward-thinking and assertive Merritt (Do-
lores Hart). The four do end up meeting beaus, but where
the film surprises is with the melancholy turn in its final
acts, but does it in a quiet and profound way for the ’60s.
The film also stars George Hamilton, Jim Hutton, Con-
nie Francis, Paula Prentiss and Yvette Mimieux. Rent it on
Amazon Prime, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu or YouTube.
e e
Reporter: 541-383-0304, mwhittle@bendbulletin.com
terviews with journalists, lawyers and admis-
sions experts giving further background not
only on the scandal but the facade of those
elite universities students and parents con-
sider their stretch goal.
Even more gut-wrenching are the short
moments that we see videos of prospective
students (the everyday ones who have worked
hard throughout high school, taken advance
placement courses just because they look
good on a transcript) open their emails to see
rejection and deferral letters.
While it relies heavily on reenactments,
many of which grow tiresome as they are only
More Information
“Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admis-
sions Scandal”
99 minutes
Rated R for some language
phone calls, and theinterluding footage shot
for dramatic purposes seems unnecessary and
awkward, the overall story the documentary
paints may end up filling you with rage, none-
theless.
“Operation Varsity Blues” places a large
amount of the blame on Singer, but doesn’t
shy away from the blame on some of the par-
ents and those at the colleges involved with it
(though there are some nuances such as with
Stanford sailing coach John Vandemore). It
will leave you wanting to yell into the void
of the internet or take a walk around your
house with its way of showing the startling
amount of privilege the key actors have
within the scandal — the ones who have it
all and still thought it wasn’t enough.
e e
Reporter: 541-383-0304, mwhittle@bendbulletin.com
From left: Dolores
Hart, Connie Fran-
cis, Yvette Mimieux
and Paula Prentiss
in a scene from
“Where the Boys
Are” (1960).
MGM