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Sonequa Martin-Green is Your DSC Star

I feel like this, as well as the rest of these DSC tidbits that go under-the-radar, deserve its own thread. I certainly wouldn't have seen it if not for Reddit.

Interesting move though. I knew Fuller had a track record for writing female characters with masculine names, but I didn't expect to see something as... manly as "Michael".

Then again, I never knew there were female celebrities out there called Michael. Regardless, the intent behind the name is probably to help push forward beyond these kinds of discussions. Hooray for unisex names! Hooray for Mike, our black female lead!
 
Serveaux said:
Hey, at least the name doesn't end in "a" - that's not a dig; one of the laziest habits among male English-speaking fiction writers is giving an inordinate number of woman characters names that end in vowels. You know, like Deanna or Tasha or Uhura...

Could have been "Michaela."
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Thanks, now you made me feel like a tired old TV trope.

34ntWNe.gif
 
JediMindMeld said:
I'm thinking this might be a Bryan Fuller quirk that stuck around.

He has this habit of casting female main characters and give them male-sounding names. There was Georgia "George" Lass in Dead Like Me, and her sister was named Reggie. Caroline Dhavernas played Jaye Tyler in Wonderfalls. Anna Friel's character was named Charlotte on Pushing Daisies but everyone called her Chuck. Freddie Lounds was the name of the female journalist on Hannibal. The character she was based on from the books was a man, just like Alan Bloom, the blueprint for Alana Bloom... who I'm pretty sure I've read they initially planned to refer to as Al on the show.

He does this so often that I was actually expecting a character with a female name and a male-sounding nickname ever since Sonequa Martin-Green was confirmed as the main character of Discovery. It looks like they simply went one step further and named her Michael, instead of Michelle and then having people refer to her as 'Mike' or something.
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Why does he have this weird obsession of giving the main female characters male names? Did he ever say something about it in an interview? Does he give the main male characters also female names?
 
Rahul said:
That would actually be my favourite explanation for "Michael".
Thanks for the Info! I wasn't aware this was a Fuller thing. Her having a male name, without it being an issue, would be a nice and subtle way to handle things, without it being devisive.

Not that I would mind a sci-fi show with a transgendered main character, mind you. Just, with how things are, if they would do it, she would probably be pretty fast demoted to a secondary character and Jason Isaacs becoming the inofficial lead of the show. And I would rather have her stay the "lead" of the story. (To be super honest: my favourite version doesn't actually have a "lead", but is an ensemble show, and she will be the "Captain", the authority figure, without actually being front and center in every episode. I hope that's what they are heading to in season 2 and forward...)
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Why would she be demoted? Sense8 has a transgender character, Nomi, and she's remained a main character since the beginning.

Also transgendered isn't a word, transgender should be used as an adjective. You would call a gay person "gayed". It's what you are, not something that can be done to you.
 
Cake said:
Why does he have this weird obsession of giving the main female characters male names? Did he ever say something about it in an interview? Does he give the main male characters also female names?
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I've never seen him elaborate on it, but if I were to guess I'd say it has to do with Fuller's own style and the themes he's working with on virtually every show he's been involved in. There's a fair bit of gender-bending going on, usually in the shape of female characters being set up in leading roles that tv shows traditionally cast male characters in. The names become a playful allusion to that fact I guess.

Another likely reason might be that there's a widespread misconception about what constitutes a strong female character. People usually seem to want to hold them up to a masculine standard. A strong woman is physically strong, can handle guns and weapons well, knows martial arts obviously, depends on nobody, doesn't bother with feelings and other typical girl stuff... it's a bit like when you see Brienne on Game of Thrones taunting her foes to "stop crying like women" - the expectation is that a strong female character is supposed to distance herself from everything that is feminine, rather than making a point of embracing it. Some writers think this is subversive, but it's actually a pretty antifeministic trope at heart. Fuller's always been one of a handful of male showrunners who wrote women as women instead of like characters that were little else but male placeholders. And so their male-sounding names could arguably be seen as an ironic wink.

Lastly, the strangeness makes it look pretty cool! I'm kinda on the fence about Michael so far, but George and Chuck really were fantastic names that worked on a personal level for each of those characters.
 
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JediMindMeld said:
I've never seen him elaborate on it, but if I were to guess I'd say it has to do with Fuller's own style and the themes he's working with on virtually every show he's been involved in. There's a fair bit of gender-bending going on, usually in the shape of female characters being set up in leading roles that tv shows traditionally cast male characters in. The names become a playful allusion to that fact I guess.

Another likely reason might be that there's a widespread misconception about what constitutes a strong female character. People usually seem to want to hold them up to a masculine standard. A strong woman is physically strong, can handle guns and weapons well, knows martial arts obviously, depends on nobody, doesn't bother with feelings and other typical girl stuff... it's a bit like when you see Brienne on Game of Thrones taunting her foes to "stop crying like women" - the expectation is that a strong female character is supposed to distance herself from everything that is feminine, rather than making a point of embracing it. Some writers think this is subversive, but it's actually a pretty antifeministic trope at heart. Fuller's always been one of a handful of male showrunners who wrote women as women instead of like characters that were little else but male placeholders. And so their male-sounding names could arguably be seen as an ironic wink.

Lastly, the strangeness makes it look pretty cool! I'm kinda on the fence about Michael so far, but George and Chuck really were fantastic names that worked on a personal level for each of those characters.
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All of this. Well said.
 
Why is the character's name being Michael even an "issue"? It's not like having a masculine name is going to mean the character is any less worthy of being the series' lead or the Discovery's Executive Officer, or less deserving of her rank (which is still, presumably, Lieutenant Commander).

This is the perfect example of "making a mountain out of a molehill" and attempting to stir up non-existent controversy.
 
It's actually her last name, Burnham I'm having trouble with. For some reason, I keep thinking and saying "Berman" instead.
 
Names are just names. In the U.S. having "Kim" as a first name is usually indicative of a female individual, whereas in Korea it's a common male name (Look at the Pillsbury Doughboy north of the DMZ). Heck, there's even a male U.S. Senator named Lindsey and nobody gives a care about that. Names are just names. I'm interested to learn about the character.
 
Celestial said:
Well, that's disappointing.
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Why?

"Raw" and "gritty" are adjectives that can easily be applied to Star Trek Deep Space Nine (which is now one of the more well-respected series in the franchise), so what's wrong with a 23rd Century series following that model?
 
It's a silly gimmick of Fuller's. Like someone pointed out above, he has a history of this. He probably thought this was clever. It's pretty lame.

At the end of the day, though, we're probably not going to hear her first name much, aside from the cringey moments of any pilot where we have to be introduced to what makes our characters unique, with accompanying explanation of why her name is Michael (I still can't watch "Broken Bow" to this day without cringing). She'll be "Commander Burnham" and "Number One" most of the time.
 
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