Here’s a post at Reactor about the Murderbot TV series
Murderbot is coming in May. Apple TV+ announced the news today along with two images of Skarsgård in the title role: One with helmet on, one with helmet off. Neither gives much of a sense of the character or of why Skarsgård was cast in the role—though he is also an executive producer on the series, and perhaps his relatively big name helped it get made. And made fairly quickly, at that: The series was announced only a year and change ago.
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I like Skarsgard but it would’ve been nice to see someone more androgynous. Maybe Tilda Swinton. Regardless, I’m sure he’ll do a good job, and I’m looking forward to it!
When I first read Murderbot I interpreted her as leaning more towards a female mindset. Thinking over why, later, that need to take care of her clients even when she finds them exasperating mentally mapped onto a sort of mom of toddlers mindset for me.
So my mental picture doesn’t fit the explicitly masculine actor.
I read somewhere that it’s about 50-50 whether readers lean towards a male or female interpretation, so by not choosing a more androgynous face they do risk a lot of people feeling as if the actor doesn’t fit the character.
And only after posting I notice that I’ve just used the wrong pronouns for them; they are that clearly mentally tagged after my first reading as ‘she’ that only by paying attention at each pronoun can I avoid using the wrong ones.
Sorry Murderbot!
If I remember correctly, Murderbot chooses “it” as its pronoun, but I may be remembering wrong.
Skarsgård is just so very masculine, and has played a lot of aggressively masculine characters. But he seems to have a sense of humour, and if he wants to do the show that badly, I hope it’s because he “gets” Murderbot, so I’m cautiously optimistic he’ll somehow manage to convey androgyny. Somehow.
Really want this to be good, but I’m keeping my expectations low!
Murderbot reads as pretty female to me as well. And I was especially confused by the original announcement because I was thinking of Stellan Skarsgard, who is an awesome actor but a little old for the part!
Honestly, though, as long as the writing is good, I’m sure I’ll enjoy the show. I don’t tend to have very strong mental images of characters in books, so I’m not usually upset when the casting doesn’t match whatever vague image I have.
I have always read murderbot as female. Partly because Wells is, but also because i felt they were coded as female. Being the permanent unthanked and unacknowledged carer/life saver slave permanently doing thankless often life risking work, yet loving their charges anyway and automatically sacrificing life and limb to save them.
Kim, you’re remembering correctly; Murderbot goes by “it.” And …
… I have NO TROUBLE with the “it” pronoun. I’m somewhat puzzled as to why anyone reads Murderbot as female, though I think that’s the majority impression. But, if you’re creating a security cyborg that is supposed to be intimidating, and these SecUnits are obviously supposed to be intimidating as well as effective, then isn’t this intimidating cyborg going to be BIG? And also, don’t humans read BIG MALE as more intimidating than female? So, to me, Murderbot reads as BIG Androgenous-y male-ish but an “it.” And, as above, I just don’t have any trouble saying or thinking “it” for Murderbot.
Plus, all this “permanent unthanked and unacknowledged carer/life saver slave permanently doing thankless often life risking work, yet loving their charges anyway and automatically sacrificing life and limb to save them” doesn’t read as “female” to me. It reads as “soldier,” or, for that matter, “security officer.”
Confirming that it’s definitely “it”.
Also re: “To, to me, Murderbot reads as BIG Androgenous-y male-ish but an “it.” And, as above, I just don’t have any trouble saying or thinking “it” for Murderbot.
I had the exact same impression as Rachel above, and probably for the same reasons (extra-tall security unit). I was really surprised when I found out that a lot of people got feminine vibes!
And since it insists so much on being genderless and not having anything to do with icky human things (if you read the whole series, this comes up several times, including being explicitly asked in Fugitive Telemetry), I found it quite natural to take what it says at face value and think of it as having unassuming/non-distinctive (male-ish/androgynous) features.
Skarsgard is definitely tall enough, so he’s got the intimidation factor easily, but I guess you can’t say he has nondescript features lol, he’s too good-looking. But that’s often the case in Hollywood. In any case I hope the show turns out well!
@RACHEL & TUYO-FAN
I just looked up Skarsgard and yes, he’ll be ok as Murderbot. I’m assuming he won’t be doing any smiling and will be snarky-ish. I never got female vibes from Murderbot, always thought of it as inscrutable and lethal-looking, remember, a lot of its comments are in its head and the first time it showed any emotion, it was horror at the idea of talking about its feelings.
Looking forward to the series, I hope they do it justice. I love the books so I will be totally put out if they fumble it. I’m still annoyed at those Tom Cruise Reachers and have never watched them as a matter of principle.
Kootch, yes — inscrutable and lethal-looking!
I guess I’ll wait for the first reviews. I definitely don’t want to watch any of the episodes if the production doesn’t do the stories justice.