What if Michael Jordan was female? Melbourne filmmakers launch tribute to ‘#Jumpwomen’ that celebrates female role-models in sports
A group of independent Melbourne-based filmmakers have launched an online film tribute titled Dear Michelle, that aims to spark conversation around representation and celebrate the power and passion female role models bring to the world of sports–to coincide with International Women’s Day.
Directed by Exit Films director Bonnie Moir, produced by freelance producer Olivia Cheung, production designed by Bianca Milani and edited by The Editors’ Leila Gaabi, Dear Michelle takes us on a journey in an alternate reality where in 1996, amidst the hype of Chicago Bulls dominating NBA, the biggest sporting star in the world is Michelle Jordan, not Michael Jordan – how would that impact young girls aspiring to be like their heroes?
Featuring young local basketballers Sitaya Fagan as Grace, Kayleigh O’Dwyer as Gloria and Sida Basketball coach Saratu Isah in the role of Michelle Jordan, Dear Michelle
celebrates the empowerment that visible role models provide to aspiring young athletes.
Says Moir: “I feel so strongly about the representation of women in sporting roles and what this offers to young people growing up. This piece speaks to a much broader conversation, not only about visibility of 
women in sport, but the intersectional visibility of women in the workplace, our political representatives and more personally for me, equal representation of women in lead roles within the film industry. With this film, I want to celebrate the strength and resilience of women who I’ve learned from by looking up to.”
Says Olivia Cheung, producer: “Why is it today that the biggest female sports star in the world, and probably of all time, still gets paid a fraction of what her male counterparts do? Why is it that Sam Kerr, who is probably the
greatest female soccer player this country has ever produced, playing for a team ranked 6th in the world still plays international tournaments at stadiums at home with an attendance that can’t crack 10k
spectators?
“We’re having the same conversations in the sports arena, as well in every other aspect of life – the presence and visibility of female role models is a social responsibility of the bigger players in the game, including sponsors, investors, media and PR, in tackling issues like pay gaps and increasing numbers of the general public to attend and view women’s sports.”
Talent
Grace: Sitaya Fagan
Gloria: Kayleigh Dwyer
Michelle Jordan: Saratu Isah
Crew
Director: Bonnie Moir
Producer: Olivia Cheung
Producer: Qiao Li
1st AD: James Miles
Cinematographer: Sam Chiplin
Casting Producer: Brenton Matulick
Line Producer: Tim Sharp
Production Manager: Logan Davies
1st AC: Hannah Sinagra
Gaffer: Richard Turton
Best Boy: Ryan Gasparini
Production Designer: Bianca Milani
Wardrobe: Imogen Walsh
MUA: Samantha Pearce
Boom Operator: Talia Raso
Sound mixer: Ryan Granger
Unit & Catering: Logan Davies
Photography: Kim Mennen
Post Supervision: Charlotte Griffiths, Gabe Russo
Post Producer: Olivia Cheung
Editor: Leila Gaabi
Assistant Editor: Grace O’Connell
Flame Artist: Jamie Scott
Colorist: Dan Stonehouse
Sound Design: Talia
Raso & Ryan Granger
Sound mix: Dead on Sound, Ryan Granger & Adam Hunt
Music Composer: Julian Langdon
VO Talent: Andrew Peters, Belinda Misevski, Helping Hoops
Story concept: Melanie Killingsworth, Andrew Grinter, Qiao Li, Luke Dansick
Screenplay by: Andrew Grinter
Executive Producers: Qiao Li, Andrew Grinter, Luke Dansick
Production Partners
2 Divas
Chameleon Casting
Panavision
The Editors
Crayon
Dead on Sound
Special Thanks
Nick Cummins
The Royals
Nic Godoy
Charlotte Griffiths
Gabe Russo
Tom Campbell
Glendyn Ivin
Exit Films
Nima Sobhani
Teuila Reid
Jo Wallace
Jo Lambo
Eleisha Mullane
Jessie Scott
Krystyna Robinson
Paul Faff
Steven Curry
Elia Milani
Alex Wood
Helping Hoops
2 Divas
Andrew Peters
Belinda Misevski
Helping Hoops
Sida Basketball
Nothing But Net
Sitaya’s family
Kayleigh’s family
Max Walter
Lixia Wang
Northcote High School
Sarah Burns
23 Comments
Its a lovely idea.
Great all round. A great idea, nicely scripted, beautifully cast, shot and edited. I really like this.
Oooh this is well done. Great performances. Well made.
Beautifully made Bonnie! Well done Royals!
A woman would have had different priorities. Foremost, once she hit puberty, would have been her understanding of her physiology and what her body was designed to do and not do.
A widening of the hips and the monthly cycle would have illustrated with little doubt that her body had been engineered primarily to bare children. Sure, she could have fought on with her basketball dreams but her greater estrogen would have meant she could not jump us high or accelerate as fast as a man, whose body was built for more combative pursuits.
As evidenced by the lesser popularity of the WNBA, it would soon have become clear that fewer people (women included) actually wanted to pay to watch her comparatively stunted efforts on the court. She would have found herself torn between her pre-pubescent dreams and the hard reality of nature.
All the while, irresponsible advertisers, lefty school-teachers, and bleeding-heart liberals would have been filling her head with confusing notions of gender equality instead of helping her to understand the fundamental truth, that men and women are physically different, and being at peace with that certainty.
With luck, she may have woken up to the lie of ‘women can be men’ in time to have a happy and well-adjusted life. At some point, in what many might have considered her best athletic years, the desire to have a child may have forced her from the sport. That decision would have been made more painful by the unrealistic social pressure of ‘having it all’.
Alternatively, she could have had a long and relatively unheralded career in Women’s basketball as many have and will continue to do – the natural order of things.
The end.
From watching this, I see Bonnie is extremely talented and has a very bright future. But unfortunately this doesn’t work for me. It’s feels like a spec and I get it that’s the point but it could have been better if it was a raw peice of film created by an incredible young female director, something that gets awarded a Vimeo staff pick rather than a watered down spec that feels like advertisers have jumped all over it. Just my 2 cents.
Love it
are you ok?
Sweet little spot.
What if the Ghostbusters were female?
I love the sentiment. But…
Why aren’t we just celebrating someone like Serena?
She’s arguably the greatest tennis player ever.
Women players fought hard to get equal pay in all the grand slams.
Weird.
If there was a female showcasing the same level of skill, dominance and showmanship in female basketball as MJ did, then yeah I guess this would work. But Michelle Jordan isn’t real.
Liz Cambage (Aussie) is near MVP in the WNBA, multiple MVPs in the WNBL dominates the sport, has an epic wingspan, outspoken, and currently has an article on SMH and the Age about how she can’t pay rent.
Would have made for a more impactful statement using her.
Sorry Lisa Leslie, best WNBA player….
Women. Not women wanting to be men. We’re different, and that’s a good thing.
I don’t think it’s about women wanting to be men or not celebrating the successful sports women we have. It’s about what we might have if the world celebrated female sports stars the same way we do the – the shoes, the posters, the icon status, the fabled legendary. There are plenty of fantastic female sports women to celebrate but this film is a reminder of how far we have to go for women to be celebrated as exceptional athletes the same way men are, rather than exceptions to the rule.
We would have less far to go for women to be celebrated as exceptional athletes the same way men are if this opportunity had been taken to celebrate exceptional female athletes.
But it doesn’t get to that level of depth in the execution. They replaced iconic imagery of the greatest basketball player to ever live, with someone who isn’t iconic (I mean no offence to the talent), and definitely isn’t making that dunk on that 3rd image, and doesn’t have the arm span for the 4th execution to make sense.
The thing that makes sense, are the shoes. It opens up a question. Would men wear basketball shoes that feature the logo of a woman on it?
Air Jordan sells women shoes. I’m sure they’re very successful.
Converse recently released some awesome designs to align with international womens day. They have the word GIRL on it.
How many men are buying those?
I get that this campaign is meant to lead towards those questions. Meant to, being the important term.
This is a retouching campaign that pretends to have depth. There’s no idea here.
Like yeah, it’s good. It’s not bad and it’s not great. How good? Medium, mild good. Not too good. Ok, almost. There is no crime in good. But sadly, this could have been great.
What the actual fuck. Come on, be less of a psycho.
What if michael jackson was a woman?
Fuzzy-wuzzy was a woman?!
What a load of PC shite.
There’s plenty of actual women who dominate a sport/life/anything for real that you could have celebrated.
Instead, this is the victim card “poor me”.
I’m sorry, but whilst this is beautifully shot, it just makes no sense.
In the alternative reality it shows, there is no downside to Michelle Jordan as opposed to Michael Jordan.
The fact that Michelle is female has made no difference at all.
The world it shows is exactly what one would hope.
What’s the point?
If Michelle Jordan was Michael’s equally talented twin, but gets ignore, I get the point.
But this spot says nothing.
It’s just cliche after cliche.