The Cast for Wrinkle in Time is Retroactively Ruining my Childhood

Because when I was a kid, everybody in Wrinkle in Time was just boring and white and Midwestern, and I COULD HAVE BEEN PICTURING OPRAH AS MRS. WHICH I HAVE WASTED MY FUCKING LIFE.

I had a crush on Calvin, being ten or eleven at the time, WHEN I COULD HAVE BEEN LUSTING AFTER MR. MURRY!?!??! A brilliant mind, a loving father, an attractively grizzled Chris Pine (who is now old enough to play the father of pre-teens!?!?! I feel as old as the hills. Oh my God I just turned 25.)

I kind of thought of Mrs. Who and Mrs. Whatsit as nice but less important characters mainly around to provide sort of a trinity allegory and that really Mrs. Which could have just done it all (because she was a woman, see) but they’re OUR LORD AND SAVIOR MINDY KALING AND THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST REESE WITHERSPOON!?!?! See, Director Ava DuVernay was smart. She cast three people I actually believe have the powers of tesseract and mysterious feminine superpowers in real life. Oprah explaining to me she has the power to bend the universe is just unnecessary exposition, because I already know. Mindy Kaling with her ability to predict the future and her all-seeing eyes is just, you know, Mindy. And Reese- looking like a Andy Warhol colored Virgin Mary in those shots- Reese is obviously a superior being to us mere mortals. If you told me Oprah, Mindy, and Reese were part of a witches’ coven in real life -one that included Sandra Bullock and Kristen Bell, perhaps, and met in celebrity-owned vineyards to perform rituals of self-empowerment and good skin care, I would not be in the least surprised.

But what is most exciting is Storm Reid. Storm is a newcomer to acting, with a real life name you might see in one of them new-fangled-dystopian-future Young Adult novels. But Wrinkle in Time is an old school young adult novel, where people have names like Charles Wallace and the aliens are actually space centaurs. Wrinkle is a classic, a generation-transcending piece from the sixties that made me scared of children playing ball in the driveway. Storm was only in a few seconds of footage but I am already in love. I liked Meg as a kid because I felt I could be her, and I am so excited for Storm to get to step up and be the heroine so many of us wanted to be. Meg influenced me tremendously as a small child (picture me at my current size, because I am cursed to never get as tall as my pediatrician made me believe) and I plan on vicariously living through her onscreen, only to be roughly brought back to reality during the end credits and realizing holy shit I’m getting old. I am so excited my five-year old will get to see Meg Murry brought to life on screen, and I am so excited that Ava’s cast will inspire many little girls to be interested in space travel, geometry, and being mentored by old ladies. I think it’s important that Storm is playing Meg, and that it should be acknowledged as an exciting and wonderful development, so that girls who don’t just look like me and grew up like me can enjoy the magic of the world and feel that they too belong and can make a difference. Storm Reid’s portrayal of Meg Murry is going to be an introduction to fantasy and sci-fi for many people, and with Oprah’s help- fuck, I mean Mrs. Which- she’s going to be just what the genre needed to break up the monotonous rhythm of people bitching about really good casting decisions.