In mid-to early 2017, director, screenwriter, and film marketer Ava DuVernay announced that she was going to be joining the Disney family to create a live-action version of one of the most renowned pieces of young literature in the nation. A Wrinkle in Time. As a teenager who has read this book in the past strictly for school purposes, I was shocked to see anyone take a serious interest in a book such as itself. First reading it as a fifth grader, I thought it was confusing and terrible, the plot didn’t make sense to me and I thought the characters were flaky. Since then I’ve begun to appreciate the novel for what it is and how it’s symbolism can affect its readers.
However, this new recreation focuses on Black excellence as opposed to anything else. In the original copy, the author Madeleine L’Engle centered the story on a white family, but in Ava DuVernay’s version, the lead character- an adolescent named Meg Murry- is Black. Not only does this film already have a high expectation in society putting a lot of pressure on the director, but it’s also going to sway its audience and critics in several ways. DuVernay has admitted to the complications this film has brought her, especially the difficulties of incorporating a young Black individual saving the world.
“It is about a girl saving the world and that girl is a girl of color. She is hoping planets and climbing and saving the freaking world. She is saving the world from darkness…and in the film the darkness is within ourselves.”
Knowing where the world’s instability is when it’s faced with racial equality DuVernay has already condemned the harsh criticism she may receive once the movie concludes production. I personally feel that she’s doing young viewers, especially in the Black community a service. Having a young girl of color will and can inspire young African American girls and boys to not let racial boundaries hold them back in any way. Living in a world where peace can never be still, hope can easily look bleak to young minds who are enduring the ugliness of the world. So I enthusiastically applaud Disney for pushing beyond the limits of acceptance and I sincerely applaud Ava DuVernay for defying the racial boundaries of storytelling.
