Melissa Joan Hart Has Been Cast As A Grandma At The Age Of 47 & Millennials Are Not OK
Sure, it's technically possible. But at 47? Come on!
Featureflash Photo Agency / Shutterstock Okay, millennials and young Gen Xers and xennials — basically everyone under the age of 50 — we need to gather each other up in a collective hug and batten down the hatches. Because we are being assaulted by news so disturbing, it is likely to destabilize our entire psyches and candidly it's anyone's guess if we will even survive it. Take a deep breath and have your therapist on standby because …
Melissa Joan Hart has been cast as a grandma at the age of 47, and millennials are NOT OK.
No, this is not a joke.
Yes, Melissa Joan Hart, Clarissa Darling herself, Sabrina THEE Teenage Witch, has been cast as a grandma in a movie in which she has scenes with her grandchildren in which they call her things such as "Grandma," because she is THEIR GRANDMA despite being FORTY-SEVEN YEARS OF AGE.
Now, of course, it's technically possible for a 47-year-old to be a grandmother. We all know how this works. Teen pregnancy exists. No judgments!
But … well, for those of us of a certain age, for whom Melissa Joan Hart will always be our cool teen friend on Nickelodeon or ABC's Friday night T.G.I.F. lineup, this is … well frankly, this is devastating. What on Earth is going on here?
The film in which Melissa Joan Hart has been cast as a grandma is a true crime story based on real people and real events.
The Lifetime film, titled "Would You Kill for Me? The Mary Bailey Story," centers on the harrowing tale of Mary Bailey, who, at the age of 11 in 1987, was asked by her mother Priscilla Wyers to murder her abusive stepfather Wayne Wyers.
When police arrived, Priscilla betrayed Mary, telling the police the entire murder plot was Mary's idea. Both were charged with murder, but Mary's testimony resulted in her charges being dropped and her mother being sentenced to life in prison.
Wyers was just 16 when she had Bailey, who was raised by her grandmother Ella, played by Hart. This of course explains why 47-year-old Melissa Joan Hart is playing a grandma in this film. But that has done nothing to assuage the terror that has been stricken in the hearts of millennials and xennials on the internet by this news!
Millennials and other people too young to be grandparents are freaking out over Melissa Joan Hart playing a grandma.
Bailey has said she hopes "Would You Kill for Me? The Mary Bailey Story," which Hart also executive produced, will help her finally forgive her mother, who was released on parole in 1998, for what happened between them back in 1987.
Here's hoping so. Everyone deserves that catharsis. But will it help those of us of a certain age to forgive Melissa Joan Hart for making us aware of the fact that we're old enough to be grandparents? I daresay not!
It all began when a certain clip from the film hit X (Twitter) via writer Virginia Brasch. "MISERY LOVES COMPANY," Brasch captioned her post. "I present Melissa Joan Hart as granny!"
The clip began with Hart taking a turkey out of the oven, to which one of the children in the scene said, "It's perfect, grandma!" It's the kind of moment where you assume you cannot possibly have heard correctly. Your ears must be packed full of ear wax distorting your hearing. Perhaps you have just had an aneurysm that has caused auditory hallucinations! Surely there is a logical explanation!
But nope! That's Melissa Joan Hart playing a g-ma! And millennials are nothing short of triggered.
"Melissa Joan Hart as grandma. I feel personally attacked," one TikTok user wrote. "Are we … are we ANCIENT?!!??" another wrote as it dawned on her that, apparently yes, we should all be SELLING OUR BEDS IN EXCHANGE FOR COFFINS TO SLEEP IN.
On Twitter, the terror was no less pronounced. "Excuse me while I go walk into the sea," one man wrote, while writer and comedian Caitlin Bitzegaio perfectly and succinctly summed up how this feels to all of us geriatric millennials and young Gen Xers and all those in between. Along with Brasch's original tweet, she wrote, "I'm sorry Who Who Who as Who?"
To be perfectly frank, I am taking this film as an act of aggression. Our age cohort has been through enough. From 9/11 to the 2008 financial apocalypse and — gestures vaguely at everything since — we do not need this!
And as the film's executive producer, Hart could have saved us from this devastating milestone. She could have done the right thing, which would have been to take artistic license and cast Dame Maggie Smith or an exhumed Betty White as the "Grandma" in this story as God intended!
Because we are not ready for this. We trusted you, Melissa Joan Hart, and you have betrayed us. Clarissa Darling never would've done this to us, I'll tell you that much!
Photo: Jaguar PS / Shutterstock
Even so, we must all choose to move toward forgiveness. We will never forget the day we were forced to contemplate the reality that millennials are now plausibly grandparent age, but we should extend grace toward Melissa Joan Hart herself all the same.
Because getting older is a privilege, of course. But more importantly, because we are apparently now so old we're too exhausted to fight! We should probably all go lay our elderly, creaking bones down in our aforementioned coffin beds and just take a nap instead.
Maybe the AARP has a good discount code for some nice, new pillows ...
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice, and human interest topics.