Netflix’s ‘Wednesday’ is Full of Woe

All over social media and nearly everywhere you look now, you can see it – Netflix’s Wednesday. Whether it’s people recreating the iconic ‘Rave’N dance’ or posting clips of the show, or interviews, it’s something you cannot escape.

Growing up on the Addams Family T.V. series from the Sixties and the films from the Nineties, the new live-action reboot (with Tim Burton at the helm) sounded like a dream come true.

Unfortunately, it’s not.

Because Netflix’s Wednesday is NOT Wednesday Addams.

Before people bring out the flaming torches and behave like Pilgrim leader Joseph Crackstone…let me make it clear Wednesday is not a bad show. It’s an alright mystery show, though you can figure out who the main villain and the big bad ones are by episode one. For a Gen Z crowd who are far removed from the gothic universe where the Addams Family resides, it works. For sullen rebellious teenagers of today in their ‘I hate the world and everything in it’ phase, it works. It ticks off all the right boxes – mystery, boarding school, a romance with two potential suitors (insert dramatic gasp: oh, who will she pick?), the polar-opposite peppy friend, prom night, the supportive principal, evil sheriff and even the whole the day is saved by the power of friendship!

The only box it does not tick off is the ‘Is this Wednesday Addams?’ box.

Stripped to its bare bones, Wednesday revolves around Wednesday Addams getting kicked out from her high school on the grounds of unleashing piranhas as payback for the water polo boys bullying her brother Pugsley. She is then enrolled at her parents’ alma mater Nevermore Academy, a boarding school for “outcasts.” Wednesday’s plans of getting kicked out of Nevermore, however, are thrown out of her penthouse dorm’s stained-glass window as she gets caught up in a murder mystery/monster hunt that only shecan solve, thanks to her newly awakened psychic ability.

The resemblance to the original Wednesday begins and ends with the piranha bit in episode one.

The Addams Family created by Charles Addams was about an ideal good-natured family with a fascination for the macabre. A family that works in absolute tandem and supports each other no matter what they do. It’s called Addams Family for a reason. They’re creepy and they’re kooky. Mysterious and spooky. They’re all together ooky, The Addams family.

So, when you suddenly see Wednesday wanting to shun her family, repeatedly mock her parents (going so far as to say she never wants to be like Morticia) it’s jarring, to say the least. Morticia is the type of mother who would hand her daughter an axe to play with over a knife, as all good mothers should. She understands Wednesday best of all and Wednesday has always looked up to her mother and eagerly follows her footsteps. Right from her fashion sense (a young Morticia Frump used to wear that iconic doll collared, all-black ensemble) to the headless doll (Anne Boleyn for Morticia and Marie Antoinette for Wednesday). Here, Wednesday says quite simply, “I’m not you, mother.” Then she proceeds to complain about living in her mother’s shadow and does exactly that – live in her mother’s shadow. This isn’t even touching the tip of the iceberg where Morticia acts so uncharacteristically, refusing to help Wednesday dig up a grave. Has the Addams Halloween tradition been forgotten?

Where is that mother-daughter bond which is so strange yet sweet? An ideal example of what mothers and daughters should strive to be like? It’s what sets Morticia and Wednesday apart from their ‘normal’ counterparts.

Why does Wednesday abhor her mother, especially when this version of Morticia goes above and beyond the call of duty to fulfill every whim and fancy of her daughter?   

Imagine a row of neat houses with white picket fences and bang in the middle a Dracula-esque castle all painted black. It stands out, it’s uncomfortable for most but you can’t really say anything because it doesn’t break the rules. The comedy element of the Addams Family worked so well because they were the abnormal in the midst of the normal. What they find natural, the others find unnatural. Placing Wednesday in Nevermore Academy takes away the spooky component from Wednesday.

Nevermore Academy, the boarding school for outcasts. There are mysteries lurking behind every nook and cranny of this Hogwarts/Xavier Institute (from X-Men, no relation to the Xavier in the show) rip-off. The first one being, why on earth are they called outcasts? What are they outcasts from? Certainly not society, considering they’re extremely normal with the social hierarchy that is expected to be seen in a stereotype-rife high school. Outcasts here seems to be some sort of euphemism for the word supernatural entities or dare I say it, monsters.

In the current clime, anything mildly offensive could get you canceled. But one can’t help but wonder which vampire or werewolf is going to find being referred to as ‘supernatural creatures’ or ‘monsters’ or ‘non-humans’ more offensive than ‘outcast.’ After all, they are not outcasts of their society. And in the context of the show, they seem to be getting along with ‘normies’ just fine. Normies is also a euphemism for humans.

That brings us to another question – what is Wednesday doing in a school like Nevermore? Or even better yet, why and how did Gomez attend a school like Nevermore? Morticia has the excuse of being a descendant of witches and probably is a witch. The only ‘supernatural power’ Wednesday possesses are her newly-introduced psychic visions. But Gomez is human through and through, so what exactly is the criteria for one to be a Nevermore student? Anyone who isn’t a normie? Does that make anyone who is part of the goth subculture fundamentally inhuman? Fledgling goths are called Baby Bats no doubt (we – self-included – all have to start somewhere), but by no means are we actually vampires.

Putting Wednesday in a gothic environment takes away from the uniqueness of being an Addams who navigates through the mundane. The intended effect to show her isolation from her peers is not quite as stark. All she appears to be is unpleasant. Despite this, she manages to attract not one but two suitors. She makes nice with the Siren Queen Bee of the school and becomes best friends with her werewolf roommate, who is permanently sunshine and sparkles. Wednesday Addams pays more homage to the emo subculture than the goth stereotype. There’s a difference, aside from just the music. Goths aren’t moody or temperamental, they don’t hate the world and everything in it. That’s a common misconception; the excess of black doesn’t mean a permanent state of mourning, it just means being prepared for a sudden funeral. It’s about finding beauty in the macabre. The old Morticia was the ultimate goth icon, never has she been seen moping around and throwing tantrums.     

It would also seem that in the charming little town of Jericho, the police are incompetent, as they often are when teenagers are involved. But our titular protagonist is just slightly better. Despite it being repeatedly said that Wednesday is the smartest, special snowflake and the key to everything in the show, she certainly doesn’t act like it. Not only does she tell her accused what she thinks their crime is and how cleverly she has solved it – she gets it wrong. Every single time. It gets tiresome after the second attempt. The only reason she ends up solving the mystery is because she gets to the end of her list of suspects. It’s a wonder the monster didn’t end up slaughtering the entire town.

Speaking of the town, that takes us to the setting and the main antagonist, the Pilgrim leader Joseph Crackstone. Pilgrims are no strangers to the Addams family universe. In The Addams Family Values  (1993), we have the famous speech by Wednesday about how the pilgrims oppressed the indigenous people before setting fire to the grounds of the summer camp (and then escaping). There’s a homage to the same speech here and the Wednesday of the show also sets fire to a statue of the pilgrim icon. But somehow five minutes of the old film manages to capture the message better than an eight-hour-long series. In the 1993 film, not only does Wednesday completely ruin the system she’d been put in but also exits the scene on her own. She didn’t need to rely on a barista to drive her home, she and Pugsley did it themselves. She was 10 years old. I suppose she didn’t get wiser with age here.

The one thing that is actually good in the show is the soundtrack. The cello scenes of Wednesday are the actual highlight, especially her rendition of “Paint it, Black.” More so than her Rave’N dance, nothing can beat the original Wednesday dance that young Lisa Loring (The Addams Family, 1964) did.  

Jenna Ortega has done the best she can do under the circumstances. She’s made the best she can of playing a Wednesday, it’s just not the Wednesday. That said, if you really want to see the actual Wednesday Addams run away from home after a disagreement with her parents, you’re better off watching season one, episode 10 of the 1964 sitcom.