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eviltothecore13 · 1 year

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I’ve seen people talking about Wednesday shaking/threatening Thing and calling her parents “evil puppet masters” in the one promo clip and I have Thoughts.

Firstly, I don’t think the “evil puppet masters” line is OOC, and I think the posting about it without sharing the clip has taken it out of context somewhat. IN context, Gomez and Morticia have sent Thing to Wednesday’s school to keep an... eye??...on her because they’re worried about her, but Wednesday interprets that as them trying to control her and says that line.

I KNOW people always worry that a new adaptation will forget that the Addamses are a generally healthy and always loving family. I know some adaptations in the past HAVE had issues: e.g. the animated films portraying Gomez as not understanding Pugsley’s love of inventions and explosives because it’s non-traditional, when the 60s show had established that the Mad Inventor traits are something Pugsley probably got FROM Gomez. Or the musical having some completely pointless lines from Morticia that portray her as not liking Grandmama, which was never the case before.

But the writers in interviews have established multiple times that this show is, indeed, about a healthy and loving family, they’ve talked about how Gomez and Morticia want the best for Wednesday and how the family have each other’s back no matter what. It sounds like there’s just some temporary strain on their relationship as Wednesday wants to be more independent and feels like her parents are being too protective...which is totally realistic and normal even for the most loving family. It sometimes feels like this fandom thinks a loving family, or a healthy relationship, can only be one that never disagrees on anything ever, and that’s just...not true. At some point a family will encounter problems no matter how much they love each other and I think an interesting story can be made out of these issues being resolved happily (which I’m pretty confident they will be). And as far back as the 60s show several plots involved some kind of issue or misunderstanding, that would of course then be resolved. Including some of the most liked episodes.

And it’s...very much in-character for Wednesday to react overdramatically to something minor and clearly well-intentioned that her parents did. Remember, this is the same character who came up with “Dear mother and father, I hate you. Love, Wednesday.” when she ran away from home, and insisted that her parents didn’t love her and claimed to want to see them suffer--over something pretty minor, and by the end of the episode everything’s fine. Then in the films, her and Pugsley become worried that Gomez and Morticia love Pubert more than they love them, and try to kill Pubert--yes, death isn’t quite so serious for an Addams (and I STRONGLY disagree with the people who claim that this behaviour is proof that Wednesday is totally evil and heartless), but it’s still clearly a problem given that Gomez and Morticia have to step in and try to prevent it. I almost feel like she’s inherited some of Gomez’s tendency for overreacting but is just much more deadpan in the way she expresses it. Describing her parents as “evil puppet-masters” who want to control her when the reasonable description would be “loving parents who are maybe being a little too protective” is...fairly on-brand for Wednesday when she’s annoyed about something. I’m sure she KNOWS it’s not TRUE, but that’s not going to stop her from saying it.

I’m not worried by this because people working on the show have made it very clear in their interviews etc that the show IS going to depict the family as healthy and loving. Christina Ricci has also given her approval to the portrayal of Wednesday and she had quite a bit of influence on the depiction of Wednesday in the films, she understands the character.

We’ve also SEEN that Wednesday does love her family in this show through how happy she is to see Fester--and that she has an odd way of expressing how much she cares at times, because it’s already been established in this show that she cares about Pugsley and is extremely protective of him/goes after anyone who bullies him but also takes a “tough love” attitude to him where she tells him he needs to show less emotion so as not to come across as weak and become a target for bullies... This version of Wednesday does seem to have some issues from her experiences in school, but I don’t feel like that’s necessarily OOC either--I’ve had my own headcanons in this regard for a while, and I am a little bit nervous about the idea of the show doing it wrong, but also feel like it could be really good if done right.

Wednesday being so harsh with Thing...I have more mixed feelings on. On the one hand (hand. I’m hilarious.), it’s not inherently OOC for Wednesday to be threatening towards one of the family--whether that’s her “games” with Pugsley/constant talk of killing him (I do not for one second think her and Pugsley actually dislike each other or that she genuinely wants him dead--but it doesn’t stop her SAYING she wants to kill him) or the more actual-dislike-motivated behaviour towards Pubert (which I do think was only temporary...it’s a pity that no later adaptation has ever been an actual sequel to the films or shown Pubert when he’s older and can have an actual character dynamic with Wednesday). I do think it would be completely OOC for her to follow through on those threats in this particular case--it’s just too far, especially for Thing who she generally gets on very well with and is usually polite to day-to-day--but I don’t think she has any intention of doing so.

As for grabbing him and shaking him...it’s harsher than we’ve seen her be towards him before, yeah, but I don’t think it’s as serious as it might seem to a non-Addams. None of them are easily seriously harmed, and Gomez pulling out Fester’s teeth/Fester removing Gomez’s brain/them constantly judo-throwing each other about and throwing knives at each other is seen as ultimately non-serious sibling rivalry/bickering/practical jokes (and Gomez and Fester clearly love each other despite the occasional dramatic proclamation of hating each other...hm, while Wednesday’s similarities to Morticia are obvious, I do feel like her similarities to Gomez sometimes get overlooked...). She’s clearly annoyed with him but I wouldn’t necessarily see her behaviour to him as expressing anything more serious than that she is currently not in a good mood with him. Considering her scary threats involve threatening him with not being able to keep his skin perfectly smooth, I’m not sure she’s even being 100% serious.

However I AM more concerned about how they’ll depict Wednesday’s relationship with Thing than about how they’ll depict Wednesday’s relationship with Gomez and Morticia, because...well, the writers, actors, etc have made it very clear that Wednesday and Gomez and Morticia care about it each other. I don’t think there’s much chance of the show NOT depicting Gomez and Morticia as loving Wednesday and vice versa. But Thing...hasn’t been talked about much, and there HAVE been previous adaptations that depicted Thing in ways that aren’t to my liking, where he’s seemingly depicted more like a servant or pet than part of the family/Gomez’s childhood friend. (The 90s live action reboot show having him playing with a ball in a seemingly rather doglike way in one scene weirded me out...that’s a person not a pet). And I DO think a scene where Wednesday is angry with Thing and is being harsh towards him needs to be balanced out by plenty of scenes showing that they do USUALLY get on well...the question is whether we will get that.

That being said, we have seen Thing behaving in friendly ways with her in other clips, and the official Wednesday Addams twitter claims that he carved her a coffin-shaped chair as a gift. So I am reasonably confident that they’re still going to mostly have a good relationship.

I DO think it was the wrong choice of clip to promote the show. Netflix chose a clip that emphasised that some of the relationships in the family are currently strained--which is not a new thing in Addams media by ANY means, but is not the best way to promote a series when some people are already worried that it might take that too far--I think both out of wariness after years of non-fans interpreting 90s Wednesday as completely evil/constantly miserable/hating everyone with no exceptions (90s Wednesday is NOT remotely like that!), and out of Tim Burton’s reputation (which I kind of think is overstated because some of his work, like The Nightmare Before Christmas, is fairly lighthearted? but I can understand the wariness nonetheless as someone who has always been rather annoyed with him having Batman kill people)?

But I also think some people in this fandom have a nostalgia-filtered idea of what the Addamses being a loving family looks like, where no-one ever disagrees on anything or has the slightest misunderstanding, even though that wasn’t the case even in the 60s show and also...isn’t what a loving/healthy family necessarily always looks like at all (and to my mind the relationships can end up coming across as stronger if they occasionally work through issues together). And also that people who watched the 60s show first are sometimes...very attached to the idea of Wednesday as a cute 6-year-old and seem to want her to stay that way forever, whereas I’m interested in seeing how her character develops as she grows up.

On the whole I’m still cautiously optimistic about the show since the comments from the writers seem quite promising about the characterisation/character dynamics within the family/etc, I don’t mind that it’s not a sitcom or not exactly like the 60s show given that the 60s show wasn’t even the original (the comics were--though I wouldn’t want an adaptation to be exactly like the comics, either, as the characters were less likeable in them--but I do think the show was TOO toned down in some ways) and the 90s films are my personal overall favourite (I also don’t think the 90s characterisation is as drastically different from the 60s characterisation as some people seem to think...Wednesday in particular is just...older. And has spent the past few years going to school with a bunch of people she has nothing in common with and doesn’t get on with. Of course she acts more cynical.) I don’t think I’ll ever get the takes about how it’s not The Addams Family if it’s not set in the 60s (but then, I’m still not sure I get the one about how the piranhas-in-the-swimming-pool scene is villainising POC either...what is villainous about setting piranhas on a bully? I was definitely cheering her on) or if it’s not a sitcom or if it doesn’t follow the formula of the Addamses having a different normal person visit their house and get terrified of them each episode. As long as it tells a good story with the characters I love.

(The thing that actually does worry me is Gomez’s actor apparently being credited as a guest star because I KNOW from interviews etc that there’s a lot of focus on Wednesday’s relationship with Morticia but Gomez is important too!)

#also I have a pretty good relationship with my parents #I love them and they love me and that's always been the case #but I know I accused them of trying to ruin my life at least once during arguments over fairly minor things when I was a teenager #because I was being overdramatic #or even more recently than that I've had to be like #if you ask me 'are you dead??' again just because I haven't called/texted in a couple of days I will just answer 'yes'#because it's a stupid question and I am an adult person in my 20s and you only call your own parents once a week anyway #(yes I said it in pretty much those words)#the addams family #wednesday #wednesday addams #wednesday netflix #I don't get the idea that the family can never have any kind of problem #especially when the only problem is Wednesday's parents worrying about her #it's not OOC for Wednesday to be annoyed by feeling like she's being treated like a kid #and it's certainly not OOC for her to be overdramatic in her phrasing of that

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