NETFLIX'S WEDNESDAY: a meh adaptation of The Addams Family (dont kill me)

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as a teenager myself, it really bugged me that they referenced tiktok and other social media so much. I get that they were trying to make it seem ‘in touch’ with teens, but that’s going to become outdated really quickly.

Something that was really annoying me was that Wednesday made it perfectly clear since day 1 that she is a violent and anti-social person but her classmates keep acting shocked when she treats them like garbage or will resort to violence first

They destroyed the original Addams values. One of the main thing about the characters is they’re not judgmental. You can be pastel dolled up lolita nd they’ll be like “ok you’re weird but you do you”. But in Wednesday she’s super judgmental nd she’s always casting this “im superior than you alll peasants” aura. Was pretty annoying.

I don't know who in that writing room had such severe mommy issues that they felt the need to give Wednesday and Morticia a bad relationship but I hope they go to therapy some day

Wednesday's biggest problem is that it leans into modern tropes instead of subverting them. It should have gone, "Your father's a murderer!" "I know. They tell that story at every family gathering."

this show fell into the trap of “teenager must hate their parents because they're teenagers” trope. i’m not an addams family fan but I can tell that one of the things that people love about this franchise is just how much the family loves one another. they love each other’s spookiness and darkness and support each other even when everyone else ostracizes them. i just didn’t like wednesday becoming essentially a pretentious brat who doesn’t like people (I do think she becomes less pretentious as the episodes go on, though). it was too generic and obvious of a path to take with her character. it’s like “girl dark, girl like death. girl don’t like people.”

She just doesn't feel like Wednesday. She feels like a goth girl who wants to be Wednesday.

Super minor pet peeve but since I haven't seen anyone mention it I wanted to say the idea that a "scary movie" for Wednesday would be Legally Blonde just goes to show how flat and one-dimensional they made this character. She's been flanderized so much and manufactured to be hashtag not like other girls ™️ that anything pink revolts her and it's so ironic because Elle Woods and Wednesday are kindred spirits just with different aesthetics. The idea that Wednesday could watch Elle be assaulted and mistreated and still come up on top because she realized she never needed to prove anything to anyone and think of it as "torturous" because she likes the color pink and is girly just made me irrationally upset lol. But maybe it's just because I have a soft spot for that movie.

I feel like not only they seemed afraid of making the show more campy, it feels like they were afraid of making it more macabre and sinister, like, Wednesday tortures her own brother for fuck's sake, why not show her being weird and borderline scary like in other adaptations? Netflix's Wednesday gives me Jughead's "I'm a weirdo" monologue from Riverdale vibes and it sucks

my whole issue with the show is how they turned THE Wednesday Addams into a detective solving a murder in the name of justice, it's so out of character. she was literally bragging about attempted murder in the first ep and then being all upset her father is a murderer and despising Tyler too like ?????? Jenna Ortega's performance definitely is the saving grace of this show.

I also feel like Wednesday was never meant to be attractive. As a character in every other adaptation she's creepy, or just average at best. The fact they cast her as this gorgeous girl who every boy falls in love with even though she's kind of a jerk, further proves my suspicion that this was all about the 🤑🤑

I noticed that something was wrong, I thought that the problem was Tim Burton's direction, but when I investigated I realized that the script was a disaster, it was written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, the same writers of Hannah Montana the movie and Herbie, they modified Tim Burton's original script because they considered it weird and creepy. Wednesday ended up being like any other teeanager show.

I find it weird how Wednesday would look down upon Gomez because of a possibility of him committing murder, when in fact she should've been excited or proud of him since they are The Addams family, we are talking about Wednesday a girl who would roleplay decapitation with dolls and even try to kill her infant brother along with Pugsley.

Her relationship with Morticia was just wrong. Yes, Wednesday is morbid and snarky, but her mother very much nurtured Wednesday’s overall attitude and the two never fought. It was all love between them at the end of the day, in their own way 🖤 Also, totally agree with you — don’t think Wednesday would have given a shit about her father being a potential murderer. It would have been a point of pride for her.

Finally someone who says Wednesday is just another Riverdale. I felt the same when I saw the first episode and it was just a goth version of Riverdale.

Another thing that upset me (that I’ve heard a lot of people mention) is Wednesday’s disdain towards her mother. I understand that teen girls often have problems with their parents but like…the whole point of the Addams family is that they subvert the nuclear family with their unapologetic bond and love for one another. The whole “I don’t want to be like my mom” thing was so bizarre. We don’t see any indication that Morticia is trying to push that so it’s fully fueled by some delusion by Wednesday that makes no sense. The show also tries to portray Wednesday as a feminist but just uses feminist buzzwords in the dialogue and then has Wednesday act with a lot of internalized misogyny to propel herself as “better” than the other female characters. Like when she called her black, frilly lace, turtle-necked dress for the Rave’n as catering to the male gaze—what the fuck?? I can’t imagine a world in which Wednesday thinks that being a homemaker is a bad thing when she has been raised by Gomez and Morticia. Like the Addams family is a matriarchal family, Morticia runs everything and has Gomez wrapped around her finger, she is in total control. I think I could forgive it more if we saw her actually grow and change. I know we get that tiny bit when we see Morticia threaten the mayor and Wednesday starts to see that there are different ways to be strong, but then they blatantly missed the opportunity for more growth when Wednesday watched Legally Blonde!!! Like it would have been such a good moment for Wednesday to further realize that feminine=\=bad, but they glossed over it. It’s so clear that the tv show went for the aesthetics of the Addams family without actually engaging with it. Wednesday is purely “not like other girls” from an aesthetic point of view, not a moral one. She hates the blonde (Amanda I think?) in the movie because she’s an elitist bitch, and is very closed minded, not because she’s a blonde girl who wears pink. The Addams family is an extremely open-minded family, so for Wednesday to have an opposite mindset in the tv show is crazy. It shows that the tv show wants to get “girlboss” points but not actually try to grow through its characters and I think that’s a very harmful narrative for young girls.

Jenna Ortega really played Wednesday so well but besides that this should’ve been a movie instead of a whole series in my opinion. I also didn’t like how they have Wednesday not have a good relationship with her mother because the whole purpose of the Adams Family is that they seem odd and liked unusual things but they all loved each other. I’m also tired of Netflix and all of these streaming apps rebooting old movies or making these wattpad type of shows/ movies like can we get something original and new?

the biggest thing that irked me with this show was the family dinamics. Tim Burton is so hell-bent on making his main characters complete outsiders, utterly alone and detached from the world they live in, that he misses the ENTIRE point of the Addams family. We love the Addams family because they are outsiders together. The rest of the world might not get them, but their family is so supportive, so encouraging and caring of each others interests, even with the occasional murder and/or torture, that it doesn't matter what other people think. One of my favourite scenes of the The Addams Family movie is the theatre scene Wednesday and Pugsley perform: it's so gorey, but clearly took so much time and effort, so of course their family is impressed and cheer them on. Obviously they are the only ones who clap, but the kids don't care about other people's opinions, they value their family's above all. This feeling is so absent from the series it made me forget I was supossed to be watching an "Addams family" inspired show.

Surprised you didn't mention this: the cut of Morticia's costumes? Very odd. I expect glamorous, plunging, made-for-her, long lines, but instead it felt like an H&M Halloween costume. And the makeup was an odd look as well, because if she's meant to be naturally pale, then the foundation should look like skin. And if she's not, and they want to make it appear as if she DOES apply base makeup, shouldn't it look like it was on purpose? It felt so dry and cakey for no reason, like they were trying to cover up signs of aging but they just made it look worse. Zeta-Jones can and has served so much harder. Them's my two cents.