There are a few names that come to mind when we hear the phrase “goth girl icon”: Maila Nurmi’s Vampira, Beetlejuice’s Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder), and even Wonderland’s very own Alice, if we take into account the 2000 video game American McGee’s Alice. But it is no stretch to say that the most iconic of all goth girl icons is none other than a young - sometimes 6, sometimes 18-year-old - pigtailed kid that goes by the name of Wednesday Addams. Created in the 1930s by cartoonist Charles Addams as part of his Addams Family comic series, Wednesday grew in popularity over the decades, becoming arguably the most memorable and beloved member of her spooky family. Her status and notoriety are such that she is the first Addams to gain her very own television series, Netflix’s Wednesday, in which she is played by none other than the most recently crowned scream queen Jenna Ortega (X, Scream).
Created by the Smallville duo Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, Wednesday presents its titular character as a teenager that is transferred to the monster-filled Nevermore Academy after an incident in her regular school. The trailers show Wednesday in peak sarcastic, gloomy form, just like fans of the character expect her to be. However, like most goth teenage girls, Wednesday Addams wasn’t born all clad in black, with a dark cloud looming over her head. Well, perhaps she was. Who am I to speak of Addams’ birthing rituals? Still, this creepy little girl had a long way to go before she became the snarky, murderous teen that goths all around the globe have grown to love.
Wednesday Used to Be Just a Sweet Little Girl Who Liked to Guillotine Her Dolls
The Addams made their debut in 1938, in a series of single-panel comics created by cartoonist Charles Addams for The New Yorker magazine. Satirical and often quite macabre, Addams’ comics depicted a family that was the complete opposite of the American dream. Instead of featuring a middle-class working, Father Knows Best-like dad, a cooking and cleaning-loving mom, an athletic son, and a peppy, but obedient daughter on the right track for an advantageous marriage, Addams’ comics presented a decadent, aristocratic couple that seemed to never have worked a day in their lives with two creepy children that were always at war with one another. Besides the kids, the cigar-smoking father and the slender, aloof mother were frequently accompanied by a corpse-like butler, a mysterious creature that lurked from the shadows, a disheveled old woman, and a chubby, bald man with dark circles under his eyes.
Chances are, dear reader, that you can name all of these characters by heart, but, at the time, Addams hadn’t named any of his ink-and-paper children yet. Wednesday, Pugsley, Morticia, Gomez, Lurch, Thing, Grandma, and Uncle Fester would only be given their now iconic names when Addams’ comics were adapted for TV, in 1964. Known by the kids of the internet era mainly for some of its most memorable scenes - such as little Wednesday (6-year-old Lisa Loring) teaching the stiff, Frankenstein monster-inspired Lurch (Ted Cassidy) how to bust a move – The Addams Family debuted on ABC just a week before another spooky family, CBS’ The Munsters. The series ran for two years and helped make the Addams the pop culture phenomenon that they are today.
From the very beginning, Wednesday Addams already had many of the character’s core interests, such as her love for creepy crawlers and beheaded dolls, and her friendly, but killer rivalry with her brother. The character’s traditional look, with the black dress, the Peter Pan collar, and the pigtails, has also been with her since her first appearance in The New Yorker. But even if early day Wednesday had a few things in common with her modern self, there were also numerous differences.
For starters, Addams’ little girl wasn’t as monstrous and creepy as the rest of her family. The original Wednesday had a much more melancholic disposition. Her name was even inspired by a verse from the “Monday’s Child” nursery rhyme that has a lot more to do with sorrow than with cruelty or horror: “Wednesday’s child is full of woe”. However, in the live-action series, Wednesday was stripped of this melancholy. Loring’s character was just a regular sweet little girl who stood in contrast with her more sinister relatives.
This cutesy persona followed Wednesday all the way to the realm of animation. In 1972, the Addams made an appearance in a Scooby-Doo episode that was so well-received that it gave birth to a completely new animated series. Produced by Hanna-Barbera, The Addams Family ran for only 16 episodes on NBC. Voiced by Cindy Henderson, cartoon Wednesday even sported a pink dress that was thankfully dropped in future iterations. Despite sharing her sadness-infused eyes with Addams’ first version of the character, Hanna-Barbera’s Wednesday had a personality much closer to that of the adorable little girl portrayed by Loring.
Barry Sonnenfeld and Christina Ricci Turned Wednesday Into a True Goth Icon
It would take Wednesday Addams 53 years to get to her snarky, goth pre-adolescent phase, and she wouldn’t do it on her own. Namely, she required the help of director Barry Sonnenfeld, writers Caroline Thompson and Larry Wilson, and 10-year-old actress Christina Ricci. Sonnenfeld's first directing credit is also the first feature film starring the characters created by Charles Addams, who passed away in 1988. Released in 1991, The Addams Family had a star-studded cast, with Anjelica Huston and Raul Julia as Morticia and Gomez Addams, and Christopher Lloyd as Uncle Fester.
But the true star of the show was actually Ricci. Under Sonnenfeld’s tutelage, the young actress gave a whole new vibe to the classic character of Wednesday Addams. Gone were the woeful eyebrows, the pink dresses, and the adorable dances. Now on the cusp of adolescence, the new Wednesday was a far-cry from her previous 6-year-old self. Her cold eyes could strike fear in the hearts of con artists and serial killers alike, her sarcasm could disarm even the most arrogant of girl scouts, and her once harmless rivalry with Pugsley (Jimmy Workman) had now developed into full homicidal mode.
The Addams Family was beloved both by audiences and by critics. As is usually the case with such hits, the movie quickly gained a sequel. Addams Family Values came out in 1993 and gained a cult following over the years, in no small amount due to Ricci’s performance. Addams Family Values elevates Wednesday almost to the position of main character, giving her a subplot that is frequently more remembered and well-liked than the movie’s central story. Following the advice of their newly-hired murderous nanny, Debbie (Joan Cusack), Gomez and Morticia send their two oldest children to an incredibly WASP-y summer camp.
This background proves to be the perfect environment for Wednesday to show her true potential, threatening annoying rich kids and their parents as she tries to escape the horrors of canoeing and watching classic Disney movies. In a particularly memorable scene, Wednesday ruins the camp counselors’ Thanksgiving-themed play by bringing up the true, genocide-filled history behind the holiday, and tops it off by nearly burning her arch-nemesis Amanda (Mercedes McNab) on a bonfire. It’s definitely one of the greatest scenes in film history.
Still, Addams Family Values failed to reach the same level of success of its predecessor. This and Raul Julia’s untimely death in 1994 put an end to Sonnenfeld’s series of movies. However, the 1991 and 1993 films revived audiences’ interest in the franchise, particularly on Wednesday, who, from then on, became the main character of almost all future Charles Addams adaptations. The sarcastic and sadistic personality that Ricci gave the character was also adopted by most new movies and TV shows, from the 1992-1993 Hanna-Barbera cartoon series to the 1998 direct-to-video film Addams Family Reunion, a failed feature-length TV pilot starring Tim Curry and Daryl Hannah as Gomez and Morticia, and Nicole Fugere as Wednesday.
In the 2010s, a couple of new adaptations of The Addams Family came out and tried to shake things up with Wednesday a little bit. In 2010, The Addams Family debuted on Broadway with Krysta Rodriguez in the role of Gomez and Morticia’s first-born daughter. On the stage, Wednesday was aged up to 18 and had her traditional pigtails chopped off in favor of a more modern bob cut. The plot has her falling in love with a normal, non-Addams-y boy and struggling to introduce him to her family. In the 2019 MGM animated movie, Wednesday (Chloe Grace Moretz) dares to experiment with pink dresses and bows, much to the horror of her mother (Charlize Theron). Still, her personality retains a lot of Sonnenfeld’s and Ricci’s brain child, and her trademark pigtails are styled to end in hangman nooses.
What Is It About Wednesday Addams That Makes Her so Beloved?
There’s no denying that, ever since their inception, the Addams became one of the most beloved families in the United States, if not in the entire world. However, not all Addamses are created the same. There’s much more love out there for Gomez and Morticia than there is for Pugsley, and most people can remember a million Uncle Fester scenes before they even recall the existence of Grandma Addams. And then there is Wednesday, the Addams that rose above all other members of the creepy family and gained her own TV series. But what is it about her that makes her so iconic?
First of all, there are her looks. Far be it from me to decry Gomez Addams’ elegant fashion sense, but the Addams women have a lot more style than the family’s men. What classic film or TV mom can compete with Morticia’s long hair and skin-tight black dress? And, for a younger demographic, there is Wednesday in her button-up black dress, with a Peter Pan collar, her hair (almost) always braided in impeccable pigtails. It’s a look that is, at the same time, adorable and creepy; cute, but in a Victorian child ghost sort of way.
But Wednesday’s success isn’t just about her looks. Even before the Sonnenfeld films, when she was just a lovely little kid, Wednesday still had interests and a personality that differed quite a bit from what was expected from young female characters. Instead of carefully combing her dolls’ hairs, she enjoyed beheading them. Instead of running in fear of spiders, she fed them and treated them as pets. After Ricci took over the role, her love for unusual, creepy things became just a part of a prominent female character that was also sarcastic, bright, kind of sadist, with a tongue as sharp as a whip - everything an outcast teen or pre-teen dreams of being.