"Wednesday" - Old-Fashioned Fun With a Positive Message

Addams-style individualism for a new generation

Note: This is a spoiler-free review. It is safe to read before watching the show.

I spent a good bit of my childhood reading anthologies of Charles Addams’ original cartoons, and came of age with the ’90s films. Growing up in my own family of dark-eyed and dark-humored immigrants and nonconformists, the Addams family was infinitely more relatable than anything else in popular culture. Therefore, I am pleased to report that Wednesday, Netflix’s new collaboration with legendary director Tim Burton, is a worthy addition to the Addams Family canon.

The premise of Wednesday is that Wednesday Addams is sent to the same boarding school for outcasts where her parents, Gomez and Morticia, met years ago. The trademark Addams humor is on full display, as is the high level of filmmaking craft that Tim Burton’s decades of experience bring to the show.

Unlike Netflix’s Sabrina, which sent another spooky teen character to a supernatural high school, only to have her turn into a shrill mouthpiece for woke ideology, Wednesday and her school, Nevermore Academy, steer refreshingly clear of contemporary politics. Also, unlike the hyper-sexualized high school students on Sabrina (and its companion series Riverdale), the kids on Wednesday keep their clothes on and their hands to themselves.

None of this is to say that Wednesday is completely apolitical; instead, it reflects the same individualist, anti-establishment philosophy that permeates Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and most of Tim Burton’s other films. In the cinematic worlds created by Burton, “the group” is usually wrong, often dangerous, and almost always ignorant. The peculiar individuals at the heart of his stories are sensitive, intelligent, and usually struggle to achieve their goals in a society that misunderstands and despises them.

Needless to say, today that attitude would be more at home on Substack than Twitter. If Tim Burton were starting his career today, it is unlikely that his bureacracy-skewering misfits would pass the ideological purity test of the mainstream entertainment industry.

In Wednesday, there are no good organizations, only good individuals. The titular character is confronted by municipal corruption in the fictional town of Jericho, administrative deception within Nevermore Academy, and student cliques that are just as intolerant of nonconformity as the outside world’s “normies” are of the students themselves.

Within this environment, Wednesday, played by former Disney Channel star Jenna Ortega, celebrates her 16th birthday, investigates a series of murders, and crushes the hearts of boys who are drawn to her self-possessed authenticity like moths to a flame.

In a popular culture that glorifies artifice and performance, Wednesday Addams is the most authentic character we’ve seen in a very long time. She rejects modern technology, not because of some hipster pretension, but because she sees it as a destructive influence. She knows who she is and what she values, she refuses to compromise, and yet she is open to new experiences and to growing as a person.

Wednesday is that rare piece of new entertainment: an enjoyable, well-made program that champions the individual, respects its young actors, and delivers a positive message about being true to yourself and staying skeptical of authority. This holiday season, that’s a gift we can all enjoy.