Now, now. Raise your hands if you dread the coming of Mondays. Boy, I will raise both my hands up. Monday is my least favorite part of the week — a sentiment that I think is said by half the people on planet Earth as well. But, would you look at that? Who would have thought that a particular Wednesday would make up for a terrible Monday?
On November 16 of this year, the new Netflix Original series ‘Wednesday’ premiered, ironically, on a Wednesday too! Kudos to the Netflix team for this strategic scheduling of the series’ release date, it definitely added an oomph factor to the highly-anticipated show. With a whopping 1.02 billion total viewed hours in just 21 days since its release, the show has instantly become a cultural phenomenon making it the second most popular English-language series on Netflix, dethroning the biographical drama series Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story starring Evan Peters.”
Following its lightning rise to stardom, various social media platforms such as Tiktok have been flooded with Wednesday Addams-related content. The hashtag #wednesdayaddams has over 20.9 billion views on the said app, with millions of users including the “Mother Monster” herself, Lady Gaga, recreating the dance performance of Wednesday from episode four, “Woe What a Night” — a number originally choreographed by the actress Jenna Ortega who plays Wednesday.
Additionally, the quirky young-adult series was to blame for the increase in Spotify streams of The Cramps’ “Goo Goo Muck,” which as of this writing has received over 24.2 million plays on the music streaming platform. Thousands of digital content creators like makeup artists and fashion influencers have also made Wednesday-themed makeup looks, tutorials, and style books ranging from recreating Wednesday’s makeup look on the show to curating an outfit that even the pale-skinned girl in pig-tail braids herself would surely rock.
While the original franchise revolved around the story of every Addams family member, the Netflix Original series focused the spotlight on the character of Wednesday alone. The spin-off is a mix of comedy and murder mystery, with the usual teenage romance tropes and the feels of a coming-of-age movie. Since the Addams Family franchise was such a hit way back, the show had some standards and expectations to be met. Garnering a 72 percentile on Rotten Tomatoes, a rating of 8.3 out of 10 on IMDB, and nabbing two nominations in the 2023 Golden Globes Award, it is safe to say it has exceeded all expectations and was successful in preserving the nostalgia of the classic while keeping it fresh and slightly modern for younger and new audiences.
Jenna Ortega who plays the character of Wednesday became the talk of the town for her superb portrayal of the iconic woeful eldest daughter of Morticia and Gomez Addams. And to testify to her excellent performance, she is among the nominees for the Best Actress category at the 2023 Golden Globes Awards. Jenna really did hold her own on this series and has definitely brought a newfangled flair to Christina Ricci’s iconic portrayal of Wednesday on the previous Addams Family films years back. Jenna Ortega planted her roots in the industry as a Disney child star and has since then branched out to different genres like slasher films such as Scream and teen drama films like her 2021 movie, The Fallout.
A detective story with ghostly overtones, Netflix’s Wednesday follows Wednesday Addams’ years as a high school student at Nevermore Academy. While negotiating her new and extremely complicated connections at the dingy pariah boarding school of Nevermore, Wednesday tries to control her developing psychic gift, stop a horrific killing spree that has devastated the neighborhood, and uncover the otherworldly mystery that ensnared her parents 25 years ago.
Wednesday may be woeful and easily fascinated by macabre, but she does give Monday a run for its money. I cannot believe that someone as morbid as the black-and-white-ensemble-all day-everyday teen would make up for how Monday ruins the merry of the previous weekend. It is amusing, really, how someone incapable of allowing herself to form emotional bonds would use her wit and sarcastic punchlines to make the week appear more emotionally bearable.