=AtG=
Retrospect is 20/20, so they say, and I can certainly tell you why I identified with Wednesday as a young, highly gender confused child.
I revisited some of the more (relatively) recent Addams iterations and found that the Addams family from ’91 onwards snuck by as sex-positive kinky commentary. These concepts weren’t really in the public consciousness (sex-positivity is arguably still largely unknown) so the Addams family didn’t seem to ping anybody’s moral crisis radar. Or maybe they did? I was definitely too young to be paying attention to politics when this material was new.
Morticia and Gomez’s continuously passionate and loving relationship, despite the years of familiarity, is contrasted with the “typical” married couples who were often resentful and borderline abusive to one another. Gomez and Morticia are enthusiastically expressing their love and sexual desire for one another, and this is seen as contributing to their outsider status. Married couples were supposed to be spiteful, so obviously Morticia and Gomez were freaks if they actually behaved like people who routinely bubbled with love, especially sex-filled love, for one another.
Morticia: “Last night you were unhinged. You were like some desperate howling demon. You frightened me. Do it again.”
Mmmm yassss girl. Right there with you.