Like this Beetle juice Beetle juice gives new life to Tim Burton’s classic film, his Netflix series Wednesday is a new version of the original characters created by Charles Addams. The series, which will soon return to Wednesday season 2 successfully reimagined the infamous Wednesday Addams for a modern audience. By focusing on adolescence and exploring their unique yet recognizable interests, the series breathes new life into this iconic character.
Wednesday always had hobbies; however, her age in the original series as well as the core series”eccentricity“of comedy limited them a little as characteristics. Netflix Wednesday struck gold by casting Jenna Ortega, who makes Wednesday macabre but enjoyable and even relatable. The new series then pays homage to Wednesday’s main interests in the original, which still revolve around the arts, but develops them into elements of now-iconic characters who are returning in Wednesday 2nd season, as these are aspirations that better shape her character.
Wednesday made Jenna Ortega’s Wednesday Addams an aspiring writer and cellist
This is a significant development of his hobbies from the original series
An essential aspect of Netflix Wednesday series is that Wednesday grew up; although she is a child in the original series, she is now a high school student. The inciting incident of the Netflix series is that she was transferred to Nevermore Academy for “outcasts, freaks and monsters“after his most recent expulsion for bad behavior. This is a believable development – as is the evolution of his hobbies, which focus on the arts and humanities. Ortega plays the cello in Wednesdayhaving practiced two months prior, adding realism to Wednesday’s passion for the instrument.
While the 1960s series largely revolved around family life, that’s unlikely to be enough for today’s audiences.
Another smart move was taking the story from the Addams household, which also emphasizes Wednesday as an independent teenager. While the 1960s series largely revolved around family life, that’s unlikely to be enough for today’s audiences. Additionally, filming the Addams house would rely heavily on the nostalgia factor. New locations mean more activities, allowing Wednesday to pursue multiple interests in the Netflix series – she’s an aspiring writer, with a few unpublished mystery novels already under her belt. In addition to playing the cello, she is a skilled fencer.
Wednesday Addams’ interests in the Netflix show make her more dynamic
Wednesday’s new hobbies expand her character more, although they are still gothic
The television landscape of the 1960s was entirely different from today’s streaming industry. Based on a recurring cartoon in The New Yorker In the 1930s, the original TV Addams Family The show’s comedy was about challenging the nuclear family tropes of the time. They were especially captivating to audiences because they were not hostile; they simply had different tastes than the rest of society. The show was progressive, but the crux of the comedy is that the Addamses are “crazy.” Although brilliant, the comedy and plot of the original series would fall flat in a contemporary series, which requires more complexity.
A modern version of anything Addams-related must show self-awareness of the Addams’ place in popular culture while maintaining the essential spirit of the original. Wednesday’s hobbies in the original series include raising spiders, ballet and writing poetry – her favorite toy is the Marie Antoinette doll, which Pugsley guillotines for her. Although these hobbies develop her, they are still largely static and rooted in offbeat comedy. Wednesday’s interests in Wednesday make it more modern – but the cello and taste for horror literature are still appropriately scary.