The World Needed a Goth Girl Icon

2023-01-08 · film-tv

Good grief!

Wednesday Addams has proven how the world needs a goth girl icon so much. She’s the living image of dark academia, a social media aesthetic inspired by old English boarding schools and Ivy League universities.

Once again, it seems algorithmic thinking has paid off. Wednesday might not be the most original idea or even the most innovative adaptation, but it has all the ingredients of a Netflix success story: a big name (Tim Burton), attached to a well-known property (Addams Family), executed with a buzzy star at its center. (In this case, Jenna Ortega.)

None of this is Wednesday’s (or Wednesday’s) fault. It’s a perfectly enjoyable show with CW-but-slightly-more-expensive vibes, and Ortega is an undeniable star.

We have production studios measuring popularity based not on the actual number of people watching but on how long they’re able to hold someone’s—anyone’s—attention.

In the words of Wednesday herself, “What kind of dystopian hellscape is this?”