How The Addams Family Changes The Political Conversation

So the other day, I saw the newest Addams Family Movie, because hey, I LOVE the Addams Family.

So how was it?

Well, if you’ve ever seen an Addams Family episode or movie, you’ve also seen this one. If you’ve never seen one, it’s great. It has everything that's great about the Addams family, even if the plot is totally predictable and average.

The Addams Family isn’t popular because of its spectacular writing. (and they certainly won't be with this entry either, but they have already scripted for a sequel and started shooting already, which is something unique to horror movies, which often make sequels 2, 3, and 4 back to back before the next one even aired..)

But they are popular.

Do you know why?

Well the goth creepy-cool thing is part of it.

But it’s also because if you look beyond the weirdness, they are the most loving, emotionally healthy family ever shown.

Gomez and Morticia love each other and aren’t afraid to show it.

The parents are highly supportive of their children, even if they don’t approve of what their doing (like wearing pink)

The extended family (grandmother and uncle) live with them, contribute to the household and dote on the children

And aside from a handful of squabbles and minor sibling rivalry everyone always gets along.

The Addams family even reminds their children to be tolerant of others ‘weirdness’.

Charles Addams, the creator of the Addams Family (which started out life as a New Yorker cartoon,) had a very specific reason for creating this family.

And that reason was to change the conversation.

No, he wasn’t trying to get goth (which wasn’t a thing yet in 1938) to be more accepted. His vision ran deeper than that.

He penned the Addams Family in response to the xenophobic politics of the day.

World War 1 had ended a few years ago.

Hitler was already committing hidden atrocities back in Germany, and Communism had taken hold in Russia.

So people were running from their home countries in droves. Some of these refugees ended up here in America.

But the truth is America didn’t like refugees any more then than it does now.

Americans saw foreigners as ‘weird’ and ‘dangerous’. Charles Addams wanted to change that.

Charles Addams once said (and I am paraphrasing) that he created the Addams family to show that people can live their lives in a weird way and be harmless and not bother anyone, but everyone else still gets bothered by them. (That’s literally the plot for every Addams Family everything.)

His goal was to show that beneath the ‘weird’ the values that count are always present.

It was a good message for 1938.

And it’s a good message for 2020.

It’s just one way that adding your story, and message, no matter how ‘odd’ and ‘frivolous’ it seems, forever changes the conversations for future generations.

So why isn’t your book/story out yet?

The world can’t wait forever, and new voices are sorely needed.