Tamal Kundu
Netflix’s ‘Wednesday’ takes the audience back to the world of the ‘Addams Family,’ a sprawling franchise that originally started from the works of American cartoonist Charles Addams. As the years passed and the characters were depicted in other media, they were fleshed out, and additional traits were added or omitted. And that tradition has continued in the Netflix series, which primarily focuses on only one of the members of the family: Wednesday (Jenna Ortega).
As Wednesday begins attending Nevermore Academy, a boarding school for people with special abilities, she meets Enid Sinclair (Emma Myers), a girl who couldn’t be more different from her. Their initial hostility soon gives way to a deep bond of friendship. There even seems to be hints indicating something more. If that has made you wonder whether Wednesday is gay or bisexual, here is what we think. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Does Wednesday Like Girls?
In Charles Addams’ original cartoons, the characters are satirical representations of what an ideal 20th-century wealthy elite American family should look like. Even their penchant for macabre doesn’t seem too out of place.
Netflix’s ‘Wednesday’ is set in the 21st century, when expectations and sensibilities are quite different. Even before the show came out, the promotional materials made the fans wonder whether there would be a same-sex relationship for Wednesday in the series. So, there was much disappointment after the season 1 premiere because of the absence of any overt Sapphic romance for the character.
Despite this, the dynamic between Wednesday and Enid can be construed as a subtle beginning of a relationship, as if the makers of the show are testing the waters. Enid is the virtual antithesis of Wednesday. She is sunshine and rainbows to Wednesday’s black-and-white disposition, bubbly and sweet to the other girl’s morbid tendencies. At first, their differences are reflected in their relationship, which is extremely antagonistic. But as the series progresses, these two young women grow close as Wednesday learns that there will be people who can genuinely care about you.
There are aspects about Enid as a character that make it seem like she might be gay coded. For instance, her initial inability to “wolf out” or turn into a werewolf can be viewed as a metaphor for her struggles to embrace her sexual orientation. And then, there is the fact that her mother tries to send her to a conversion therapy equivalent for werewolves.
In the show, Wednesday and Enid each has two male romantic interests, and they both seem to be drawn toward at least one of them. For Wednesday, it’s Tyler, though it is later shown that he is the monster that has been killing people. As for Enid, it’s Ajax, the dorky, lovable gorgon. However, that doesn’t mean that things will remain the same in the prospective future seasons. Wednesday is an iconic character with a pop culture footprint reaching back decades. Even if we consider the Netflix show as just an interpretation, people tend to have strong opinions about these things, so the creators probably thought that it would be better to see how the viewers respond to the subtle before it becomes overt.
Netflix has faced some accusations of queerbaiting from the fans because they hosted an event called “WednesGay” a few weeks before the release of the series. Now, we can approach this cynically and see it as a marketing ploy, which it obviously was. But that doesn’t mean it can’t also be a way for the network to enunciate one of the underlying themes of the show.
In an interview with Elite Daily, Myers reflected on the fans wanting a relationship between her character and Wednesday. “You know what I always say: And they were roommates,” Myers stated. “Jenna and I would say that all the time to each other. And that’s all that needs to be said — I think that gets the message across.”
The “roommate” part of the comment is a reference to a popular meme about mistakenly identifying same-sex relationships as just being friends or roommates. Clearly, the actors, like the fans, see some potential there. It will be interesting to see whether this is explored in future seasons.
Read More: Is Wednesday Addams Autistic? Theories
