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ASPartOfMe
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15 Dec 2022, 7:00 am

The Addams Family began as a series of cartoons in the New Yorker during the 1930s about a macabre family. A campy version was popularized in the mid 60s via an American sitcom. Two spinoff movies were released in the early 1990s. Netflix has created a series centered around the daughter Wednesday. In her earlier incarnations Wednesday was a child, for this series she is a teenager. The first season has debuted.

As more women than ever are diagnosed with ADHD and autism, here's why neurodivergent characters like Wednesday Addams are so importan

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Debuting on Netflix in November, Wednesday – a spin-off of The Addams Family – has enjoyed huge success. Accumulating 341.23 million hours of viewing time, it quickly overtook the record set by Stranger Things. On TikTok, the hashtag #Wednesday has amassed 20.9 billion views, with fans recreating Jenna Ortega’s iconic dance rehashed to the tune of Bloody Mary by Lady Gaga, sharing fan edits of their favourite characters and channelling Wednesday’s signature black wardrobe. The excitement is palpable.

Wednesday Addams has long been claimed as neurodivergent-coded, specifically autistic-coded: that is, writing or performing a character with several traits common to folks with autism but without confirming it or explicitly discussing it.

In Wednesday Addams, we see a multitude of these symptoms. In the Netflix spin-off, she has a dislike of physical touch, struggles to interpret emotions and social cues, has minimal facial expression, rarely blinks, and appears blunt or monotone to her peers. Notably, she also hyperfixates on solving the mystery of Nevermore Academy’s monster that leaves students and citizens alike dead or hospitalised.

Interestingly, Wednesday only blinks a handful of times during the series, an approach Jenna Ortega curated alongside co-producer Tim Burton. Notably, autistic people often do not synchronise their blinking with pauses in speech. Whilst an allistic person – that is, a person that isn’t autistic – typically would attune themselves to the blinking patterns of others and synchronise their blinking, an autistic person would not. One study published in The National Library of Medicine suggested that this lack of synchronisation – labelled a ‘deficit in temporal coordination’ – can impair effective social communication with others.

People with autism and ADHD alike can struggle with maintaining eye contact, too; ADHDers specifically are likely to either make an excessive amount of eye contact or avoid it entirely, often attributed towards sensory overload. With an intense gaze – or even glare – Wednesday defies these social norms, fitting this pattern unique to neurodivergent people.

Elsewhere, Wednesday is punished by her peers for her perceived inability to interpret emotions. Infamous for her emotional outbursts, her roommate Enid remarks that Wednesday “really sucks” at “cheering people up.” “Why are you crying?”, Wednesday asks of her as she catches her crying on the balcony outside their dorm. “Because I’m upset!”, she snaps back, as though the answer was abundantly obvious.

This is nothing new, either: Christina Ricci’s interpretation of Wednesday in The Addams Family %(1991) and Addams Family Values (1993) was hailed for the same reasons, adored for her macabre sense of humour, her inability to relate to others and her stone-cold facial expressions.

However, whilst these neurodivergent-coded characters do offer solace, there’s a perception that we’re accepted onscreen but rejected in reality. Wednesday is an ode to weirdness; her strange dancing, upfront bluntness, and refusal to adhere to the norm has been embraced by swathes of fans, but neurodivergent people have been quick to point out that this often isn’t the case. “I was called the real life Wednesday Addams my entire childhood as an insult (bc of autism and pale skin from EDS) and now suddenly those same bullies are stanning her”, one TikTok user wrote.

Now, we stand at a point where more women than ever are being diagnosed with conditions like autism and ADHD. In March 2022, NHS statistics revealed a 7.75% increase in stimulants prescribed to treat ADHD specifically between 2021 and 2022. From 2020, it experienced a 12.6% increase. Increasing diagnoses have been attributed towards increasing awareness, with TikTok specifically disseminating crucial information that has enabled undiagnosed people – women in particular – to navigate their symptoms.

It hasn’t always been this way, and we’ve still a long way to go. Women have largely remained undetected on account of medical biases focusing research on men, whilst NHS waiting lists have seen patients waiting up to seven years for a diagnosis.

If all of this teaches us anything, it’s that neurodivergent-coded characters like Wednesday Addams must be embraced. We aren’t just quirky or weird: we’re human beings, and we deserve to be accepted – to be loved – for that.





I will not be able to review the series as I do not subscribe to Netflix. As a 65 year old man I probably would not relate to the character. Netflix seems to really be going full bore into accurate portrayals such as Extraordinary Attorney Woo. This is exciting to see even though I won’t personally see them.


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Touretter
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07 Jan 2023, 10:55 pm

I would say that this is an example of headcanon . Another example of headcanon would be Elsa from the Frozen movies, for example.



ASPartOfMe
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08 Jan 2023, 3:11 am

Touretter wrote:
I would say that this is an example of headcanon . Another example of headcanon would be Elsa from the Frozen movies, for example.

I agree with the youtuber in video one. Once you put your the works out in public people are going to to interpret that work as they please. And that means they will be widely misinterpreted. It happens all the time. That is their right as consumers.

I have noticed a change in attitudes about coding autistic characters. 8 or 9 years ago people were offended by it. At the time only Parenthood labeled their autistic character as being Autistic. Many of the of the directors admitted that they were deliberately not labeling their autistic characters autistic. We believed that they believed that that the words Autism and Aspergers carried stigmas that would hurt ratings. Now so many characters are labeled autistic the insecurity about coded autistic characters have disappeared.

As far as Frozen is concerned what I remember was that many related to ‘Let It Go’ as the the joy in stopping masking and letting your autism out. There was beautiful Autism version of ‘Let It Go’ by a Youtuber named Sarah. Unfortunately that video went to where ever Youtube videos go to die.


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kitesandtrainsandcats
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08 Jan 2023, 6:25 am

Hmm. Wonder how the being coded autism thing works with this scene, which is the sole and only thing I know about the show, and I only know this video because I follow the YouTuber;

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Dec 7, 2022
Listen, I'm enjoying the new Wednesday series, which...genuinely surprised because I am grumpy and don't like things which require a large time investment, but oh BOY that fencing scene made me have FEELINGS ABOUT THINGS.



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Touretter
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14 Jan 2023, 1:17 pm

ASPartOfMe wrote:

As far as Frozen is concerned what I remember was that many related to ‘Let It Go’ as the the joy in stopping masking and letting your autism out. There was beautiful Autism version of ‘Let It Go’ by a Youtuber named Sarah. Unfortunately that video went to where ever Youtube videos go to die.
The YouTuber was Sarah Jill Rush . I found a copy of the lyrics , plus a cover of the song, although I will warn that the acapella cover is not nearly as good as the original , and might even cause distress to those with misophonia. Song lyrics



ASPartOfMe
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15 Jan 2023, 5:05 am

Touretter wrote:
ASPartOfMe wrote:

As far as Frozen is concerned what I remember was that many related to ‘Let It Go’ as the the joy in stopping masking and letting your autism out. There was beautiful Autism version of ‘Let It Go’ by a Youtuber named Sarah. Unfortunately that video went to where ever Youtube videos go to die.
The YouTuber was Sarah Jill Rush . I found a copy of the lyrics , plus a cover of the song, although I will warn that the acapella cover is not nearly as good as the original , and might even cause distress to those with misophonia. Song lyrics


I saw the cover but did not post it because the way it was delivered was grating to me, ruining the power of the lyrics that you thankfully found.


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“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman