How The Addams Family Changed the Roles of Light and Darkness

"They're creepy and they're kooky
Mysterious and spooky
They're altogether ooky
The Addams Family!"

Figure 1 - an Addams Family comic

No one, I argue, has had a greater impact on the tropes of light and dark in media than The Addams Family: the resident ghouls of Central Park. First the subject of many New Yorker cartoons, then the cast of many tv shows and movie remakes, The Addams family has become a household name for generations. They are known for their love of the macabre and all things weird, and have left a significant mark on American pop culture.

I believe that the reason The Addams Family was so successful is because there had never been anything quite like it before. A wealthy goth family that delights in the unusual and doesn't care what anybody else thinks? Count me in! Seriously though, this family was the first to challenge the roles of light and dark in media (more specifically the concepts of light and dark), and they made it fun as they did it.

Figure 2 

Figure 3

The Addams family is a satirical inversion of the ideal 20th century family. Whereas families of the time strove to be the perfect picture of the American Dream, the Addams family lived the way they wanted to: in a spooky, decrepit gothic mansion, dressed in all black and enjoying the strange activities they wanted to. They are fascinated by the idea of death, and typically negative feelings or topics are their happiness, as supported by Fig. 2. The matriarch of the family's name is Morticia, for goodness' sake!

In The Addams Family musical, Wednesday goes through a rebellious phase during which she wants to date a nice, normal boy. She sings a song called  "Pulled," and she sings about all the happy things she wants to experience:

"Puppy dogs with droopy faces,
Unicorns with dancing mice,
Sunrise in wide open spaces,
DisneyWorld - I'll go there twice!
Butterflies and picnic lunches,
Bunches of chrysanthamums,
Lollipops and pillow fights and christmas eve,
Sugar plums!
String quartets and Chia Pets,
And afternoon banana splits,
Angels watching as I sleep,
And Liberace's Greatest Hits!"


These are normally fun and happy things! They are widely accepted as things that will put a smile on your face. However, in the Addams' world, they are Wednesday's act of resistance, which every teenage girl goes through at some point in her life. Everything about the Addams is the opposite of the stereotypical American family, and that's why they're so loveable. Why, even Morticia and Gomez's relationship is a perfect model of how a healthy relationship should function. While husbands make all those "ball-and-chain" jokes and wives complain about how annoying their husbands are, Morticia and Gomez couldn't be more in love.

Figure 4 - Wednesday Addams

Figure 5 - family history

The humor comes from how healthy they are as a family even though their behaviors are unusual. Morticia and Gomez have a happy relationship, and they support their children through all their endeavors. Family comes first, and they are a surprisingly principled family (Fig. 5). While light and darkness are physically present in every iteration of The Addams Family, I think the concepts of light and darkness are more relevant. Everything dark and macabre is good, and the normal, light stuff is unusual. As Morticia says in Addams Family Values, "I'm just like any modern woman trying to have it all. Loving husband, a family. It's just, I wish I had more time to seek out the dark forces and join their hellish crusade." This is a casual statement! Figures 4 and 5 are other hilarious examples of dark and funny one-liners that make the Addams family so unique. They took all of Hollywood's preconceived notions of light and dark and flipped them completely.

Even the 2019 movie The Addams Family feels very Burtonesque. The misfits who live in the creepy gothic manor amid the pastel town called "Assimilation" — yeah that's actually what it's called. In my opinion, this movie was a rebrand of Edward Scissorhands but with the Addams family in order to introduce this generation to the classic creepy family. The premise is incredibly similar! Although, that's not going to stop me from watching it the next time I need something in the background while I clean my room.