Most watched in 80 countries... Why did the "Wednesday" series attract the attention of millions around the world?

Over the course of more than four weeks since it began broadcasting on the twenty-third of last November and until the time of this writing, the first season of “WEDNESDAY” still ranks first in the list of the most watched series on the “Netflix” network, And this is after setting a record in the first week of its broadcast, recording more than 341 million watch hours, and occupying the first place in the viewing lists in more than 80 countries around the world, despite its presentation coinciding with the 2022 World Cup held in Qatar.

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The matter was not limited to the numbers of views only, on various social media platforms it seemed as if "Wednesday" fever had affected everyone, and millions of videos appeared on the TikTok platform of people simulating the famous dance performed by the heroine of the series, and pictures of girls dressed up in elegant black clothes spread on Instagram. Dark makeup and two braids of black hair, inspired by the "gothic" world of the series.

Adams family

This Gothic world appeared for the first time in 1938 by the famous cartoonist Charles Adams, who presented the Addams family on the pages of "The New Yorker" magazine for 50 years, and in September 1964 the first TV series inspired by Charles Adams' drawings appeared, so that the characters in the story bear names for the first time. The first.

Since then, the family has appeared in a large number of films, series, cartoons, musicals, and even video games, the latest of which is the character "Wednesday", the eldest daughter of the Adams family, which was revived by "Netflix" in a series bearing the imprint of famous director Tim Burton.

Across eight action-packed episodes, the series follows the eldest daughter of the Addams family, Wednesday, as she becomes an independent, eccentric, and dark-tempered teen who is enrolled at Never More Academy, the same academy that her parents, Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones), attended. and Gomez (Luis Guzman), in the hope that Wednesday will be able to engage and integrate into the community of students (outcasts) as the series called them of werewolves, vampires, gorgons, and other supernatural abilities, managed by Principal Larissa Weems (Gwendolyn Christie).

But contrary to expectations, Wednesday manages to maintain her isolation even among the outcasts, despite the constant attempts of her roommate Enid, who represents a sharp contrast to Wednesday's personality with her cheerful spirit, cheerful colors, and excessive emotions.

Soon, Wednesday becomes embroiled in trying to solve a mysterious murder of a schoolboy, and engages with many complex mysteries revealed by mysterious events and visions that haunt Wednesday that she cannot control, to face many intertwining questions about her family history, the history of the academy and the town, and the relationship An ancestor of Craxton Wednesday, Judy Adams, is one of the town's racist founders.

Throughout the episodes, various clues are revealed that cast suspicion on everyone from Wednesday's classmates to the psychiatrist she is forced to visit.

Consolation for the out of the herd

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The Addams family, with its gothic mood and dark sense of humor, has always been one of the most famous families in American pop culture, but the exceptional success of the "Netflix" version makes us wonder about the secret behind it.

Perhaps one of the reasons is the exceptional performance of Gina Ortega, the character of Wednesday. Despite her selfishness and cruelty, we cannot ignore that what really drives her is the pursuit of the truth, and her attempt to achieve a kind of justice and poetic revenge.

Despite her family unlike any other, her magical abilities and mystical visions, we cannot deny that Wednesday reflects on screen the feelings of those who feel alienated among others, who cannot belong, rebels against the herd and out of the ordinary, and struggle to break out of the mantle of the family in order to become independent. with their personalities.

The character flirts with the feelings of those who are attracted by ideas different from their peers, who are unable to belong to groups, Wednesday offers solace and comfort, and satisfies our need to see a strong, independent girl who enjoys her own eccentricity without worrying about the judgment of others, and refuses to change in order to please them, but is On the contrary, she enjoys annoying others, declaring her strangeness and aloofness, and at the same time giving us the courage to announce ourselves and our different opinions without worry.

Imprint Tim Burton

As usual, Burton triumphs in his work for the outcasts and eccentrics, and he mentioned in one of the interviews that he was able to easily sympathize with the character Wednesday, who represented for him the "absolute outcast"> (Getty Images)

We also cannot ignore the influence brought by Tim Burton's name, which is a sufficient guarantee to attract many fans of his work to watch the series, after he managed to engrave his name as one of the most important film and fantasy directors through a group of timeless iconic works throughout his long career, despite marketing the series on "Netflix". As directed by Tim Burton, he directed only half of the episodes (four out of eight episodes), while the remaining four episodes were shared by Janja Montero and James Marshall, but Tim Burton's imprint remains clear on the entire series.

As usual, Burton triumphs in his work for outcasts and eccentrics, and he mentioned in one of the interviews that he was able to easily sympathize with the character Wednesday, who represented for him the "absolute outcast."

As a kid who used to play in the graveyard next to his house, and loved watching horror movies, Burton was able to sense this shared space with Wednesday, and he was able to bring the character to the screen, as well as the Gothic architecture that Burton loves that dominates Never More Academy.

The "cliché" of the foolish teen

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Here we also have a distinctive mixture of "cliches" that usually appear in works of art that deal with the teenage period, or what we can call "high school drama".

We have the friendships, the competitive romances, the lonely geeky science geek or nerd (Eugene), we have the egotistical high school student with a loyal following (Bianca).

We also have a small town involved in murders, and a mysterious mayor suspected of abusing his power. The series also exploits various classic metaphors for this type of drama to develop events and get to know the characters, so we see the tour that Enid offers for Wednesday, and through it we get to know the groups or “paralysis” in the school.

There is also an important sporting event on the basis of which the balance of power changes, and immediately reminds us of the Quidditch tournaments in the Harry Potter series.

We also have a school dance, a secret sorority of students, and even sparks of crush, love and jealousy between Wednesday and her classmate Xavier and the town sheriff's son Taylor, as they both fall in love with her.

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In addition, the features of teenage drama carried the series to a different area from all previous works that dealt with the Adams family. On the one hand, it follows the daughter Wednesday in adolescence, not childhood, exploring the dimensions of her personality and development while the family recedes into the background, and the rest of its members appear only in a few few scenes. .

On the other hand, the series has surrounded Wednesday with a community of eccentrics and supernatural abilities, so that ordinary people here appear as if they are the intruders to its world, and even discover over time that they are the source of danger.

While almost all previous works relied on the paradoxes resulting from the existence of the Addams family as strangers in a world where there are only ordinary people.

Thus, despite the fact that it bears the usual features of teenage drama, the characters were presented within the framework of a distinctive dramatic structure that allows them to develop and grow, and allows different areas of feelings to emerge.

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And the directing team succeeded in selecting and managing the actors, so that we can see some of them perform exceptionally, led by Gwendolyn Christie, who played the role of the school principal, and Christina Ricci, who played the role of Marilyn Thornhill, the supportive teacher and the only ordinary person in the school community, who then turned out to be more than just an ordinary person. .

The funny thing is that Christina Ricci previously played the role of Wednesday in her childhood in the movie "The Addams Family", which was shown in 1991, and achieved great success to become a distinguished mark in the course of the development of the personality of Wednesday in the following works that dealt with the family, and in addition to her distinguished performance of her role here, her presence appeared in The series is as if handing over the character's banner to Gina Ortega.

Get out of the family mantle

Bianca is also a model for the teenager rebelling against her mother's life and the being she inherited from her.

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And speaking of adolescence, we have seen many variations in the series about the complexities of children's relationship with parents during adolescence.

Since the first episode, we have seen the features of the turbulent and complex relationship between Wednesday and her mother, Morticia, a sensual, sexy woman who exudes self-confidence, in contrast to her introverted, independent daughter, who is striving to escape from living in her mother's shadow.

Bianca is also a model for the teenager rebelling against her mother's life and her being inherited from her, as she refuses to exploit her supernatural abilities in illegal ways as her mother does, and tries to create a new and different identity for herself.

Enid also, despite her delicacy and apparent fragility, suffers from a strained relationship with her mother as a result of her constant criticism, and her vision of her daughter as a huge disappointment due to her different nature.

Meanwhile, Enid suffers from her father's complete withdrawal, so that when he visits her, he only utters one phrase.

In turn, we see how Laurel inherits the heavy burden of her family, a burden not only of avenging her family and her brother but also of her ancestors over many centuries.

We also have Taylor's relationship with his father, his mother's mysterious absence, and Xavier's relationship with his rich, famous, and absent father.

However, unlike the female characters, the series did not deepen the lines of the paternal relationship of the latter two, and chose for them to be preoccupied only with the love triangle in which they fell with Wednesday.

The next fashion trend

The costumes for "Wednesday" were designed by Colleen Atwood, one of Hollywood's most famous fashion designers, who has previously won four Oscars.

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It's no wonder, then, that the show's success went beyond high viewership ratings to actually affecting the lives of teens.

A quick search on social media will reveal how she transformed Wednesday's look into a fashion icon, and you'll find millions of photos of people trying to emulate her signature black look.

This becomes more justified when we know that the costumes of the series came with the signature of Colleen Atwood, one of the most famous fashion designers in Hollywood, and she had previously won four Oscars, and was nominated for dozens of other awards. She also worked for a long time with Tim Burton, and perhaps her most famous work was the costumes in Burton's famous movie Weeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Coleen Atwood has managed to bring her unique style to the world of the series.

The first episode begins with Wednesday in her usual iconic appearance in the black uniform with a white collar, then the distinctive costumes follow, perhaps the most prominent of which is her iconic appearance at the ceremony, with her elegant gothic dress, as well as her school uniform, for which she chose the black color to remain unique among her classmates who wear a uniform in purple, because Wednesday as we shall know has the strangest allergy imaginable, an allergy to colors!

Every detail here is well taken care of, despite the black color dominating the main character's clothes, the fashion designer was able to present a very elegant visual image, whether in Wednesday's clothes, her hairstyle that took place in the framework of the two braids, or the updo in the party scene, as well Wonderful shoes.

The Wednesday look quickly became very popular among teenagers, and we saw many attempts to imitate it on various social media platforms.

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The clothes of the rest of the characters were also distinguished, perhaps the most prominent of which is Enid with her colorful, cheerful clothes, and the elegance of the school principal, which highlights the features of her strong and resolute personality as it reminds us of the mysterious character of the heroines of Hitchcock films, as well as Marilyn Thornhill's elegant clothes, and her red shoes with a neck that played an important role in solving the mystery of the series.

Music and dance

After the eye-catching outfits, Danny Elfman's iconic soundtrack will definitely stick in your ear after hearing it for the first time.

The name Elfman has been associated with working with Tim Burton in various works, among the most famous of which is "Batman Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas".

Other popular musical pieces also tickle our ears. In the opening episode, French singer Edith Piaf's "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" is the perfect way to make a sharp entrance to Wednesday with her group of piranhas.

The show also brought back memories of "Goo Goo Muck" in the famous boogie scene, and Wednesday played The Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black" on violin, among other iconic songs.

Certainly here we have to talk about the most famous scene of all, although it took less than three minutes of the series' time, it is the Wednesday dance scene in episode four, which has become one of the most important trends on the TikTok platform.

Millions have re-introduced the Wednesday dance moves, including many celebrities who have presented their own versions of them, the most famous of which are Kim Kardashian, Beyoncé and others.

The popularity of the song also exploded after the famous singer Lady Gaga simulated the appearance of Wednesday and performed her dance moves to the tune of her famous song "Bloody Mary", to bring it back to mind again more than a decade after its release. (3)

In this song, the unconventional dance performance shows Wednesday's firm belief in ignoring the social norms that restrict her peers on the dance floor, and highlights her sense of liberation and self-confidence.

Ortega admits that she choreographed the dance herself, without relying on a choreographer or dance instructor, drawing from both Bob Fosse, theatrical choreographer, and the gothic dance clubs of the 1980s, as well as some influences from the Addams Family television series. In the sixties.

That's one of the secrets to the dance's success, according to Gina Darentin, associate professor of marketing at Loyola University Chicago, who studies how users of TikTok and other digital platforms express their identities.

Ortega's admission that she is not a good dancer made the dance more attractive to her followers, as it seemed spontaneous and free from tradition without any fabrication.

Gina Darentine also refers to the success of popular dances as a passport to belonging to the group, as a common ritual among group members that enhances their sense of belonging, solidarity and the existence of a common experience, and reminds us of the Macarena dance, for example, as one of the most famous popular dances.

If we browse through the videos, we will be amazed at how millions of people have managed to give their own style to the dance, integrating it with their local music and diverse cultural heritage, and although the imitation of TikTok clips and imitating the dances reinforces the pressure of repetition, Wednesday still reminds us to be natural and different, even when we try to imitate her dance.

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Falling in love with a severed palm

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Well, let's finish our tour with Thing, the disembodied palm that accompanies Wednesday from place to place and helps her carry out her plans.

And “Netflix” revealed that the actor behind the animation of the character is Victor Dorobanto, who wore a blue suit from head to toe except for his intended palm, and the animation task was divided between him and the visual effects department.

In the end, the series was able to address a large number of age groups, so if you were born in the eighties, who approached or exceeded the age of forty, then you are familiar with the characters of the Addams family, and you may be eager to see them again, and if you belong to the current generation, you will certainly find what Pulls you into a series aimed primarily at teens with a Tim Burton imprint, and an unforgettable performance that pats all the out-of-scripts on the shoulders fleeing the herd.

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