January 20th, 2023

Netflix’s Wednesday is the most recent addition to an expanding lineage of Addams Family media, beginning with Charles Addams’s 1938 comics. The series shot rapidly to record-breaking viewership, landing a spot as the fifth-most-watched show in Netflix’s history, and has also flourished on social media. One question has emerged among the series’ growing audience: is Wednesday Addams autistic-coded?

 

Autism Coding

For those unfamiliar, the term ‘autism-coding’ is used to describe fictional characters who do not canonically have Autism Spectrum Disorder, but who are written in ways that are similar or seem to imply it. These characters often show recognisable traits of autism. They may not understand the social cues around them; they may move strangely or make repetitive movements; they may be, to whatever extent, unemotive; they may have areas of special interest or expertise. The term ‘neurodivergent-coded’ functions in the same way, but with a wider range of conditions (or ‘neurotypes’), including ADHD, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, dyslexia, among many others.

 

Autism Coding in Wednesday

So, is there a basis to the claim that Wednesday Addams is written as autistic-coded in Wednesday? As an autistic person, I would say yes. Throughout the series, she speaks in a monotone, with little to no facial or body expression. She hyperfixates on the mysteries she finds around her, putting all of her thought and energy into solving them at any cost. She is also highly interested about, and knowledgeable regarding, death and all things morbid, which reads as what the autistic community calls a ‘special interest.’ Wednesday avoids physical contact and has strict needs and preferences in terms of her clothing and environment, reminiscent of sensory issues. She doesn’t engage in social norms, either by choice or due to an inability to do so. When accused of emotional manipulation by an inadvertant romantic interest, she tells him, “It’s not my fault I can’t interpret your emotional Morse code.” It’s also implied that Wednesday struggles with processing and acknowledging her own emotions, as she spends an hour each day writing a novel about a character who goes through very similar things to what Wednesday herself is experiencing and reacting to in her real life; when asked to open up, she often finds it easier to explain how her character is thinking and feeling than to talk about herself.

 

All of these traits and behaviours are common in autism. Things like special interests, hyperfixations, and difficulty with social norms are actually diagnostic criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder. I would say the case for calling Wednesday autistic-coded very strong.

 

The Other Side

On the other side of the disagreement over Wednesday’s autism-coding, some people claim that “that’s just Wednesday,” or that “the Addams family is just weird.” They’re not entirely wrong, but with that, I would also go so far as to suggest that the entire Addams family is inherently neurodivergent-coded by their very natures, and always has been. 

 

The Addams Family

The Addams family was created as an anti-family in 1938. They were the opposite to the normal, accepted American family of the time, preferring darkness and the macabre to the norms and rules of mainstream society. They embraced and encouraged individuality in a society that demanded assimilation and sameness. Eventually, their own relationships to each other became a subversion of staple tropes, such as the classic sitcom spouses who resent and distrust each other: Gomez and Morticia’s unabashed, passionate love for each other is a constant in Addams family media. The whole point of the Addams family is that they are abnormal and antithetical to the rest of the world around them. In a society built by and for neurotypical people, is it so unlikely that the anti-family is also the opposite of neurotypical?

 

While Wednesday is the most ‘classically’ or stereotypically autistic-coded of her family, the other members are also neurodivergent-coded. Gomez, especially in the 1990s movies, is constantly moving, displaying the short attention span, stimulation-seeking, and hyperactivity associated with ADHD; rather than engage in small-talk, he starts conversations with sword fighting, calls most of the people he talks to ‘old man,’ and seems entirely unaware of social subtext, more potentially autistic traits. Morticia is far more aware of social cues, but she still comes across as neurodivergent, with a special interest in keeping and breeding carnivorous plants, and a flat affect and general lack of outward emotional expression. Pugsley and Fester, while less explored as characters, also show neurodiverse traits. 

 

It’s true that the Addams family is most likely not written intentionally as neurodiverse, either in their original iteration or now. Within their fictional world, they are intended to be simply different from everyone around them. However, from an outside perspective, their fundamental differences read very clearly as neurodiversity, and that’s not a bad thing. Whether intentional or not, good neurodiverse representation is rare in media, and while in the future, hopefully, more characters will be written intentionally and respectfully as neurodiverse, in the meantime, I consider the Addams family – and Wednesday – some of the best representation in mainstream media.

 

By Della Slater

Categories: Pop Culture