ROCK X GOTH X JASON TODD

The first is that women murder almost always kill for revenge or recompense.

The second is that men murder to rape.

Women will poison, smother, or trap their victims.

Men brutalise, rape, and mangle their victims.

Women often evade arrest for decades because of the care put into their crimes.

Men are typically arrested and charged within weeks or months because they were sloppy

Women rarely kill for pleasure.

Men almost always kill in chase of sexual pleasure that would be otherwise denied to them.

As a young woman I treat true crime podcasts like survival manuals. Young men likely use them as fetish.

It’s the inclusion of Storm. (Storm? Pretty sure that’s Storm.) And in a way where, yes, representation saves lives.

See, here’s a weird medical fact: black women are more likely to get breast cancer and nobody knows why. It’s a medical mystery. Now, I want you to do a fun exercise: tell me the last time you saw a breast cancer awareness campaign that included black women. Go on, I’ll wait. Speaking as someone active with the cause whose aunt is even more active with the cause, here’s my answer: In eight years of working for awareness across four states, I have never seen a single black woman in any breast cancer campaign. Ever.

Black women are also more likely to die of breast cancer because they’re less likely to catch it early. That’s not genetics, that’s math. The sooner you begin treatment, the better your prognosis. Black women are less likely to know how to do self-exams and because of the socioeconomic divide, less likely to see an OB/GYN annually. And they’re ignored by awareness campaigns.

The comedy in the show came from the family’s “odd” lifestyle, rather than from infighting and petty bickering, or worse, as was common on other shows of the time, thinly veiled references to spousal abuse. They didn’t make fun of each other or act like their children were creatures from another world. Were they strange and outside of social norms? Yes. Were they united in creating a loving home and being good, supportive parents? Absolutely.

These two support and adore their children, care for an aging mother and an estranged brother, put family before everything, and they love each other, wholly, fiercely, without reserve. They are every bit as much in love after at least a decade of marriage as they were the day they met.

It’s nobody’s surprise that many of the aesthetic and thematic elements of The Addams Family in its various incarnations are influenced by Gothic tradition (not goth, that mostly came later. And not Goth, that was much much much too early), and I think Gomez’s words are a dead bullseye in terms of Gothic mentality.

“Make her feel like she’s the most sublime creature on earth”

The sublime is a recurring theme throughout Gothic literature. Although the word (like “awesome”) has lost a lot of it’s original luster over the intervening decades, sublime doesn’t really mean elevated and lofty (or even heavenly) as it’s often used today, but rather something possessing the power and grandeur to induce awe and veneration in the mind of the beholder. Although less than divine, something sublime possessed a wildness and power that transcended human ability to control…or even to comprehend.

Sublime is standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon leaning as far as you dare over the railing and still not being able to see the canyon floor below. Sublime is warrior-queen Galadriel being tempted by the One Ring. Sublime is waking up in the middle of the night in the heart of a wild thunderstorm.

“Make her feel like she’s the most sublime creature on earth”

Gomez isn’t advising Fester to treat a woman he fancies like a princess, or even elevate her to pedestal of angelic nature (who’s idea was it to equate femininity with purity anyway? What a laughable and historically damaging idea. Shame on whatever dead (probably) white dudes promoted that!)

Gomez is advising Fester that if he truly loves a woman he must do everything he can to remind her of how she’s an untameable force of nature who’s grandeur brings him to his knees in awe and terror. Just like Morticia, for Gomez.

I’ll sign off with one of my most favorite quotes of all time, because it feels suddenly very relevant:

“When I find myself surrounded by so much beauty, I feel as if I am the eye of a hurricane.”