Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
The Addams Family renting out rooms in their huge mansion cheaply to broke college students.
The students digging it because the craziness and the bugs are pretty much the same as any other dorm house. Also, Morticia and Gomez treat them all like visiting cousins, not like tenants to abuse and exploit.
One of the tenants is a creative writing major and Gomez and Morticia house them up in the tower because of the quiet and the inspiring view
They’re supposed to be working on a typical coming-of-age story but after living with the Addams for just a week the project is becoming a horror-Gothic-romance
They go to their room after classes one day and find Thing correcting the grammar errors in the manuscript with a red pen
and yeah, the students pay roughly market value for their rooms, but that doesn’t stop gomez from shouting “capital idea!” and handing them wads of cash when they tell him about their weekend plans or what they’re researching, so they basically end up living there for free
In the same vein, half the them have to turn into exceptional fencers, because Gomez just doesn’t give a shit, and if he sees you in the library, its fucking Sword Fighting Time.
Fester and Pugsley find out one of the college students is trying to get into chemistry and woo boy, there has never been a faster study of how to counter various acidic chemical reactions due to “water” balloons in campus history.
Morticia and Grammy are keeping the horticulturalists on their toes with their Black Tulip/Rose hybrids, which can flick their barbs a foot away from their stem system. But it’s fine, one of the kids has managed to breed Aloe with the anti venom.
Lurch makes sandwiches for everyone who’s too much of a coward for Grammy’s cooking. Any music major will find him looming over them, utterly stone faced as they practise until they finish, when he’ll smile, and slowly applaud.
And the spookiest thing of all
Wednesday and Thing will find your thesis. They will critique it in every way imaginable.
I especially love the idea of Gomez spotting a student in the library, throwing a sword at a startled student, shouting, “En garde!” and lunging at him/her with a sword of his own.
Student (later in life), when asked how she jumps from quietly doing research to handling a sudden influx of ER cases so quickly and easily, says, “When you have to snap out of deep concentration on biochem to fight for your life then get back to biochem without losing your train of thought…you learn or you die.”
hey since the wednesday show is popular now it is astronomically important to me that all of you see this clip from the original addams family tv show pilot
I have the series on disc and absolutely recommended y'all watch it. The Addams Family is such a fantastic series!
The thing that cracks me up about the Addams Family is that they literally live in their own family cemetery, but no one ever asks the most important question: what the fuck kills an Addams?
Like, they literally have cartoon invulnerability. They intentionally put themselves through physical torture, electrocution, falling from ridiculous heights, etcetera, and they always come out completely unscathed. In the movies, they’re actually shown giving the baby a mixture that includes raw egg and vodka, among other things, for regular feedings, which, if you need to be told is bad then you ought to have your parenting license revoked.
So, how do all of the graves get there? What horrid fate could possibly KILL an Addams? The world may never know.
so is thing from the addams family the ghost of someone whose hand got cut off, or a hand-shaped monster?
oh i know the actual explanation to this! so if you look through the original charles addams cartoons, pretty soon you’ll find a random guy in the background, just watching the family
so originally that was thing, he was just like a guy that nobody interacted with or acknowledged.
but when the 60s show was trying to adapt things, they figured since you already don’t see much of the thing, why not see even less of him, and have him just be a hand that can pop out of boxes, now they don’t need to have another regular cast member, they can just get ted cassidy to do it. but the implication was supposed to be that there was more of the thing you just weren’t seeing.
anyways then the whole disembodied hand thing became very recognizable, so by the time the 90s movies rolled around thing was known not for being a guy we see only the hands of, but a guy who is only a hand
so technically there was originally more of the thing that he was connected to and later removed from, but i think in later media they just go with the idea that he was always a hand
on another note, watched The Mummy (1999) the other day and I couldn’t help feel like the O’Connells and the Addams (Addams Family Values (1993) would get on really well ya know? The O’Connells are basically the pastel adventure version of the Addams, surely they would just be vibin’ over tea and crumpets in an extremely haunted mansion having a ball of a time
Morticia: “So what is it you do for a living my dear?”
Evelyn: “We dig up dead people who often have monstrous curses placed on them!”
Morticia: “fascinating”
Gomez: *leaping out from behind a pillar which is encrusted with ominous looking runes* en garde!
Rick: *grabs sword from equally ominous looking wall full of weapons one of which seems to be glowing* fantastic I was getting a bit rusty
Gomez: *nearly in tears* oh he’s screaming nonsensically, what spirit! what reslove!
*Rick and Gomez, still frantically sword fighting*
Rick: Have I mentioned how wonderful my wife is yet, I really feel like I haven’t really expanded enough on how wonderful she is
Gomez: do go on, I would be delighted to hear about how wonderful your wife is, I strongly encourge all men to extoll the virtues of their wives with rapturous praise, however I should perhaps mention my wife is in fact better
*sword fighting intensifies as both men rapturously extoll the virtues of their wives*
Jonathan and Fester and Cousin Itt watch from the bar, where Lurch and Thing are making the drinks.
Jonathan and Thing knew one another from The War; each thought the other to be dead
Gomez gives out better relationship advice than like 90% of dudes.
Gomez Addams is a suave motherfucker who loves his wife more than his own life.
Everyone should want a Gomez. He’s p cool.
Gomez and Morticia Addams actually have a very loving and extremely healthy relationship, both in the old TV show and in the more recent movies. They were also one of the first television couples to be shown to have an active (albeit offscreen) sex life. Their frank attitude towards sexuality was shocking in its’ time, but their relationship and their family dynamic is actually more functional and more…dare I say it…sane than most families portrayed on TV.
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.
Relationship goals. LIFE goals.
Just remembered in the second movie when their third child became “normal” for a period and although they were shocked and didn’t know how to handle it, they didn’t mistreat the child or love it any less. They accepted the difference, even though it was hard for them.
Reblogged for truth.
❤️❤️❤️
Posts about Gomez and Morticia Addams are almost always uplifting and I’m happy to have them on my dash, but I think my favorite bit about this conversation is what Gomez is actually saying to Fester.
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.”
The depiction of BDSM in popular films suffered a blow from which it will not easily recover with the release of Fifty Shades of Gray. While it was unfortunately many people’s introduction to the topic, bloggers from all corners of the internet have derided the relationship pictured in Fifty Shades for what it really is: abuse masquerading as kink. But twenty-four years ago, a family comedy centered on a couple who liked to torture each other for pleasure gave audiences a much healthier glimpse at BDSM.
Netflix describes the movie as “Stepping out of the pages of Charles Addams’ cartoons and the 1960s television series, members of the beloved, macabre family take it to the big screen.” Some scenes from the 1991 film The Addams Family are indeed straight out of the Charles Addams comic on which it’s based, like when the family douses a group of Christmas carolers with a cauldron full of steaming liquid. Others — like Morticia trimming the heads off of roses to arrange the stems in a vase — are exact recreations of the ‘60s TV series.
But what separates the film from the Family’s earlier iterations (besides, you know, colour) is the reciprocal nature of Gomez and Morticia’s relationship. The tired and offensive trope of an uninterested woman pursued by a lascivious man has appeared over and over again since the advent of television, and though Gomez and Morticia always exhibited a love and respect for each other stronger than nearly all TV couples, even the ‘60s version of Morticia had to rein Gomez in from time to time. Obviously this has a lot to do with the media mores of the time… but unfortunately, those sentiments still prevail today. And that’s why the The Addams Family film is so unique in its depiction of relationships.
The Addams’ lawyer Tully and his wife Margaret exemplify a sadly more familiar and cynical marriage: two people who ostensibly can’t stand each other but feel forced to stay together. The loathing is definitely mutual: when Margaret asks rhetorically, “Why did I marry you?” Tully responds, “Because I said yes!” The “unhappily married” cliché exists to varying degrees in most American media, to the point where Gomez and Morticia’s contrasting relationship is noteworthy.
The Addams constantly become enrapt with each other, getting sidetracked by each other’s allure, recalling their first meeting fondly, waltzing presumably numerous times a day. Morticia’s first lines of the movie, as the ever-present ghostly light with seemingly no source illuminates her eyes, describe Gomez’s sexual behaviour the night before: “Last night you were unhinged. You were like some desperate howling demon. You frightened me.” The camera zooms closer while she adds: “Do it again.” That’s right: the very first lines between the couple aren’t just a rare example of a man and woman who have been married for some time who can actually stand to be around each other. These lines, and the couple themselves, are an example of consensual BDSM.
The passion between the two has been famous since the television show, and the movie does an excellent job highlighting it as well. But unlike the ‘60s television show, Morticia seems as willing as Gomez to derail the conversation and submit to whatever distracting passion arises. The famous “Tish, that’s French!” lines are not, in the film, an example of Gomez’s passionate obsession with Morticia while she sighs and shakes her head happily. Morticia is an active participant and instigator when it comes to their conversation-stopping carrying-on. She’s just as happy as he is to make the others, and the audience, wait for the action to move forward, while they engage in behaviour more suited in media to new, young love than to a mom and dad.
Morticia takes it upon herself to confront Fester and initiate the film’s climax. The villains overpower her instead of listening to her, and strap her to a rack to torture her so that she’ll tell where the Addams family vault is hidden. Of course, following in the Too Kinky to Torture trope, Morticia isn’t phased by the stretching (she famously referred to the torture room as “the playroom” in the ‘60s TV series). Fester, however, is extremely anxious about hurting Morticia. The whole reason she allowed herself to be put in this “predicament” that for her is regular foreplay is so that Fester’s resolve would be weakened even more so against his overbearing and abusive mother. When Gomez turns up to “rescue” her, it’s less that she needed rescuing and more that Gomez needed the thrill and motivation to get out of his Sally-Jessy-Raphael-watching funk and defend his home. In this way, Gomez is more of the damsel in distress than Morticia ever will be. This is also the only time that Morticia dissuades her husband from continuing their flirting. As Gomez is loosening her straps while Fester confronts his mother, he’s clearly distracted:
Instead of scolding him like a typical wife character, Morticia reassures him that there will be time to continue the torture scene.
But what’s even more exciting, for me at least, is when Gomez and Morticia’s mutual attraction and respect is again evident in their kinky sex life. “Don’t torture yourself, Gomez,” Morticia orders: “That’s my job.” This movie doesn’t only offer an example of a loving, respectful BDSM couple — something painfully rare whenever kink is broached in film — but a loving, respectful, switch BDSM couple. That is to say, it seems as though each member of their exquisitely enviable partnership takes turns acting as the dominant and submissive role.
Much has been written in the blogosphere about what a good feminist role model Morticia is, and I agree entirely. But I would like to enthusiastically add that she takes the role of Dominatrix at least some of the time, and that it’s not played for a laugh or to emasculate Gomez. The passion, love, and respect the Addams couple famously has for each other extends to their role-reversing kinky sex life.
More than two decades later, filmmakers could really benefit from taking a page out of The Book of Addams and show us kinky couples who are also consensual, loving, and respectful. Though of course, none will approach the wonder that is her “mon sauvage” and his “cara mia.”
Recent Comments
Lillie W.: Ah Caroline, you understand these things so well… [Link]
I’ve been in love with the Addams family since I was a kid, and the amount of perfect this is, making new points to an old favourite, makes me want to cry. I love it.
Especially of note is the observation that Morticia and Gomez are switches, because I think there’s a general misunderstanding that this is not a thing.
Always Reblog Addamses. And this is but one of the many reasons why.
My wife & I have always seen Morticia & Gomez as the best marriage on screen, BDSM or not… but especially the BDSM.
Morticia and Gomez are truly an iconic couple in modern media. And the love and trust they have for eachother is beautiful.
The Adams family was my fave when I was younger and now, I used to feel really ashamed for not being interested in the sexuality/ portrayal of relationships on tv and didnt understand the appeal I always found Gomez and Motticia’s relationship really comforting because they were so in love. Years later when I got into BDSM and watched it again it was like oh! They’re my absolute OTP :)
