The Furious Spinner

I'm home on the couch sick, so I'm watching movies. Addams Family and Addams Family Values. They're so subversive. I loved the TV show when I was a kid. My girlfriend and I used to "play" the Addams Family. I was Gomez, and she was Morticia. I'd kiss her hand and up her arm, talking to her in French, just as Gomez did on TV. (I wish I had a picture of that. Wonder what the other kids thought of this spectacle? I didn’t care. I vaguely remember people laughing, but maybe it was just me laughing!)

This is the first time I've seen the movies. The girl Wednesday and her brother Pugsley are selling lemonade because the family has been kicked out of their home and they have to make money. A little girl comes by in her Girl Scout uniform and demands to know if the lemonade is made from real lemons. Wednesday says, "Yes." The girl says, "I only like all-natural foods and beverages, organically grown, with no preservatives. Are you sure they're real lemons?" Pugsley says, "Yes." The Girl Scout says, "I'll tell you what. I'll buy a cup if you buy a box of my delicious Girl Scout cookies. Do we have a deal?" Wednesday says, "Are they made from real Girl Scouts?"

Priceless.

I love their subversive nature. The Addams Family is the perfect subversion of the middle-class Eisenhower-era nuclear family. (Yes, I know the cartoons appeared in the New Yorker before the Eisenhower era. What can I say? Charles Addams was ahead of his time.) When I used to work in the library, I always shuddered at the popularity of the Sweet Valley High books and their ilk. They seemed so white and blond and the same. Seeing little Wednesday dressed in black—and resisting when the camp counselors try to indoctrinate her by forcing her to watch the Brady Bunch—warms my heart. She’s so smart and articulate. It's not the clothing styles I object to in the Sweet Valley High books, by the way. I just don't like the idea of everyone having to be the same in order to be happy. Resistance is not futile.

Revolution, mi amores.

When Gomez worries that the strain of the children bickering might be getting to Morticia, she says, "I'm just like every modern woman trying to have it all. A loving husband, a family. I only wish I had more time to seek out the dark forces and join their hellish crusade."

Don't we all.

When Wednesday and Pugsley meet the new nanny, Morticia says to them, "What do you say to the new nanny?" Wednesday says, "Be afraid. Be very afraid."

Thankfully the members of the Addams Family are not Wonder bread; they're moldy bread. A nice shot of penicillin on this sick day. 2 comments

2 Comments:

Sorry you aren't feeling well today, Kim. And such a beautiful day out there! Tomorrow to be sunny and warm...may you get outside and dig in the dirt like I plan to.
Vickie
ps...I loved the Addams Family, too.

By  Anonymous, at 7:34 PM  

I wanted to be outside planting my garden today. It was sooo beautiful, wasn't it? Don't know what happened. Something I ate I guess. Thanks, Vickie.

By  Kim Antieau, at 7:56 PM  

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