The Netflix original Wednesday released on November 23rd, and has since become a hit with subscribers. The eight episode series broke records for the amount of hours watched within the first week of release for any English-language TV series on Netflix, surmising an admirable 341.23 million hours of watch time. It beat the fourth season of Stranger Things which previously held the title. With the popularity of the series has come debate online regarding the titular character, Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega), and the relationships the show lines up for her, with many fans of the show calling into question Wednesday’s sexuality.
One of the plot points of the show is a love triangle between Wednesday and two of her peers, both male. Fans of the show quickly went online to voice the fact that they believe Wednesday to be a part of the LGTBQ+ community and thought a relationship between Wednesday and her female roommate, a werewolf named Enid Sinclair (Emma Myers), would be much more fitting.
Speculation about Wednesday’s sexuality stems majorly from the archetypes of her character. She goes against society’s norms and standards, which has always been a staple of the iconic character. Within the show, she speaks about not wanting to fall in love, settle down, and start a family. It is made clear that male attention is one of the last things on her mind, so it does seem like an odd choice to have so much of her storyline rely so heavily on potential relationships with two men.
Even Ortega seems to support the idea of the relationship with Enid. In an interview speaking about the speculation online around Enid and Wednesday, Ortega commented “In a perfect world, we would have been a thing.” The two actresses also interact heavily on social media and flirt with one another. Under one of Myers’ Instagram posts Ortega can be seen commenting ‘what do I need to,’ which fans were quick to pick up on.
When asked why she thinks Wednesday is a ‘gay icon’, Ortega said, “I think because she’s a badass. She’s cool, she’s got a nice sense of style, but she’s somebody who embraces her differences and isn’t out to please anybody. I feel like that’s a really, really powerful thing to see. I feel like people want to see powerful women with powerful women.”
So, with such vocal support for the idea, the pressure now falls on Netflix to decide whether or not they will explore Wednesday’s sexuality more in-depth in later seasons. LGBTQ+ representation in media has come a long way, but the initial hesitation to do so already with Wednesday’s character and to strongly push a heteronormative love triangle, which Ortega was also very vocally against, calls into question where Netflix’s priorities lie.
Fans will have to wait for the next season to see if their criticism will fall on deaf ears, but my guess is that if they continue to ignore the controversy online, it will reflect very poorly on the company.