Five Ways Morticia Addams Taught Me How To Be a Woman
There’s no doubt about it.
Morticia Addams is famously strange.
She wears a lot of black, is a descendant of the Salem witches, and cuts rose blossoms from their stems to arrange them in a stem bouquet. Her name resembles ‘mortician’, and she named her children totally bizarre names.
But, she’s beautiful and I love her.
Story time.
I had a very disconnected childhood (read about it here if you want to know more on me). My parents weren’t present a lot of the time, so I had to fend for myself. I became an adult far younger than any child should. One natural and completely average result was that I found other individuals to teach me how to be a human. I had to fill voids, I had to find people I wanted to be, I had to discover myself through alternative role-models.
I don’t hold this against my parents. Yes it’s crappy, but the best thing that came out of this was that I chose my role-models therefore I consciously chose who I wanted to grow up to be.
I was sort of a strange kid. I didn’t watch a whole lot of typical cartoons. I watched TV Land, National Geographic, Animal Planet, and the History Channel. When my nose wasn’t between the pages of a book learning, my face was lit up from the knowledge I gleaned from television… Either that or the screen of the TV lit up my face…
I found joy in classic shows on TV Land (Munsters), and I learned about the world around me on National Geographic (Planet Earth). I grasped marketing and bargaining tactics on the History Channel (Pawn Starts and American Pickers), and I learned the basic science behind creating my own alcohol (Moonshiners) at sixteen.
Some of my high school friends called me Jeopardy because I knew a lot of random things about a lot of random things.
One of the networks I watched carefully was ABC and even TV Land. I watched carefully because sometimes it showed re-runs of The Addams Family (1964).
The reason this was so important?
Morticia Addams helped shape my view on how to be a woman. She filled that void.
She taught me many lessons, but there are five things I truly carried with me into my adult womanhood.
Women should be exactly who they are.
Whether you’re weird, strange, abnormal, strangely obsessed with certain things… You should be exactly who you are. Because you will find your people that understand you, and accept you as is, regardless of what other people think.
Want to name your children strange names? They’re your children.
You want to live a certain way? Live your life.
Morticia is weird. But she marches to the beat of her own drum. She thinks that others are weird when they abide by societal rules. She lives her life exactly how she wants to. She is confident in herself, her knowledge, and her skills.
She is confident in her own skin.
She’s pasty white, but she’s still beautiful (both in the 1964 TV series, and in the movie remakes). She’s stunningly beautiful, in my opinion, because she doesn’t change who she is for others. Cheesy, but she’s beautiful because she’s beautiful on the inside. She forces others to either accept her as is or not at all. Either way, she keeps doing her thing and being who she is.
She taught me, I should be exactly who I am. If other’s turn up their nose to me and my lifestyle then that’s on them. I should keep doing me anyway.
Women can be exceptionally intelligent AND be in charge.
She speaks French, is exceptionally musically inclined, does arts and crafts, and is basically a mastermind. Morticia is the glue that holds her family together. She’s the strongest member of the household, and she runs it.
If something goes haywire, she’s usually the one to fix it and make it right. She always knows exactly what to say and what unorthodox advice to give.
Morticia is a queen.
The beautiful example she set for me, is that I don’t ever need a man. She never truly needs Gomez. She just always wants him.
She’s, again, so secure in who she is that she does her own thing while everyone else does their own thing. She rules mostly quietly in the background, but everyone turns to her when things go array. Things constantly go crazy around her, and she rules her family with grace and careful tact.
It’s okay to be bougie.
Bougie is a slang term that means anything that is upscale or upper-class. It’s short for Bourgeoisie, and since the U.S Doesn’t really have strict social classes it’s a way of saying someone is high-class, fancy.
Flat out, Morticia is straight bougie. She is classy, put-together, and exudes class.
Morticia shows me that it’s okay to exude class. I wasn’t raised in any kind of money being first-gen, low-income, but I sure as hell can still have class with my intellect.
Be realistic.
Morticia doesn’t sugar coat a thing. She tells it how it is, is honest, and she’s pretty much what I think our society needs right now.
She says the things others are afraid to talk about, she is open and honest, and she’s controversial.
She makes you use your own brain to think through the world you see around you.
She alters your perspective.
Everything about her urges you not to like her, and yet you find yourself literally loving everything this woman says and does. She is the epitome of a strong woman!
She stands for what she believes in, and settles for nothing less.
We should fiercely love.
Most importantly, she taught me that as a woman I need to fiercely love above all else.
She absolutely is in love with Gomez. He’s pretty much kind of an idiot. And yet, she accepts him for everything that he is and has an undying amount of love for the man. She supports him in all of his crazy ideas and always cleans up his messes.
More importantly, she fiercely loves her family as a whole. She welcomes every single relative into their home. They have aunts and uncles living with them. She is welcoming, gracious, and accepting. She loves each and every individual around her unconditionally.
From the perspective of someone from a separated home, this woman showed me ideals that I could adopt when I had a family of my own someday. I was shown how not to have a family from my own, but Morticia Addams showed me how to actually have a family.
Granted, this is a fictional character.
But the depth of this Medium posts comes down the idea that this one fictional character taught me more about how to be a woman than my own mother did.
And for that, I’m grateful to Morticia.
She shaped me into everything that I am today.
Thank you for your time, your support, and for being a part of my journey!
If you are interested in more of my writing, take a peek at some of my other posts below.
