Wednesday has made waves in the last week since it was released on Netflix. With positive reviews, a host of praise for its lead star, and an almost guaranteed second season to come, it only seems right that there should be some kind of backlash against the Addams Family-based show. Now that has come in form of numerous social media posts calling out the show for including Black characters primarily as antagonists to Jenna Ortega’s Wednesday.
Following the initial reaction to the Tim Burton-directed series, Wednesday had come under fire from some who have decided that Burton’s choice of casting for Nevermore top girl Bianca Barclay, played by Joy Sunday, was purposely done to push an anti-Black agenda. The comments have also incorporated Iman Marson, who also plays a bully character, into this conspiracy theory, which seems to stem from previous comments by Burton that Black actors haven’t necessarily fit into the vision of his movies, and he doesn’t feel compelled to cast them for the sake of it.
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One user on Twitter commented, “Me trying to badly push past the racist and anti-Black undertones in the Wednesday Addams Netflix show.”
Another added, “I really wanted to like it but I think it’s unforgivable that all the black characters are either bullies or morally compromised. And why is Wednesday hostile towards them? Wtf. What kind of ridiculous writing is this?”
A third said, “Anyone else bothered that the token black kids in Wednesday are basically king and queen bully? Tim, this is not how you do inclusivity.”
Is Wednesday’s Casting Really An issue?
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While there is certainly a sizeable group of people who have taken issue with the casting of certain characters in Wednesday, there has been plenty of counter-arguments pointing out that there are a number of other Black actors in the series, and Ortega herself is of Latin descent, making the diversity of the show seem a non-issue.
One user responded to the criticism of the series by noting that the two bully characters redeemed themselves by the end of the series, while a number of white characters turned out to be the real villains of the piece. However, this didn’t stop others calling the casting of a Black mayor in the show a bland color-blind approach that simply puts Black actors in roles that have been written for while actors.
While Tim Burton seemed to bear the brunt of the complaints, mainly things to some comments that previously made about being more offended when Black or Asian actors were shoehorned into roles, there were a number of comments pointing out that he did not write the series, and therefore was not necessarily the source of some of the characters.
As often seen in this kind of social media to and fro, there is never a middle ground when it comes to discussions about diversity in movies and TV shows. Wednesday has done enough to secure a huge Netflix audience, and gained thousands of positive reviews in the process. For now, that has not been overshadowed by the social media negativity, but it has instead once again brought out an almost impossible to escape need for debates over the rights and wrongs diverse casting in Hollywood.
