My Goth Feminist Icon & Her Sizzling Marriage That I Covet
I still hope to be like her when I grow up
It’s hard to describe the kind of woman I am when it comes to love, sex, and relationships. I definitely wanted to get married and have kids someday and yet I simultaneously rebelled against our culture’s expectations for women.
Though I enjoy a romantic story, if they don’t have at least a little injection of reality, I will roll my eyes or fake barf through the whole thing. I knew from a young age that I would never change my name if I were to get married. My writing goals were always just a tad more important to me than my dreams to build a family. And honestly, weddings bore me.
Growing up, I couldn’t find any examples of romantic relationships that I wanted to emulate in my future. Most couples I knew were either emotionally estranged roommates sticking together for financial reasons or stereotypical romantic fantasies that made me want to vomit.
And then one day, when I was a teenager, I saw a movie that finally showed me a couple who illustrated the kind of relationship I wanted: The Addams Family.
Could anything be more sublime than the way Gomez dotes on his wife? Dear heavens, it was a dream come true. With my high sexual energy, I knew I wanted someone to look at me with those smoldering eyes, to kiss my hands and arms with a mouth so hungry he might accidentally swallow me, to fuck me from across a room with just a look.
I loved how much they hated the typical romantic expressions of our culture — smiling, adorable couples kissing and holding hands, talking about all the babies they want to have, planning dinner parties, Christmas card photoshoots, and Baby’s first birthday.
Yawn.
I’d rather do things differently…
- Seduce me under a full moon in a cemetery. (Actually, I’d prefer a forest, but whatever.)
- Watch me while I sleep and make passionate speeches about how much you would love to die — or kill — for me.
- Love bite me until I yelp.
- Call me querida or cara mia.
- Whip out your sword (literal or figurative) for me.
- Waltz with me and spin me like a top.
- If we have children, let them be uproarious demons. (And can we please name one of them Pubert?)
I especially loved that Gomez went wild every time Morticia spoke French. “Oh, Tish!” I always wanted a man who would “Oh, Yael!” me when I spoke French. When my ex and I went to France ten years ago, I kept giving him sidelong glances as I conversed in French (clumsily, I admit) with hotel attendants and shopkeepers. I kept waiting for him to pull me into a passionate kiss right there in front of everyone.
Alas, he did not. Later that day, with the last remnants of my pride, I asked if he thought my French was hot. He shrugged and said no, it wasn’t hot because he couldn’t understand what I was saying.
Definitely not a sizzling Morticia and Gomez moment.
Believe it or not, my admiration of this fictional couple is as real today as it was thirty-some years ago. I knew from the earliest days of my life that I wanted passion above almost everything else. I always wanted a man who wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off me, who would think I was the hottest piece of ass in the room at any given moment, and who would become “unhinged…like some desperate, howling demon” at night. Mmmmm, yes…
I love the way Morticia and Gomez challenged the status quo of romantic relationships and how a family should look or behave. I don’t believe in our culture’s romantic stereotypes and I love it when movies, books, and TV shows poke fun at them. Is there any more perfect example of that than when Morticia and Gomez go to the school play and roll their eyes while watching everyone’s perfect children sing on stage?
I also always appreciated Morticia as a feminist icon. She is a strong woman and clearly an equal head of her household. She holds up Gomez as much as he holds her up.
She isn’t afraid to express her sexuality in any setting, with any person — a boldness I admire so deeply, as someone who has spent decades being afraid to express my own sexuality. She’s passionate, irreverent, challenging, and her sense of self is so deeply rooted, I doubt anything could shake her.
And let’s not forget that she taught her daughter to be an independent woman. She didn’t pass down any sexual shame or bullshit stories about conception — Wednesday knows how the sauce is made. And if that isn’t enough, she insists her daughter go to college before pursuing other dreams like dancing naked in the town square or enslaving ministers.
So yes, Morticia Addams is a feminist heroine of mine, and her relationship is one that I covet.
And Gomez, if you’re out there…I’m ready to be ravished.
© Yael Wolfe 2019
