For this second Femme Fatale Friday of October here at White Rose of Avalon I have chosen to feature the matriarch of the Addams clan. Morticia Addams is a wife and mother of two children (and a third born in The Addams Family Values) who takes care of her creepy and kooky family in various comics, cartoons, television shows, and movies. I do realize that she was not a killer, but she did circumvent expected behaviors of society, and as regular readers know my femme fatale choices are not always murderous, often just rebellious!
The character got her start as the unnamed mother in the Charles Addams cartoons for the New Yorker. In the beginning these cartoons were simple comic strips with a morbid and macabre joke running through them. As the characters gained more fame it was decided that they would make a great sitcom, and that is how the 1960s series came to be! The characters had been appearing nameless in comic form since 1938 before being named for the television series! I also would like to mention that Maila Nurmi admitted that Morticia Addams, who was then unnamed, was the character that inspired her to become Vampira. In fact she told a story of dressing as Morticia and going to a party where she met a television executive who liked her and the look for a new horror film host position he was looking to fill. She adapted the character, changing things so as not to infringe on Addams character, and turned her into a vampire with a personality created by Nurmi herself!
Morticia was known for her dry wit, and being very caring to her family. She had a morbid sense of style, as she was clipping the buds from roses (liking the thorns best) and feeding her Venus fly trap flesh. She liked dead things decorating her house, and encouraged her children to play with explosives, and behead their dolls. She and her husband Gomez loved one another, and were a married couple who still after years of marriage felt attracted to one another! It is a little sad that it took a show that was supposed to be about weirdos who were “abnormal” to show a truly loving married couple with a healthy sexual attraction to one another. We should embrace having a healthy active sex life with our spouses, not see marriage as the death of sex! I value Gomez and Morticia for showing a happy, healthy, loving, and supportive marriage.
Although the character of Morticia evolved over time, she remained the ultimate creepy matriarch who was willing to do anything for her loved ones! I hope you have enjoyed this short look at the iconic character of Morticia Addams. Do you have a favorite iteration of this character? For the record my favorite version is Carolyn Jones in the 1960s series. Let me know your favorite in the comments below! Thank you for joining me this week for Femme Fatale Friday, and I hope you will join me next week as well!
Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is Carolyn Jones as Morticia. I found the image on https://addamsfamily.fandom.com/wiki/Morticia_Addams.
Further Watching/Reading
- The Addams Family (1964-1966)
- The Addams Family (1991)
- The Addams Family Values (1993)
- The Addams Family (2019)
- The Addams Family 2 (2021) ~I have not seen it yet, but I definitely want to!
- Vampira: Dark Goddess of Horror by W. Scott Poole
White Rose of Avalon 