‘Weird, but Proud’: Why Netflix’s Wednesday is a Big Deal for Autistic Girls

By Anaïs Charbonneau

Burton’s Wednesday beat the years-long series Stranger Things to becoming Netflix’s most-viewed English show, only a couple weeks into its release. The story follows the Adams family’s only daughter at a boarding school for ‘outcasts, freaks and monsters’. The character’s quirkiness was always greatly appreciated by fans and the new show made no exception, once again creating a dark, cold and monotonous protagonist for all to enjoy. Wait, all? Perhaps not.

As the show got more and more views, certain communities shared how they related to the character and her experiences. The group? Neurodivergents. As a member of this community, I decided to see what the fuss around the new Netflix hit was about. What I’ve learned both surprised and resonated with me.

Burton’s brand-new Wednesday Addams is a cold, detached, quirky and misunderstood young woman who has trouble fitting in, even in a space meant for her to adapt. This simple scheme is far too relatable for people who are different. Yes, gothic and emo subcultures are a great example, but what about things you can’t change? Things encoded into your brain from birth. This is where the neurodivergence, and especially autistic, comparison starts to kick in.

At multiple times during the show, we can see Wednesday clearly confused or misunderstood around her peers. Her now famous phrase, ‘emotional Morse code’ represents very well how autistic people often feel around emotions or social cues. Without clear and explicit representation, expressions of feelings can be seen as a mystery, which you are forced to decipher. Her lack of comprehension of social awareness is what makes Wednesday… Wednesday. Yet, it is one of the most common and important traits of ASD. It was found so much in autistic people that this trait was added to the DSM-5 and became a diagnosis criterion.

By simply narrowing this down as ‘part of her character’ or ‘part of her special charm’, as well-intentioned as it can be, it diminishes the experience of real-life people who not only struggle with this daily-life issue, but aren’t seen as positively as Wednesday. Their own lack of social cues will very probably not be seen as a charming trait, but as a problem needed to be fixed, or even seen as purposefully hurtful to others around them.

This scenario was explored in Burton’s work, as the protagonist accidentally hurts her peers because of her lacking comprehension of feelings, nonverbal communication and social expectations. One scene between Wednesday and her roommate Enid is particularly telling. After their crime-solving endeavours almost ends badly, Enid gets angry, saying that friends should do things for one another, such as presenting the other in a good light, without having to be asked. She also mentions that the fact Wednesday isn’t aware of that is clearly a problem. Through this barely one-minute scene, much is said.

Sadly, autistic people often have to change their ways and apologise to others for wrongs they do not control or even understand. Here, the protagonist’s problem is supposedly that she could not grasp an implicit social concept. This scenario is all too familiar for autistic people, including me. The fear of wronging others or misunderstanding a social clue leads to over-analysing every word and expression, which can become incredibly tiring and overwhelming. It’s a fear that very often affects autistic individuals.

Wednesday’s face is almost always kept neutral, and her voice stays monotone. Those traits can be seen as a lack of empathy or emotions, and while it sometimes is, it can simply be a sincere, innocent lack of comprehension. Not only this but at many points during the show, Wednesday tackles the subject of sensory issues, almost always present in autism, through her allergy to colour (which has been shown to exist in some autistic children, who are almost immediately overwhelmed by bright nuances). Her love for playing a musical instrument and her disinterest in physical touch are also situations that can be easily linked to the sensory issues autistic people tackle.

While Wednesday can be seen as very coded into autism traits, some wonder why the subject is so important to the neurodivergent community. While I do not speak for all, I believe it comes down to two things: representation and ‘masking’. First off, while everyone has the right to relate to a character, it’s important to remember that some may feel more attached due to shared traits, such as disabilities, ethnicities or race. And while Wednesday’s traits make her appealing and charming to some, others feel differently towards it.

Many autistic people, especially women, came in to talk about how, even if the character is not canonically neurodivergent, her traits made her very relatable to them. However, that opinion was met with a lot of backlash, including people asking for autistic communities to stop pushing a disability onto a character. This is sadly not an isolated case, as a 2019 survey found that autistic people were at a very high risk of cyber-bullying. Adding to the situation the lack of realistic autism representation in media and a still prevalent stigma around neurodivergent women, it is no surprise that a fresh, cool and autistic-coded character wants to be aligned with a community.

Second, Wednesday is weird – but also proud. At no moment does she feel the need or desire to change her ways for others, even when her peers find her odd. A fact very prevalent in neurodivergent groups is the need for ‘masking’; a term used for hiding special traits or habits that are deemed out of the ordinary. This is, once again, mostly found in women, as it took a long way before their own experiences with autism were considered worthy to be analysed.

A real-life Wednesday Addams, with unorthodox habits, dark interests, gothic fashion, monotone expression and poor understanding of others’ feelings, would most likely mask herself to resemble her peers. This is where Burton’s new character became so important for autistic people, especially women; she doesn’t. She doesn’t ‘mask’, never hides herself or changes. In a world where neurodivergent people prefer to hide, Wednesday is a breath of fresh air. It is why her character is so important, whether or not her codes are canonical or not.

For so many who lack seeing themselves in the media, she is a non-apologetic, brilliant, cool autistic woman, in a world where so many would be mistreated for acting the same way the fantasised characters do. As many already said: ‘people like autistic people more as a concept than a real, living, feeling person.’