Andrew Stark:
"It is worth pausing to contemplate
what the Addamses' world is really like, beyond its fantastical and droll
qualities. In our ordinary world, we don't routinely inflict physical violence
on one another, and of course when we do somebody gets hurt. The reverse is the
case for the Addamses. They are always meting out wonderfully horrendous acts
of physical mayhem: beckoning unwitting drivers to launch their vehicles into
the paths of onrushing moving vans, tying each other to homemade racks,
bricking guests up behind walls, larding soups with poison. And yet somehow
nobody dies, nobody gets dismembered, nobody writhes in agony, nobody's hair
even gets mussed.
In short, the Addamses aim to hurt with
delicious malevolence, but the physical damage ends up being invisible or, to
put it another way, nonexistent. Emotionally, the dynamic is reversed. The
Addamses are loving and caring to one another, convivial and concerned as
friends; they wouldn't dream of hurting anyone's feelings..." (WSJ, March
12 2010)
"The Addamses are a satirical inversion of the ideal
20th-century American family: an odd wealthy aristocratic clan who delight in
the macabre and are seemingly unaware, or do not care, that other people find
them bizarre or frightening."
“In this company, Simmons, we hold our hands steady in the middle and shake our bodies.”
Artist: Zachary Kanin, The New Yorker, April 2015
This post was written before Covid-19 hit us. Now the picture should show no hand-shake and the caption could read:
"In this company, Simmons, we do NOT hold hands at all BUT shake our bodies."
"In this company, Simmons, we do NOT hold hands at all BUT shake our bodies."