Beauty Archivist: The Enduring Gothic Glamour of The Addams Family
The Addams family is back on Netflix with an entirely new cast, but of all the versions of the creepy, kooky family that have existed since their invention in 1938, it's Christina Ricci’s Wednesday and Anjelica Houston’s Morticia who are, for me, the enduring beauty icons. They are so deeply rooted in our pop culture that everyone knows on an instinctual level whether they are a Wednesday or a Morticia. Both characters serve very different takes on gothic beauty, but what unites them is a sense of individualism and an esoteric style that is not concerned with anyones response to it.
In the ‘91 and ‘93 films, The Addams Family and Addams Family Values, Christina Ricci plays Wednesday with skin so toneless and smooth it almost erases all of her features. Her straight natural brows cast a shadow above her eyes which along with her lips are her only facial detail. The lack of contrast in Wednesday's face extends to her invisible eyelashes. She looks like Vermeer's Girl With A Pearl Earring, or an old daguerreotype photograph from before a camera could capture a lot of detail. Wednesday looks displaced from a previous time, a walking black and white photograph in a 90s summer camp.
I’ve seen a lot of Wednesday makeup tutorials on TikTok since the Netflix show dropped, but they all do the same weird thing - they see something that isn't really there but maybe works better for a makeup tutorial. They add dark shadow and winged black liner but what actually defines Wednesday's face is the absence of anything. It's a white pearl framed by her severe black hair.
The Jenna Ortega teenage version wears a little more than her predecessor. Yet it’s still only mascara, a smudge of pencil tight to her lash line and a lip that ranges from clear balm to a translucent berry of varying depths. There is also a darkness around her whole eye socket that could be a mousey taupey shadow or even just the absence of the pale concealer she wears on the rest of her face. The only scene where Wednesday wears anything approaching a strong eye look is for her prom, though still less than the average Wednesday makeup tutorial: Even though Wednesday gives eyeliner energy she isn't actually a makeup girl.
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A tension in the look of Wednesday Addams, and one of the things that makes her so compelling, is the play between something that's very childlike and something much more worldly. In general, babies and children have a much lower colour contrast in their faces than adults and Wednesday’s lack of shadows emphasizes her youth and baby face. I know I love to talk about eyebrows in this column, but character building via beauty is honestly 70% in the brows. Wednesday’s low set straight brow gives her soft rounded face its deadpan quality.
Looking at her pictures for this column reminded me how much I love a low sitting brow. Brow lifting via Botox or threads is so popular because of the way it opens up the face. This low straight angle does the exact opposite, yet produces super magnetic results. It's a look that's a little moody and sarky but also so charismatic. The lower brow also facilitates that chin lowered, eyes raised glance that is a super powerful combination of brooding and directness. Think Lauren Bacall’s gaze in comparison to Marilyn Monroe's super open expression for an illustration of the heavy brow, lifted brow dichotomy. This brow atop Wednesday’s sweet baby face just enhances her affectlessness.
If you think Wednesday’s beauty look is so stripped back that I am really just describing Christina Ricci’s face, then take a moment to compare pictures of Ricci in Casper, which came out just two years after Family Values and also features a look with no visible makeup. Without the flattening pallid foundation and black hair of Wednesday, Ricci’s whole face and expression - including her eyebrows - read so differently.
One thing that both Morticia and Wednesday have in common despite super different makeup looks is an energy of directness and confidence. Part of what makes them both such enduring beauty icons is how unfiltered through the male gaze they are. There is nothing pillowy about Morticia’s face, every angle has been shaded down to be razor sharp, yet she is a very sensual character. Morticia is sexy without any of the attributes associated with youth that we commonly apply to attractiveness. Her features are not lush or plump, she is purely angles. She is sexy in her severity and without any element that suggests submissiveness. She is a deeply romantic lead, the object of Gomez’s passion and obsession, and supremely feminine all whilst having a very assertive presence. The Morticia Addams glamorously painted face projects the exact opposite of Amy Dunne’s ‘Cool Girl’ - but she is highly desirable and desired.
“From 1938 when they first arrived as a comic in The New Yorker until now, they are the American Gothic and a staple of our culture.”
If Wednesday is a transplant from the Edwardian era then Houston’s Morticia is direct from the golden age of Hollywood. She looks like a twisted version of Ava Gardener. Like a movie star from the 40s, everything about her look is extremely done. We know Morticia painstakingly perfects and enhances her deathly white skin every morning. Her look is impeccably put together. Despite being whited out the skin is translucent and luminous with depth and life to it.
She does not look like she is wearing white face paint and this is testament to the skill of makeup designer Fern Buchner. It is very difficult to make a white base translucent and sit within the skin instead of masking it, but Morticia is pure aristocrat so I couldn't imagine anything less for her. I love both the drama and the subtlety of the Morticia base, even when a look is this theatrical it still should be believable within the world it sits, and her look achieves this. There is a touch of damped down warmth at her cheek which helps carve out Anjelica Houston’s already extremely sharp cheekbones.
I’ve been looking really hard at pictures of Houston as Morticia trying to find the grey contour that is a central to her look in my head and in all the online tutorials but I really can’t find it. It’s either not there at all or extremely light handed, I actually think it’s not there at all and the impression of it is just the natural shadow of her bone structure, I’ve read one source that says Houston wore face tape for Morticia which seems very likely and would probably negate the need for further contour. Relying on natural shadow rather than Halloween style grey is one of the details that keeps Morticia’s look seamless and high end.
Every other element of Morticia’s look is appropriately high maintenance. Her blood red lipstick is narrow and precise, ignoring the convention of overlining into a more rounded shape or any other trick that would soften her features. Her eyes are shaded to the brow in tones of silver and grey, with a dark crease and wing extending to her temples. Her brows are penciled high and arched.
Both Wednesday and Morticia never fall far from fashion favor because on a surface level, their looks are inarguably incredible; but also because Wednesday’s unimpressed antisociality and Morticia's decadent and assertive femininity just really speaks to girls of any generation. From 1938 when they first arrived as a comic in The New Yorker until now, they are the American Gothic and a staple of our culture. Whichever iteration you prefer, I am glad to have them back on our screens.
Words: Grace Ellington
