Building Morticia
Unlike Vampira and Elvira, Morticia is a wife and mother, but it goes without saying that she represents much more than that. She wants it all, and refreshingly, she never asks why she shouldn’t have it.
The Vampira Show
It was only once I was actually in the graveyard, luring my victim (then-date, now-boyfriend) towards me through the power of Facebook Messenger that I thought “Hmm, maybe I am taking this whole goth thing too far.”
But I knew in my heart that the goth identity is, more than anything, a performance. That’s not to say that the trademark dark clothing, music, and worldview don’t appeal to me — they do, but there is something strangely powerful and liberating about the ability to control the way people perceive you.
Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that the goth subculture is female-dominated. By offering a space for participants to express themselves outside of the existing traditional social order, it empowers women by allowing for unmatched sexual agency. It is this freedom of expression that positions goth women to be more than objects of heterosexual desire, as they have been historically perceived to be. They are also desiring subjects, capable of weaponising the gaze that is foisted upon them by turning it outward.
For Maila Nurmi, the pin-up model who transformed herself into a pioneering horror host, expressions of gothic femininity were not only empowering, but strategic. In 1953, Nurmi attended a Halloween party dressed in a costume made of black rags, hand-sewn to emulate the then-nameless comic strip character Morticia Addams. In her final interview, only weeks before her death in 2008, she explained the thought process behind her costume: “I wanted to do television, because that’s where the money was […] I wanted to try to get someone’s attention.”
And it worked. A producer at KABC-TV was so taken by Nurmi’s costume that he spent five months searching for her to offer her a job introducing late-night horror films for Los Angeles’ local station. So, she donned her costume once again. Nurmi made some key changes, and transformed into ‘Vampira’: a persona characterised by long red nails made from melted plastic, high heels, and arched eyebrows. Vampira was ostensibly terrifying, and her beauty was inextricable from this terror; she deliberately melded sensuality with a morbid sensibility that had never before been presented to the public. She was the antithesis of the typical matriarch that reigned in the family comedies of primetime television, and a subversion of the conservative ideals of her time.
“Those people are so obnoxious to me, I’ll satirise them,” Nurmi said. And satirise them she did, at least for a memorable eight months before her show was cancelled. Nurmi was blacklisted from Hollywood in 1955 for refusing to sell the rights to Vampira to her former station who, at that stage, wanted to make The Addams Family TV show.
Out of Vampira’s ashes emerged the next horror host. In 1981, producers from Vampira’s network wanted to revitalise the show. They recruited comedy actress Cassandra Peterson to create a goth character that was raunchier, edgier, and even more shocking than Vampira. Elvira was overtly sexual, and unapologetic about her desires. In the 1988 film Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, it’s clear that Elvira is aware of the power that her beauty holds, but it doesn’t undermine her sense of agency. Everything Elvira does, including the way she presents herself, is for her only. At every turn, Elvira defies the conventional expectations that society has for her. After all, the film’s plot doesn’t have Elvira stay in the town that has (slowly and begrudgingly) grown to accept her. She gets the hell out and goes to Vegas, because that’s what she wants.
The most popular iteration of the feminist goth goddess is, of course, Morticia. Anjelica Huston’s 1991 portrayal of Morticia was heavily inspired by her predecessors, once again satirising the typical matriarchal figure in a seductively macabre way. Unlike Vampira and Elvira, Morticia is a wife and mother, but it goes without saying that she represents much more than that. She wants it all, and refreshingly, she never asks why she shouldn’t have it. Huston’s Morticia isn’t afraid to ask for anything that she wants, especially when it comes to sex: “Last night you were unhinged. You were like some desperate howling demon. You frightened me. Do it again.” She is perhaps the most sexually liberated of all three of these goth icons, proving that sexual expression can be used as a tool against heteronormativity by positioning women as desiring subjects. More than anything, Morticia is a powerful reminder of how gothic self-expression is deeply and intrinsically feminist.
So, I admit it: I liked the power. I liked the thought that I was scaring innocent churchgoers and dog-walkers that happened to stumble upon me in the graveyard. I liked performing, and I liked the way that my performance allowed me to gaze back upon a world that — seemingly constantly — forces its gaze upon me. This is how you build Morticia: see the world looking at you, and death stare back.