You know the song.
"They're creepy & they're kooky,
Mysterious & spooky,
They're altogether ooky,
The Addams Family!" (italics mine)
Seems a school board in the Pennsylvania suburbs has decided via a 7-2 vote not to mount a production of a musical derived from a 2009 production based on the series and/or Charles Addams' seminal strip, removing it from consideration for the 2023-24 school year.
It begs to ask, then. Is nothing sacred to conservatives anymore?
The board's position is that the production is "inappropriate" and promotes "bad values".
Oh, please! Give me a break! The sitcom based on Addams' works turns 60 next year. This year marks 30 years since "Addams Family Values", the 2nd of two feature films with Raul Julia as Gomez and Christopher Lloyd as Uncle Fester. Like, who hasn't grown up with the original Addams Family, with John Astin, Carolyn Jones, Ted Cassidy, & Jackie Coogan? Interest in adapting the 2009 musical has heightened with the success of Netflix's Wednesday, one would believe.
This controversy gets my attention because it hits home. Troy High School is mounting its own production, March 31-April 2, at the Troy Veterans Auditorium, which links together the middle & high schools. To my knowledge, no one has raised any objections over the production here in town, and why should they? For many of us, Addams is a part of our childhoods. Why should a group of conservative screwballs with their heads in the sand in Pennsylvania, or anywhere else, for that matter, take that away from their local school? Because they miss the point of the dark satire that fueled Addams' work.
The school board majority in Pennsylvania was looking to score political points. Their short-sighted viewpoint will do more harm than good.
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