Crossbreeding the Media: Monstrous Adolescents as Outcasts Between Television and Music

Wednesday Addams and the Transmedia Production of Grotesque Others

Abstract

The essay explores pedagogical issues of identification, deconstruction and creation of otherness in contemporary forms of popular cultures: tv series and music. The present works begins with an analysis of today’s trends in the consumption of television storytelling by the audience. It then proceeds in exploring the connections of pedagogy to key terms in Gothic fiction, such as Grotesque, Uncanny and Weird, by deconstructing scenes, characters and themes of the series Wednesday, written by Tim Burton. Furthermore, the article explores how music and television combine each other to create identities (i.e., teenagers as fearsome, monsters and Others), with particular references to adolescence, and which pedagogical issues are raised when (and why) teenagers identify themselves with outcasts. The essay will show how music emphasizes these themes and meanings, particularly through social media platforms, and how fans identify with the outcast through educative practices such as: identification, participation, creativity and imitation.