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Lady Gaga’s relationship to Wednesday has, by now, been well-established, with “Bloody Mary” being far more associated with Wednesday Addams’ (Jenna Ortega) signature dance scene than the actual song that was chosen for it, The Cramps’ “Goo Goo Muck.” The dance in question happened toward the end of the fourth episode in the first season, “Woe What a Night” (which might as well now be called “Marry the Night”). And as Wednesday pays homage to Lisa Loring’s disjointed moves in the OG The Addams Family series (specifically, in the episode titled “Lurch’s Grand Romance”), the song that now automatically enters people’s minds (thanks to the scourge that is TikTok) is the “sped-up” version of “Bloody Mary.”
So it was that Gaga’s association with the Universe Addams became sealed—which is exactly why she was asked about using one of her songs for a certain scene in the second season (namely, when Enid Sinclair [Emma Myers] is performing her “solo” at the gala in “Woe Me the Money”). However, Gaga did Tim Burton one better by deciding to tailor an original composition for the show. As she told Tudum (Netflix’s website for further deep dives into its original series and films),
“I immediately had a song in mind called ‘The Dead Dance,’ and I had started working on it. But once I knew it was going to be for Wednesday, I decided that I was going to work on it even more and I made it extra special for the show. To me, when you know that music and pop culture and Tim Burton all come together with this cast, that’s a very special recipe. So that’s why I’m here. After that happened, they asked me if I wanted to be on the show, and I said, ‘Absolutely.’”
That role she secured being Rosaline Rotwood, a now-dead former teacher at Nevermore who ends up being responsible for the Freaky Friday plotline between Wednesday and Enid in episode six of season two, “Woe Thyself.” And so, there you have it: TikTok made all this happen with the viral use of “Bloody Mary.” Indeed, in an alternate universe, wherein “Bloody Mary” actually had a music video made for it, it would probably look a lot like the aesthetic presented in “The Dead Dance,” directed (in black and white, Ed Wood-style) by none other than Tim Burton himself. As such, it’s got all the hallmarks of a Burton movie, complete with creepy dolls—and Gaga playing the “lead doll,” if you will (perhaps, in her own subtle way, playing into the current trans-protective mantra, “Protect the Dolls”). Naturally, there’s no better location for all of this than the infamous La Isla de las Muñecas (The Island of the Dolls) in Mexico City.
With opening notes that recall the tune of “Dance in the Dark,” Gaga the living (dead) doll slowly comes to life, exhibiting the sort of bodily movements that recall Ian Curtis having an epilepsy attack. Her erratic movements cease as she begins to sing the opening verse, “Like the words of a song, I hear you call.” Her shaking then persists (something in the hand movements reminding one of Edward Scissorhands) as she adds, “Like a thief in my head, you criminal/You stole my thoughts before I dreamed them/And you killed my queen with just one pawn.” With these lines, it’s as though Gaga tailoring the single to Wednesday is already apparent in the ostensible allusion to how Tyler Galpin (Hunter Doohan), who turned out to be a Hyde controlled by Nevermore teacher Ms. Thornhill (Christina Ricci, whose appearance is another meta nod to a previous iteration of Wednesday Addams), did Wednesday wrong. “Making” her fall in love with him despite knowing full well he is a hideous monster inside. Though, to be fair, the Wednesday that most people know and hate would never deign to fall in love (so saccharine and cliché as it is).
In any event, as Gaga’s range of motion starts to escalate in the video, she begins to prance around in other parts of the wooded area she’s in—a graveyard, as it were (or so they say…though there seems to be no sign of a gravestone anywhere). The other dolls, too, appear to reveal errant signs of life, usually through an arbitrary eyelid flutter or, more eerily still, a slight smile. The lyrics then continue to speak to the unique form of heartbreak Wednesday experienced as Gaga takes it to the chorus, “Yeah, I’ll keep on dancin’ until I’m dead/I’ll dance until I’m dead/‘Cause when you killed me inside, that’s when I came alive/Yeah, the music’s gonna bring mе back from death/I’m dancin’ until I’m dead/I’ll dancе until I’m dead.”
In Wednesday’s case, the only music that’s bringing her back from death is the distinctive picks she plays on her cello. All while ruing the day she ever let Tyler/a Hyde’s tongue into her mouth. Indeed, right after being the one to kiss him (also very un-Wednesday-like behavior), she has the premonition that leads her to finally understand that he’s been the one who’s been behind the murders all along (not, as she originally thought, Xavier Thorpe [Percy Hynes White]). So it is that she runs away from him and comments to herself, “Of course the first boy I kiss would turn out to be a psychotic, serial killing monster.”
As for Gaga, the only place she keeps running is to the makeshift dance floor she’s created in the woodsy “island,” with four live people—not dolls—suddenly serving as her backup dancers while she performs some choreo that is decidedly “Vogue”-inspired (but then, Gaga is no stranger to grafting elements of Madonna’s oeuvre, whether intentional or not). Even her hair and ensemble, for as “staid Victorian” as it’s meant to be, has echoes of Madonna’s eighteenth-century look at the 1990 VMAs (while performing, what else, “Vogue”). Though, naturally, most will see only the “nod” to Michael Jackson in the “Thriller” video (on a side note: it’s also very Madonna to freely pay homage to Jackson without thinking about what that means in terms of continuing to deify someone who was a probable pedo).
Around the three-minute-twenty-second mark, the video gets a suffusion of color, almost as if Enid Sinclair decided to weigh in during the edit, insisting that it was all too dreary (and also, why not add in some more shots of the moon?). Though, of course, any dreariness in visuals is belied by the danceable backing music, co-produced by Gaga, Cirkut and Watt (both of whom co-produced much of Mayhem). The sort of music, in short, that Wednesday would detest, billing it as the kind of thing that only “a trend-chasing, rainbow-loving social media addict whose tastes in clothes and music are a heinous assault on culture” would enjoy.
That said, it wouldn’t surprise anyone at this point to see Wednesday “vibing” to it at yet another Nevermore school dance. For this is a different kind of Wednesday—a more maudlin kind under Burton’s, and now Gaga’s, influence.
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Genna Rivieccio
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