Subculture in the Mainstream: From Cry-Baby to Wednesday

Johnny Depp stars as Cry-Baby in the cult classic film by director, John Waters.

Subculture in the Mainstream - From Cry-Baby to Wednesday

Subcultures have long been the source of both fascination and fear. They challenge mainstream norms, offering alternative styles and values that create in-groups and out-groups. Yet cinema and television continually repackage these subcultures for wider audiences. John Waters’ Cry-Baby (1990) and Tim Burton’s Wednesday (2022) present two very different examples of how subculture is portrayed and received. While Cry-Baby remained a niche cult parody of 1950s delinquent culture, Wednesday became one of Netflix’s biggest hits, mainstreaming gothic and outsider aesthetics for a global audience. This contrast raises questions about parody, authenticity, and the commodification of subculture.

The Drapes wearing black leather

Parody, Camp, and Cult Status: Cry-Baby

Cry-Baby thrives on parody, satirising the moral panic over 1950s juvenile delinquency films. Its protagonists, the Drapes, are defined by their leather jackets, motorcycles, and melodramatic performances of rebellion. Cry-Baby’s “bad boy” tears are exaggerated symbols of sincerity, while his rock ‘n’ roll songs transform angst into camp spectacle.

John Waters’ camp sensibility intentionally marginalises the film, appealing to audiences who appreciate exaggerated style over mainstream relatability. Richard Dyer’s theory of camp (1999) emphasises excess, irony, and stylisation, all of which Cry-Baby embraces. The result is a film that critiques conformity, but only within the safe confines of parody. Its limited box-office success and cult afterlife confirm Sarah Thornton’s (1995) notion of “subcultural capital”: the film retains value precisely because it remains outside the mainstream.

Jenna Ortega stars as Wednesday Addams in Tim Burton’s Netflix series.

Gothic Outsider Goes Mainstream: Wednesday

By contrast, Tim Burton’s Wednesday adopts outsider aesthetics and repackages them for mass consumption. Wednesday Addams, traditionally the gothic misfit of The Addams Family, becomes the protagonist of a teen drama set in Nevermore Academy, a school for outcasts. Key scenes illustrate how Burton makes this character with many sociopathic traits palatable for mainstream audiences. In the famous dance scene at the Rave’N, Wednesday’s eccentric movements - directly referencing goth and punk dance styles - circulated widely on TikTok, turning subcultural style into viral mainstream content. Subcultural psychobilly band, The Cramps, a rock band that never achieved mainstream success, shot up the Spotify charts to a 9500% increase in daily listens after Jenna Ortega’s choreographed dance to their song, Goo Goo Muck. The show’s success, and The Cramps’ new-found popularity, reflects Angela McRobbie’s (1994) analysis of how subcultural styles are continually commodified by mainstream culture. Netflix positions Wednesday as a brand: quirky, gothic, yet accessible. What Waters could only parody for a niche audience, Burton transforms into global entertainment.

The Addams Family in their colourless attire

From Cult to Commodity

The contrast between Cry-Baby and Wednesday lies not only in tone but in reception. Waters revels in parody, exaggerating rebellion to the point of absurdity, and adds in his trademark ‘gross-out’ scenes that shock his audience. Think Hatchet-Face’s snarling glamour, the Drapes’ chicken-game showdown daring you to laugh or gag, or what I call “the tear-jerker scene,” which never fails to elicit a collective groan. Waters is authentic in his commitment to subversion and indifferent to mainstream approval, which is why the film retains its cult edge. Burton, however, takes the gothic subculture of the outsider, sacrifices some of that authenticity for accessibility, and integrates it seamlessly into the teen drama formula, making it consumable across age groups and cultures.

Both texts deal with misfits and rebellion, but their trajectories diverge. Cry-Baby secures cult status for its black-leather-clad outsiders who spit in the face of normies clutching their pearls at the thought of delinquency - a film too weird and too loud for the masses. Wednesday, by contrast, achieves mass-market success by tempering its subcultural edge, wrapping deadpan murderous quips and monstrous mysteries in a boarding-school drama designed for broad appeal. This shift from cult to commodity illustrates how subcultural aesthetics often move from the margins to the mainstream, losing their resistant edge in the process. As Gelder (2007) argues, subcultures are always in tension with the mainstream, but contemporary media increasingly blurs that boundary by appropriating outsider styles for mass consumption.

This process is compounded by the long-standing popularity of The Addams Family. Originating as a comic strip before its black-and-white television debut in 1964, the Addamses have long been embraced by global audiences. Subsequent film and animated adaptations proved commercially successful, paving the way for Wednesday’s triumph. By the time Burton took the helm, the groundwork was already laid: the character was a cultural icon, and her success on a streaming platform was almost guaranteed.

Conclusion

Taken together, Cry-Baby and Wednesday chart the evolution of subculture on screen. Where Waters embraced parody and camp to critique social norms, Burton rebrands the outsider aesthetic into a marketable global phenomenon. The camp sensibility that kept Cry-Baby on the cultural margins reappears in Wednesday, but it has been recalibrated. Jenna Ortega’s (the star and a producer of Wednesday) description of the series as ‘a little campy’ captures this shift: camp becomes a stylish accessory rather than the entire outfit - a deliberate aesthetic flourish rather than the dominant mode of expression. Wednesday has subcultural aesthetics yet maintains mainstream appeal. The trajectory from Cry-Baby’s cult obscurity to Wednesday’s Netflix dominance demonstrates how teen angst, rebellion, and outsider identity are no longer threats to cultural norms, but products to be streamed, shared, and sold. Yet, Wednesday’s success suggests that even commodified subcultures can resonate widely, giving misfits everywhere a black-clad hero - even if she’s a little too polished for the dive bar.