The Netflix series Wednesday based on the Addams Family comic strips has been taking a beating on social media after star Jenna Ortega revealed that she filmed a crowded scene while infected with the coronavirus.
The backlash started after Ortega revealed during an NME interview that she felt horrible due to having been infected with the coronavirus as she filmed the scene in which her character (Wednesday) dances in a crowd of extras, which has since become a hit on social media.
“I choreographed that myself!” Ortega told NME. “It’s crazy because it was my first day with COVID so it was awful to film.”
The interviewer expressed shock over Ortega’s revelation, prompting her to respond, “Yeah, I woke up and … I had the body aches. I felt like I’d been hit by a car and that a little goblin had been let loose in my throat and was scratching the walls of my esophagus. They were giving me medicine between takes because we were waiting on the positive result.”
NME said that MGM, the production company behind the series, assured that “strict COVID protocols were followed and once the positive test was confirmed production removed Jenna from set.”
Fans of the series were not assuaged.
As Breitbart News reported, the woke left recently excoriated Wednesday for featuring black characters as bullies in the show, saying it perpetuated racist stereotypes.
Wednesday follows Wednesday Addams’ experience as a boarding school student at Nevermore Academy, where black actress Joy Sunday plays a mean girl named Bianca, and black actor Iman Marson plays Lucas, a bully and the son of a corrupt mayor.
While the “mean girl” and “son of a corrupt mayor” archetypes have been historically played by white actors in the entertainment industry, it appears that diversifying these types of characters has missed the mark for some fans.
Mike Simpson, a representative for director Tim Burton, called the accusations from fans “silly” when asked by the New York Post.