Goths are people that like the darker side of life. They often see beauty in the morbid and are drawn to the scary and weird. Goths are often recognized for their love of spooky music and other media, dark makeup and clothing, and how they don't shy away from the more tragic aspects of life. This culture can be love for the classic book Dracula or wearing black lipstick daily.
Many characters have become iconic when people think of the culture. Whether or not someone is Goth, these characters can inspire others to delve into the romantic dark side, even if just for one movie or show.
6 Edward Scissorhands
Edward Scissorhands is the main character in the movie of the same name by Tim Burton. He is an artificial, ageless man whose creator died before finishing him, leaving him with scissors as hands. Despite being an invention, he has real and strong emotions. He befriends others by giving haircuts with his scissor hands and develops a deep love for others.
Edward Scissorhands fears hurting those around him with the blades, showing compassion. He's spooky, with bags under his eyes, dark features, and dangerous weapons for hands. Like many young goths, he feels like an outcast and is awkward with social interactions, but builds valuable relationships in the end.
5 Lisbeth Salander
Lisbeth Salander is an introvert and an antiheroine from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. She is a computer hacker known for being antisocial and having a traumatic childhood. She tries to get revenge on her tormentors and, in the process, also fights back against other evil people.
Lisbeth sports dark clothing, dark emo hair, and lots of piercings. She's a highly skilled hacker and has an extraordinary memory which makes her seem almost superhuman. Lisbeth is the embodiment of a rocker punk Goth in both her appearance and her personality.
4 Lydia Deetz
Lydia Deetz is one of the main characters in the classic Tim Burton movie Beetlejuice. She is strange, serious, unusual, and an outsider who enjoys the macabre. Because she's lonely and unhappy, Lydia befriends her new household's ghosts, the Maitlands. She even offers to marry Beetlejuice to keep the Maitlands from being exorcized.
Lydia has the wild dark hair, paleness, and spooky clothing of a Goth such as lace chokers. But she also shows some main traits of gothic mentality. She is in tune with her emotions and likes the deeply morbid. She's also fascinated by the supernatural and is the only one in her family who can see the ghosts of the Maitlands.
3 Eric Draven
Eric Draven, also known as The Crow, is a tragic gothic antihero. He appears in the cult dark fantasy movie The Crow. He is resurrected one year after he and his wife were killed the night before their wedding. The Crow is haunting as he seeks revenge for the horrific tragedy that befell both of them.
His distinctive appearance is like that of the 1980s Goth aesthetic. He has a pale face, dark lips, leather clothes, and wild black hair. The Crow is motivated by a dangerous internal drive for revenge. This embodies the darkness but romanticism of some gothic subcultures.
2 Nancy Downs
Nancy Downs is one of the main characters in The Craft, a horror cult classic. To most people, she comes off as impulsive, outgoing, and rude and only shows her softer side to those close to her like her mom. The conservative school setting emphasizes her troubled and rebellious side, showing her defiant and daring side. Nancy abuses the magical powers she gets from Manon, which, like most magic, comes with a price.
Despite her intelligence, her troubled side ends up controlling her morals and magic. The four main characters in the movie are all witches, but Nancy is the only Goth. On the outside, she is the classic Goth teenager wearing black clothing, dark lipstick, and emo accessories. Inside, she has an adoring fascination with the dark side of things, and she is willing to cause chaos.
1 The Addams Family
The whole Addams family is the epitome of Goths and ghouls. This spooky family has multiple facets of Goth culture in the many family members and shows that people don't always grow out of being gothic. All of them wear black and many even resemble monsters. Morticia is powerful and elegant, enjoying morbid humor, dreary locations, and gruesome things. She looks like a classic vampire, pale with blood-red lips and long black hair. Morticia and Gomez are perfect examples of romantic Goths.
Their children show off two different sides of gothic personalities. Pugsley loves torture and encourages Wednesday to inflict pain upon him. Wednesday has a morbid fascination with death which pairs well with her flat expression, deadpan humor, and cynicism. She enjoys raising spiders, collecting headless dolls, causing turmoil, and more. Wednesday wears jet black clothes, but she is a key example of black lipstick isn't needed to be Goth.