By Chiara Piacentini
Staff Writer
Emerald Fennell made waves in the UK on Sept. 23 when she announced who will star in the lead roles of her new movie adaptation of Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights.” The debate centers around Fennell having “white-washed” the story, as Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi turned out to be cast as Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, respectively.
“Wuthering Heights” is a tragic love story that follows the Earnshaw and Linton families, with a whirlwind romance happening between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, the Earnshaws’ adopted son.
Fans wasted no time in taking the argument to social media.
“So what we’ve learned is that emerald fennel has not read wuthering heights,” one fan posted on X.
Many readers and scholars are on the same page that the 1847 novel makes it clear that Heathcliff is a person of color, drawing from the book’s descriptions of him as a “dark-skinned gypsy” as well as his backstory about being abandoned at a slave port as a baby.
While these characteristics appear to give readers a sense of Heathcliff’s ethnicity, Brontë doesn’t explicitly state his racial background as his origins are not mentioned within the text. This hasn’t stopped the common consensus that Heathcliff’s race as non-white is a fact, not strong speculation.
“Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights is explicitly dark skin and Romani,” one fan wrote on X, “and his experiences as a man of color influence his entire character and story as a man suffering racist abuse from his adoptive family.”
According to Culturess, Fennell has not yet responded to the backlash.
Past movie adaptations of “Wuthering Heights” have had a pattern of casting white actors for the lead roles, but have not garnered controversy. Although, Andrea Arnold’s 2011 adaptation was an exception to this pattern, as a Black actor, James Howson, was chosen to be Heathcliff.
“If you go through the descriptions of Heathcliff in the book, it is very, very clear that he’s not white,” Arnold said in a 2012 interview with IndiWire. “‘Was your mother an Indian princess and your mother a Chinese emperor?’ That’s not being said about somebody who’s from Yorkshire.”
Arnold pointed out a sentence in the novel in a talk with IndiWire to back up her claim: “Who knows but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian Queen.”
Some commenters have suggested a solution to the entire controversy in which fans could settle to watch the 2011 adaptation instead.
“Sorry but there really is no reason for more adaptations of wuthering heights when the 2011 movie directed by andrea arnold exists,” one posted on X.
Whether the controversy will affect the viewer turnout for Fennell’s adaptation remains to be seen. The details of the plot have not yet been released, so it’s not certain how close she’s planning to match the movie to the novel’s storyline. The adaptation is also projected to be in the works for around a year, as the film is not set to release until 2025.
