Another Wuthering Heights adaptation, another White Heathcliff
By Phoebe Oti
By erasing Heathcliff’s racial identity, Emerald Fennell erases the role of racism in fuelling his ruthless actions, writes Phoebe Oti.
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This Valentine’s Day, Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights became the latest literary classic to light up the big screen. And with Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie as its leads, there’s been a renewed interest in Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel.
I was fifteen when I first learnt of Wuthering Heights. It was an intimidating book, but my literature teacher allowed us to watch film versions to help us better understand the novel. After watching films that starred Laurence Olivier and Tom Hardy as the novel’s anti-hero, I suggested we watch Andrea Arnold’s 2011 version starring James Howson, who, like me, happened to be Black.
I was absent when the class watched the film. When I returned, I was shocked to learn that my teacher had turned it off after only a few minutes, outraged over a variety of things she saw – one of them being a Black Heathcliff. For the next few weeks, I had to suffer through grumblings and complaints about the film’s casting choices. As the only Black student in my class, it was discomforting to say the least.
When I think back on those literature lessons, I remember feeling as though I had done something wrong for suggesting the film or that Arnold had made a horrible mistake by presenting Heathcliff as Black. It put a damper on the way I engaged with the literary canon and made me question whether people of colour had a place inside it, even in the form of adaptations.
The news of Emerald Fennell’s film, however, renewed my interest in the novel. Reading Wuthering Heights for what seems like the first time has been an incredible experience and made clear how wrong my teacher was. Heathcliff is clearly not white. The vile treatment he receives from the other characters in the novel hinges on his “dark skin”.
The topic of Heathcliff’s race is often brought up in discussions of the novel and its film adaptations. Throughout the classic, he is frequently subjected to a racialised slur used against Romani people, suggesting he is not simply a white man with dark hair. His dark skin and eyes are used to insult him at every opportunity and separate him from the other characters in the novel, who liken him to the devil and various animals.
When Heathcliff is played by a white man like Jacob Elordi, that context is lost, reducing the contempt other characters hold for him to a matter of class only. Even casting Heathcliff as Black, while spotlighting his racial otherness, erases his Romani heritage. Romani people have suffered some of the most horrific forms of racism throughout history and to this day. In the novel, this context is key to Heathcliff’s experience.
Published in 1847, Wuthering Heights was a controversial debut by a strong-willed Emily Brontë, whose unconventional writing mirrored her unorthodox views. Through her construction of Heathcliff, Brontë explores racism’s capacity to turn individuals into monsters.
Heathcliff refuses to passively accept his degradation, as is often expected of people of colour. Instead, he sinks lower than his oppressors and inflicts the same harm onto them. Through Heathcliff, Brontë is also able to present the malleability of racial and class stratification. Heathcliff’s ability to upend these frameworks by attaining social mobility helps to prove the senselessness of these structures.
The tide has indeed risen against the casting of Elordi. Modern audiences are clearly ready to see an accurate representation of the brooding Byronic hero. In response to the backlash, Emerald Fennell has announced that her adaptation is more of a loose interpretation of the text. Her decision to cast Elordi stems from his resemblance to an illustration of Heathcliff from her first cover of Wuthering Heights. A convenient yet harmful explanation, if you ask me.
The consequences of racism are an integral element of Wuthering Heights as they drive Heathcliff’s actions. However, Fennell has overlooked these factors in favour of themes that may be more relatable to her. But this comes at a detriment to an authentic portrayal of Brontë’s anti-hero and the struggles he faces.
I’m all for Fennell making an erotic gothic film set in the Victorian era. I just don’t believe Wuthering Heights is the means to do this if she isn’t willing to engage with its fundamental themes.
Heathcliff is one of the few people of colour in the Western literary canon. He is interpreted in many ways. A villain, a hero, a victim. Whichever way you view him, his actions, however revolting, result from his discrimination. Discrimination that stems from his racial identity.
There are many who read Wuthering Heights and regard it as a tale of toxic, obsessive love. When we present Heathcliff as white, it remains just that. But when we cast him as the dark-skinned Romani man that Brontë depicted him as, it becomes a story about something else. About how racism creates violence. When we erase Heathcliff’s racial identity, we erase the role of racism, and the people who perpetuate it, in fuelling his ruthless actions.
About the author
Phoebe Oti
Phoebe is a Ghanaian-Australian English and Sociology teacher. An avid reader, she is interested in applying an intersectional lens to literary classics.
Yes! Thank you for discussing this 🙌
For people who don’t understand why it makes a difference, try to think, not why she chose Jacob Elordi (obviously a commercial choice) but why she HAD to remove a dark skinned man from the story. What purpose does it serve and how does it change the story? Not addressing the central theme seems to me a strange choice.