Wednesday Shit Talk: The Unbearable Whitewashing of Heathcliff

On how the film biz has erased his identity since 1939

A few photos just leaked of the upcoming Emerald Fennell-helmed Wuthering Heights reboot, and I didn’t need to see them to know this flick is already asking too much of me.

Photo: Splash News

Photo: Terry Blackburn / Splash News

In this day and age of swiping through relationships, this timeless tale of all-consuming obsession will certainly turn on the Zers and Alphas who didn’t read the book and fuel yet another Kate Bush revival (always welcome—she’ll fork over the rights, right?). I’m sure they’ll set each gut-wrenching scene to a hearty 80s-driven soundtrack and blow the dust off a few Siouxsie and the Banshees tracks for sugar on top. Maybe the Eurythmics’ “Love Is A Stranger” will play as Mr. Earnshaw first brings Heathcliff home and he and Cathy first lay eyes on each other.

Giving Wuthering Heights a hearty goth bath through the Emerald Fennell lens is understandable—Saltburn proved she has a way with a dark tale about obsession in a remote stone castle in the English countryside. It’s her thing. But whitewashing Heathcliff is a sin Hollywood has committed one too many times, and I’m over it.

I’ll admit to some salt on the rim. Wuthering Heights is one of my very favorite books and one of the few tomes I have studied at various times during the eons I’ve spent on earth. Having first cracked it open at the delicate age of 13, it informed my delusions about relationships, passions, tastes, and storytelling sensibilities to the very core while teaching me words like “vex” and “upbraid.” I know the text well, OK?

In its pages, Heathcliff is described as a “moor,” which quite literally means a Muslim inhabitant of Spain, an Arab North African, or of Berber origin. To quote author Emily Bronte, he is a "dark-skinned gipsy" with "black eyes”—a golden medium foundation shade at the very lightest. Jacob Elordi, who is charged with playing him, is a 3C max, not an 8. Neither is Laurence Olivier, the brilliant actor who won an Oscar for playing him in the original film adaptation of the story back in 1939.

Yes, he’s got cheekbones and mutton chops that lay just right atop them, and yes, that cleft is deep, and his accent might stir even the sleepiest gooch. But he is a whiter shade of pale. So were so many other Heathcliffs, like Richard Burton, Timothy Hutton, Ralph Fiennes, and Tom Hardy. James Howson, a Black actor, was once chosen to play him in 2011, but he was the single exception.

There are a bevy of North African, Arab, or Caucasian (I mean literal Caucasian as in West Asian, not the term appropriated by white people to mean white [click that link to learn about those origins], proving how much some Americans can struggle with identifying the range of identities that comprise the vast range of shades between Black and white) actors who could do this role justice.

Why, in this year of our Goddess 2025, is Hollywood still whitewashing Heathcliff? Rami Malek (who gave off Heathcliff brood vibes in Mr. Robot) or Abubakr Ali wasn’t available? How about Rami Youssef?

C’mon, not even a drop of melanin? How about a wonderful biracial actor? A Greek dude? Latinx? Sicilian? Armenian? Bueller? Bueller?

The very white Elordi casting hearkens back to the very white Olivier choice, even 85 years later. No matter how good Jacob Elordi’s performance may be, this will remain in my mind, and it will frustrate me.

Now, onto the Margot Robbie of it all. I get that she wants to move as far away from the ageless, timeless, lace, and fineless, beauty and elegance that is Barbie onto something darker and meatier. She’s also 34, and Catherine Earnshaw lives until the ripe old age of 20-22, max., which piles on yet another reason this venture is giving vanity project. Then again, she’ll probably do Catherine Earnshaw justice—if anyone could rig the space-time continuum, it’s her. I, for one, would audition Flo Pugh, Sadie Sink, or even Jodie Comer for this role. I want my Cathy SASSY.

Will I still see it? Yes. Occupational hazard, and all that. But you might not want to sit next to me when I do. Whether it’s because I struggle with the film interpretation or any of the rest of it, I’ll surely be muttering to myself.

xx

MF