Wuthering Heights, directed by Emerald Fennell, has captured everyone’s attention. If you’re anything like me, you’ve recently been seeing headlines about the casting controversies and interpretations of the film. Were Fennell’s casting and creative decisions bold interpretations that work well, or did they produce a film that’s a shell of Emily Brontë’s original Gothic tale?
In particular, people can’t stop talking about the casting of Heathcliff. A lot of people believe that Heathcliff should be played by an actor with a minority background. Fennell’s Heathcliff is portrayed by Jacob Elordi, a white actor from Australia, which has become quite a contentious topic among fans and critics alike.
While some fans insist on strict racial authenticity, many Brontë scholars note that the novel leaves Heathcliff’s ethnicity intentionally ambiguous. I’ve even heard some fans say that Heathcliff was “obviously” intended to be white. I find it interesting to see everyone’s different interpretations of his character.
In the 1847 novel Wuthering Heights, Brontë uses several terms that imply Heathcliff’s otherness. He’s described as “a dark-skinned gypsy,” and later called “a little Lascar.” These descriptions signal layered forms of racial “othering,” or treating other people or groups as fundamentally different or alien.
For many viewers, this casting choice just seems off. Some feel like the film is just another example of Hollywood ripping off a classic.
White Heathcliffs Aren’t New
The negative reaction to Elordi being cast as Heathcliff can’t be viewed in isolation from the broader film history, in which Heathcliff has almost exclusively been represented by white actors.
Perhaps this is just my opinion, but it appears to me that Elordi is receiving the most attention for his casting into this role than prior actors have. The character of Heathcliff has previously been portrayed by Timothy Dalton, Ralph Fiennes, and Laurence Olivier.
A notable exception arrived with Andrea Arnold’s 2011 adaptation, in which Heathcliff was played by James Howson, a Black British actor. Arnold defended her choice by grounding it in the novel’s descriptions, stating publicly that it was clear he was “not white-skinned.”
The Context and Literary “Otherness”
English literature from the 19th century has many examples of “otherness.” Heathcliff is a part of a much larger literary tradition of outsiders whose physical appearance and foreign origins make him feel different. The ambiguity of his background leaves a lot up to the imagination.
Heathcliff’s racial ambiguity isn’t something that Brontë wrote about by chance. It was a deliberate move that many believe plays an important role in the story. It shapes how he’s treated and how he ultimately responds.
As a child, Heathcliff was plucked from the streets of Liverpool by Catherine’s father and brought into a household that never fully accepted him. He’s neglected, abused, and made constantly aware of his otherness.
The 2026 Film and the Casting Controversy
The controversy exists not only in Fennell’s casting but also in the structure of the film. The second half of the novel is completely omitted from the film.
In defense of her decision to cast a white actor for the role of Heathcliff, Fennell emphasized her own interpretation of the character. During a panel at the Brontë Women’s Writing Festival in England, Fennell stated that her version of Heathcliff came from an illustrated edition of the book she read as a child, and that she’d always imagined Heathcliff as the person that she saw in that illustration. Fennel shared how the film represents her own interpretation of the text.
However, when asked about casting a white actor in the role of Heathcliff, Fennell replied, “You can only make the movie that you sort of imagined yourself when you read it.” Overlooking the fact that Fennell comes from a position of significant wealth, she may be viewing the novel from the perspective of a white-privileged reader, which may have played a role in her artistic decisions.
Race and Power
While the new adaptation has brought up several new comparisons to other films, it’s been compared to another film of Fennell’s, Saltburn, which depicts class anxiety through the eyes of a suspicious person who manipulates others. This Wuthering Heights puts even more emphasis on Nelly Dean being an interfering character who creates a destabilizing force within the relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff.
Fans of Wuthering Heights have speculated about Heathcliff’s racial and social identity for two centuries. There’s been much debate over Fennell’s 2026 film. This adaptation was definitely unique, but not faithful enough to preserve the original narrative. Wuthering Heights is a narrative defined by extremes, so the mediocrity may be the greatest betrayal of all.
Ultimately, the controversy surrounding this adaptation reveals that Heathcliff’s otherness remains unresolved, and perhaps that’s precisely the point. Each generation must decide how to confront it. In smoothing the novel’s emotional and racial edges, this version risks diluting what’s made Wuthering Heights endure: its willingness to be uncomfortable, excessive, and fiercely uncontained.
Want to see more HCFSU? Be sure to follow us on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest!