A 'raunchy' take on Wuthering Heights

A reader of The Guardian writes in reply to yesterday's article referring to the Brontës' 'infantile concept of ideal masculinity'.

In her column about “hot but mean men” in pop culture (10 April), Hadley Freeman writes that “the Brontë sisters had a decidedly – shall we say – infantile concept of ideal masculinity”. She must have forgotten Anne Brontë, who paints her main man as a vicious, entitled man-child. Both the heroine and the reader (this one, at any rate) hate him by the end. Someone pass her a copy of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
Kathryn Robertson
Falkirk, Stirlingshire

Fair point!

The Daily Mail is scandalised on behalf of its Australian readers because Channel Seven (Australia) aired 'ANOTHER raunchy midday movie featuring racy scenes between teenage adoptive siblings', namely - Wuthering High School, a 2015 American made-for-television film (rated 16+ by Common Sense media and given 3 points out of 5 for sexual content, so not that 'raunchy').

Airing a raunchy midday movie is becoming something of a habit for Channel Seven.
And the network screened even more simulated sex on Thursday, this time broadcasting raunchy Lifetime movie, Wuthering High School.
Actors Andrew Jacobs and Paloma Kwiatkowski were seen getting hot and heavy in the 2015 made-for-TV feature based on the Emily Brontë classic, Wuthering Heights.
Airing at around 12.30pm, Paloma - who plays Cathy - appears to engage in sexual behaviour with Andrew, as Heath, on a table in a kitchen pantry.
Adding further controversy, the teenage characters play adoptive brother and sister, while Paloma wears what appears to be a school girl uniform, suggesting she is underage.
But despite airing in the middle of the day, the film does not appear to breach the commercial television Code of Practice.
Under the existing Code of Practice for Australian free-to-air TV, any material classified 'M' can be aired on school days between 12pm and 3pm.

(It's okay for the Daily Mail to serve hatred and violence and all sorts of male-chauvinistic images of celebrities any time of day, but still be scandalised by a TV channel showing a teen movie at lunchtime. Oh the hypocrisy.)

We wonder what they will make of the film After, which is reviewed by several news outlets with Brontë mentions.

“After,” which is based on a new adult romantic novel written by Anna Todd, with the Hardin character reportedly modeled on Harry Styles, is an innocuous teen pulp soap opera that flirts with “danger”  but, in fact, keeps surprising you with how mild and safe and predictable it turns out to be. The movie is nothing more than the story of a beautiful college naïf who thinks she’s still going out with her hippie cuddblebug high-school boyfriend back home until she meets Hardin, the moussed Heathcliff of English class, with his saturnine undercurrents and are-you-experienced? stare. (Owen Gleiberman on Variety)

En varios pasajes de After: aquí empieza todo, los protagonistas leen, citan y conversan sobre las novelas Cumbres borrascosas, de Emily Brontë, y Orgullo y prejuicio, de Jane Austen. Dos clásicos de la literatura que el guion, de manera bastante poco sutil, insinúa que fueron modelos para la historia de amor entre Hardin (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) y Tessa (Josephine Langford). Lo cierto es que la película está más cerca de Crepúsculo que de la perfecta comedia de modales de Austen o la tragedia romántica de Brontë. (Natalia Trzenko in La nación (Argentina)) (Translation)

Hero Fiennes-Tiffin hat da schon einen etwas schwereren Stand. Der Jungschauspieler, der als Zwölfjähriger eine kleine Rolle in "Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz" hatte, zitiert ununterbrochen Jane Austen und Emily Brontë, schlurft im Ramones-T-Shirt durch den Film und klingt dabei meist so wie ein 50-Jähriger, der sein Leben lang nur Kalendersprüche und den "Playboy" gelesen hat. Abstinenzler ist er auch noch - zu gerne wüsste man, was Harry Styles wohl von diesem Typen hält. (Sven Hauberg in Mittelbayerische (Germany)) (Translation)

Per gli altri… Tessa e Hardin non sono certo Heathcliff e Catherine. (Costanza Morabito on Cinematografo (Italy)) (Translation)

Express Healthcare (India) quotes from Jane Eyre ('Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel;' etc).

Times have certainly changed since Miss Brontë first had her revolutionary novel published, under the male pseudonym of ‘Currer Bell’, in 1847, just so that her literary masterpiece wouldn’t be rejected for being written by a woman. No longer confined by the threshold of their homes, women in the work force have made their presence felt, and achieved success which our forebearers may have thought unimaginable.
However, “equal rights” still remain a mirage, and every single working woman faces odds and challenges far more numerous than her male counterpart, in a similar position. In the Indian society, as in many others all over the world, she is still both deified and crucified – bearing the double responsibility of home and of work; always on a tightrope walk, balancing the manifold roles which have been thrust upon her. (Dr Suyasha Vyas)

In The Times, Caitlin Moran argues that,

There is limitless revelation in, say, the history of the British Raj being retold by Indian historians, or a feminist re-angling of the Brontë family (oh, Branwell, you div).

SlashFilm thinks that the film Lizzie might appeal to fans of Jane Eyre. El Correo (Spain) announces a concert by Tommy Sands from The Sands Family, claiming that his mother Bridie Connolly was related to the Brontë family. The Wikipedia page on the Sands Family states that too by linking to the Sands Family website, which doesn't say anything at all about it now.