tries to fathom recent casting decisions.
What decisions, you ask? You’d have to be living under a rock not to know that we now have a retroactively white Heathcliff and a Black Severus Snape. [...]
Recently, casting director Kharmel Cochrane defended her Wuthering Heights book adaptation cast, Margot Robbie as Cathy and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, citing, “It’s just a book.” But is it, really? “Just a book”?
Directed by Saltburn (2023) director Emerald Fennell, the newest Wuthering Heights book adaptation is under heavy fire online for its casting, and rightly so. The race-swapping trend in Hollywood has gained momentum over the past few years, often resulting in tone-deaf portrayals that ignore the intersectional context of the source material. Because let’s be honest: art doesn’t exist in a vacuum and can never be apolitical.
A character’s identity is always shaped by their gender, race, and class; these are the elements that define their lived experience.
So, why is race-swapping an issue other than the ‘must stay true to the source material’ argument? It’s simple. All art influences culture, and in return, culture influences the art that comes next. [...]
The issue of race-swapping in media and art, especially in book-to-screen adaptations, is two-pronged. Race-swapping in movies can either erase the experiences of a certain race or reinforce harmful stereotypes about the said race. So, let’s understand this using Jacob Elordi’s white Heathcliff and Paapa Essiedu’s Black Snape as case studies.
In Emily Brontë’s novel, Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff is an orphaned boy whom Mr Earnshaw brings home from Liverpool after finding him alone and starving on the side of a road. Mr Earnshaw describes him as “as dark almost as if it came from the devil” — the first instance of the racialisation of Heathcliff’s identity and its theological association with evil. This reflects a longstanding stereotype historically directed at pagans, Romani people, and people of colour.
Now, even though Brontë doesn’t explicitly mention Heathcliff’s race in the text, the socio-political context of the novel points to him being a person of colour, given how he is constantly othered by Hindley, who subjects him to discrimination and physical violence, often targeting his appearance. One striking example of this is Hindley’s outburst: “And I pray that he may break your neck: take him, and be damned, you beggarly interloper! and wheedle my father out of all he has: only afterwards show him what you are, imp of Satan. —And take that, I hope he’ll kick out your brains!”
Additionally, Heathcliff’s description, his dark hair and “gypsy-like” features point toward his non-white ethnicity. Given the British Empire’s history of imperialism and the slave trade in the West Indies and the Indian Subcontinent during the 19th century, it would not be a far-fetched conclusion that Heathcliff originated from one of these regions. This reinforces the point that the socio-political context of a novel shapes a character’s identity, something that cannot simply be altered at will or because someone “has a vision”.
All the abuse that Heathcliff endures, which makes him jealous and cruel, stems from his being racially othered by Hindley. Heathcliff’s maddening behaviour and thirst for revenge are a direct result of the childhood trauma he suffered due to his non-white identity.
Now, considering all the aforementioned evidence of Heathcliff’s race and ethnicity, and how these factors influence the narrative and his character arc, one must ask: how would the plot unfold if Heathcliff were white? What, then, would motivate Hindley’s abuse towards him, if not race? Heathcliff’s status as racially othered functions as a crucial narrative domino; if Fennell removes it, the entire structure of the story begins to collapse.
But more than simply causing the narrative to fall apart, a white Heathcliff becomes an instrument of erasure — erasure of the experiences of people of colour in 19th-century Britain. Moors, Romani people, and even people from the Indian Subcontinent were dehumanised by the British Empire at the height of its power, and the literature of the period reflects this prejudice. Look at Jane Eyre by the other Brontë sister, Charlotte — Bertha Mason, a woman from the West Indies, was held captive and demonised.
And sure, one could argue that it’s all fiction — but fiction, too, is a reflection of the real world. You can’t erase that by simply swapping the race of a character who has endured it all.
I suggest that Fennell watch the 2011 adaptation of Wuthering Heights directed by Andrea Arnold. Although not perfect, it does get one thing right, and that’s Heathcliff’s skin colour. (Guniya Sharma)
'What, then, would motivate Hindley’s abuse towards him, if not race?' is a very, very easy question to answer because it's what actually affects Heathcliff throughout the novel: social class. And we find it incredibly patronising to tell Emerald Fennell what to watch as if she wasn't free to make her own artistic decisions without the guidance of some random writer on the internet. Whether you agree with them or not, she's perfectly entitled to them.
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