Why Jacob Elordi's Casting In Wuthering Heights Is Sparking Backlash
Yeah, this really isn't going over well.
Jacob Elordi’s new movie role isn’t exactly causing euphoria. The star was recently cast in Emerald Fennell’s upcoming adaptation of Wuthering Heights to play one of the most iconic characters in romantic literature, Heathcliff. To anyone not very familiar with Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel, the casting decision makes a lot of sense — Elordi is fresh off of playing a charming English socialite in Fennell’s 2023 movie Saltburn. However, fans of the book as well as Brontë experts are calling Elordi’s casting irresponsible.
The issue comes down to Heathcliff’s race. Although his ethnicity is ambiguous in the novel, it’s widely believed that Heathcliff was a person of color, considering he’s described as “a dark-skinned gipsy in aspect” and was abandoned in Liverpool, a city prominent in the slave trade around Brontë’s time. Heathcliff being non-white also adds important layers to the abuses and degradations he suffered by his adoptive family.
Though Heathcliff has been played by white actors in the past (including Tom Hardy, Ralph Fiennes, and Timothy Dalton), Brontë experts are arguing that Elordi’s casting feels outdated. “With Wuthering Heights, you’ve had many years of white actors playing the more ambiguous ethnic character… But things are different now,” Michael Stewart, director of the Brontë Writing Centre, told The Daily Telegraph. “The way we represent certain people in art and culture comes with a responsibility now that wasn’t there 20 years ago.”
“I guess the danger of this – of casting a white actor – particularly in the cultural climate, is that it overlooks the ambiguity that’s there,” added Dr. Claire O’Callaghan, editor-in-chief of the official journal of the Brontë Society.
The backlash has also exploded on social media, where fans of the book expressed their dissatisfaction with the new adaptation ignoring Heathcliff’s race.
Fennell’s version of Wuthering Heights does not yet have a release date. It is slated to begin shooting in the UK in 2025.
