“Wuthering Heights”: TikTokification, White Comfort, and Erasure, by Becca Blanco

Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” speaks to a broader erasure happening in our current political climate. 

Emily Brontë’s masterpiece on class and race was revolutionary for its time for many reasons. Heathcliff’s character and status as love interest (?) was unheard of—and not only because he was described in the novel as “dark-skinned” with “black eyes.” Such a cruel and outright sadistic love interest was neither morally nor socially appropriate for polite society. Nonetheless, Brontë wrote a story not of love, and certainly not of the greatest ever told, but one of prejudice and generational cycles of trauma.

It’s more than safe to say, then, that Fennell, who has openly admitted to basing this movie off of her own pubescent fantasies of Heathcliff, cut Brontë’s work into pieces and jigsawed together a movie that both TikTokifies and erases the racial prejudice that serves as the story’s foundation.

Heathcliff is cruel because he suffers abuse and constant mistreatment because of his race. He is not sexy, he does not saunter across wooden floors or climb through windows into the flesh-colored bedroom of a certain leading lady. He recognizes that as a result of his race and class, he can never be with Catherine Earnshaw. And so he flees to save himself from both abuse and the pain of seeing her with another.

There’s a larger story going on here, one of the I-don’t-see-color genre. It is incredibly convenient to believe that race doesn’t play a role in the socioeconomic status of everyday people, and in this case, inhabitants of the moors. It’s uncomfortable to recognize Whiteness as privilege, as no one wants to unintentionally profit off of a corrupt system that pushes minorities down, much less admit to these inadvertent gains. It’s more comfortable to make jokes asking where my privilege is, when, as seen in masterpieces like Wuthering Heights, this privilege lies in a lack of obstacles and often nothing else. 

In both Fennell’s adaptation and Brontë’s work, Heathcliff’s exact origins are unknown. We know that he is not White, and that Catherine’s father essentially picks him up off the street to save him from poverty. Given the subjugation of non-white communities in this time, one can only assume that the destitution of his parents had something to do with the color of their skin. Catherine’s father is more kind-hearted in the novel, and takes him in out of charity rather than a drunken stupor. Readers of the book can recognize very early on that his circumstances and station in life are the result of racial prejudice. And Mr. Earnshow’s ability to flippantly add to his household is a display of their wealth and privilege. 

Fennell works overtime to divert the viewer’s attention from his origin and dives straight into the connection that Catherine and Heathcliff form. She changes out key elements of the story—the narrator (who is cut from the film), Joseph’s zealous tirades, the generational trauma—and she completely disfigures and scapegoats Nelly’s character. She does find room for two POC in the movie, one of which she villainizes and the other of which is painted as the bland alternative to her Heathcliff.

Casting Edgar Linton, Catherine’s husband, as a Scottish and Pakistani actor has nefarious undertones in and of itself. When his family first arrives in the Earnshaw’s neighborhood, Catherine is seen ogling and mystifying the caravan of his belongings being moved into their palace of a home. She makes commentary on how rich and interesting they must be, remarking that she must marry him. It then boils down, unfortunately, to the following: our female protagonist is captured by the idea of being with this rich and exotic man, whom she eventually pursues and marries. Though not over Heathcliff in the slightest, she quickly becomes bored of this rich and exotic living and yearns instead for the safety of her childhood spark. I am not writing that this painting of interracial marriage was by any means intentional. I just find it to be an extremely distasteful choice, one that caricatures and fetishizes rich, exotic foreigners (read: Others, non-whites), who ultimately don’t stand a chance against their White competition. Weird casting call, is all.

The trademarks of this story are its flawed protagonists. Both Catherine and Heathcliff constantly hurt each other out of spite and anger. In the novel, Catherine notoriously has fits of rage in which she tears up belongings and screams, while Heathcliff literally hangs Isabella’s dog (you read that right). These characters are flawed. It would be kind to call them morally gray, even. They are both selfish, impulsive, and act in self-preservation.

Instead of addressing the nuance these characters offer to a film adaptation, Fennell disfigures Nelly’s character into a scapegoat. In the novel, Nelly is a housekeeper working for Catherine’s father. She faithfully raises and nurtures Catherine and Healthcliff (as well as Catherine’s daughter and nephew, who are both omitted from the film entirely). In Fennell’s adaptation, however, Nelly intentionally sees to it that Heathcliff leaves Wuthering Heights, she burns his letters, she blocks his visits, she conspires with Edgar (the only other POC), and she even neglects Catherine’s health until she falls ill, miscarries, and dies of sepsis. Here again, Fennell does everything she can to absolve her White characters of all misdeeds. It all comes back to Nelly, the Asian hired help (which doesn’t make much historical sense, but then, neither do a lot of things in this film). 

In Fennell’s adaptation, she ensures that our protagonists are both White and blameless. She bulldozes the novel’s nuance and sociopolitical commentary, and opts instead to create a spicy BookTok rendition of classic literature concerning race and prejudice. This version serves viewers a heaping plate of sweaty bodies, speedy montages, and an overly simplified plot to maintain their interest at the expense of critical thought. 

Race is uncomfortable. Discussing privilege is uncomfortable. Instead, direct a film of TikTok clips and instant gratification. Don’t dare to challenge your audience, and don’t ask them for a moment to think beyond the scene at hand. 

Lead the horse to water and give it a long bendy straw!

I am not an adaptation purist. Deviation from the source material, when done in good faith, can deepen a story and enrich an author’s world. But Fennell fetishizes the race and class struggle of minorities in a feat of modern colonization. It’s regressive, and celebrates the rising trend of ignoring minority stories in the name of White comfort, spice, and dopamine.