Oh Heathcliff? Why Must Thou Be White Again?

Seriously! It’s tiresome!

It has truly become a time honoured tradition at this point that mainstream Hollywood must not cast a person of colour to play Heathcliff – EVER.

For those of you who are unaware of the wondrous world of classic English literature, Heathcliff is the main male lead in Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel, “Wuthering Heights.”

To my limited knowledge, the only adaptation of this enduring classic that has managed to cast a POC in the role of Heathcliff has been the 2011 adaptation by Andrea Arnold starring Kaya Scodelario as Catherine and James Howson – an actor of Afro-Carribean descent – as Heathcliff.

Now, for a little background before I begin my rant; let’s look at the actual description of our hero in the book as described by the author herself.

Even though she never explicitly states his race, Brontë does describe Heathcliff as a “dark-skinned gypsy in aspect and a little lascar.”

Which we can safely assume to mean he is NOT WHITE.

While some analysts have made the point that Heathcliff can be considered possibly of Moorish descent, more than most agree that the above description provide a fair bit of evidence that Heathcliff was likely of Romani origin as the term gypsy is a derogatory term that was used to describe the Roma peoples.

The Roma are a displaced ethnic group that originated in the Indian subcontinent, likely in the Rajasthan region, thus giving them South Asian roots.

Brontë also calls him a “lascar” which was a term used to describe sailors from the Indian subcontinent in the olden times.

So now that we’ve fairly reasonably established Heathcliff’s race, let’s talk of Hollywood’s continued transgressions against his character by repeatedly casting him as a white man.

Don’t get me wrong; I love me some Ralph Fiennes, Tom Hardy or Timothy Dalton. And even though I would blaspheme by venturing to say that Fiennes’s Heathcliff is one of the most accurate portrayals of the character, the problem with whitewashing his race is that it derails and defeats a primary understanding of his character arc.

In the book, Heathcliff is constantly considered as beneath Cathy’s lily-white, untarnished aristocratic background and the supporting characters in the novel categorically treat him as below their stature. This is a defining trait that shapes Heathcliff’s personality and the actions he later takes during the course of the novel.

While the traditionally acceptable casting of Heathcliff addresses the discussion of class struggle that is an important theme throughout the novel, the whitewashing fails to address the racial commentary that Brontë is trying to make.

Fast forward, we are in 2024 and Hollywood still has not learned its lesson.

Recently Emerald Fennel, the director of Saltburn, was announced to be reviving this age old classic story once again.

This is where us crazy literature fiends start having some real issues.

Fennel cast Margot Robbie as Cathy – an uninspired choice, in my humblest of opinions but I digress; the real problem started when she announced that the role of Heathcliff will be played by the uncharismatic likes of Jacob Elordi.

Now I know a lot of people will say Elordi has Basque lineage. Regardless, the fact remains that he is a white passing/white adjacent European actor and is not the right fit for Heathcliff.

What’s even more problematic is that Fennel cast Shazad Latif, a British actor of Pakistani descent, not as Heathcliff who more than likely shares a similar heritage as Latif, but as Edgar Linton, the white dude who eventually marries Cathy but simply cannot compete with Heathcliff.

What is this? How do you cast a South Asian actor in a film and not give him the male lead that is supposed to be of the same racial background as him?

What gives, Emerald Fennel?

The racial connotations of whitewashing Heathcliff’s character are particularly egregious in this case because casting a brown actor for a white role while casting a white actor for a brown role who is specifically affected by the class divide and colourism directed towards him within the novel, completely obliterates the racial dimensions that Brontë tried to bring to light. That too, at a time when such discussions were not common place and indeed frowned upon because racism existed as a fundamental tenet of the quintessential aristocratic British framework. Removing this aspect of the novel from its analytic discussions and adaptations is a huge issue because the problems highlighted in the novel are very much prevalent even today.

After the casting was announced, predictably, a slew of white people – who’d never read the book – came forward to say that it didn’t matter as long as the actor did a good job.

These are the same hordes of people who created a hailstorm of outrage and made calls to boycott the live-action “The Little Mermaid” movie when Halle Bailey, a black singer/actress was cast in the role of Ariel, because apparently Ariel was white in the “original”.

The dissonance is remarkable, considering that Ariel is a mermaid – a mythical creature, not a real human being.

The real kicker was that this crowd, with its firm belief that anyone (white people mostly) can play any role as long as they do a good job of it, was so distressed on the casting of Halle Bailey in the movie that these casual racists completely disregarded her powerhouse performance and her spellbinding voice that is essential to Ariel’s character in the original Disney classic.

Clearly Bailey was selected to be Ariel not because of some colourblind, forced diversity agenda but because she was truly perfect for the role. The film, with the exception of a very few parts, was not particularly good but the one thing that carries the film from start to finish is Bailey’s standout performance as Ariel that by far supersedes the rest of the cast’s by a veritable margin.

But trolls will still be trolls. They won’t have a problem when the entire cast of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” is whitewashed but they have a problem when a black girl plays a probably nonexistent mythical creature.

This, unfortunately, is the same kind of reasoning that is being given by apologists for the casting of Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff. Not to mention his rabid teenage fangirls, who are painstakingly scouring the internet, putting up photos of him with a tan, just to prove that he can play Heathcliff because he’s not “pasty white.”

Which brings me to my own conclusion of why Hollywood refuses to cast a brown man for this most volatile of roles in the romantic classical repertoire.

Heathcliff is the original bad boy.

He is tall, dark and handsome.

He is mysterious and brooding and dangerous – a definitive departure from the usual Austen-esque romantic heroes of its time; notable examples of which would be Mr. Darcy – the romantic lead in Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” or Mr. Knightley – the main lead of “Emma” (my personal favourite), with the clear exception of Mr. Rochester from the other Brontë sister, Charlotte’s novel, “Jane Eyre” (evidently the sisters like their heroes with a bit of Byronic flare).

Heathcliff is the ultimate embodiment of the tortured antihero who comes from a tragic background, is treated abysmally by people around him and eventually comes back to enact his revenge upon the same people who wronged him. These particular traits since then, have customarily been ascribed to subsequent romantic heroes in various literary genres, not just classical romance.

It would, therefore, not do for Hollywood to cast brown and black people or other POC bodies as popular romantic leads. Brown people are only to be cast as turbaned fanatics who go around and blow things up while black people must only be cast as the downtrodden, poor and oppressed people they are. There is no space for nuance when it comes to popular roles for people of colour in Hollywood.

This was clearly exhibited in another train-crash classical adaptation of Austen’s “Persuasion”, starring Dakota Johnson as Anne Elliot. This 2022 adaptation saw the very handsome and very charismatic Henry Goulding – a British-Malaysian actor – be relegated to a side character while the romantic lead, Captain Wentworth, was given to Cosmo Jarvis (you guessed it, a white guy) who managed to deliver the most underwhelming and lukewarm of performances.

Frankly, I do not expect this new adaptation to be something fresh and different or an imaginative take on a beloved classic nor do I expect Jacob Elordi to be even half as angsty as the character he is meant to play.

Therefore, I end by announcing that I shall not be wasting my precious time watching this dumpster fire. I recommend every tasteful person refrain as well.