Why Jacob Elordi's Casting in 'Wuthering Heights' Was Considered Controversial to the Book's Fans

Wuthering Heights is out now in theaters, but there was a casting decision that still has fans confused.

Jacob Elordi‘s casting as Heathcliff in the new adaptation from Emerald Fennell was first announced back in September 2024 and it was met with quite a lot of backlash.

With the movie now playing, we’re taking a look at just why Jacob‘s casting for the character has ruffled feathers with book fans.

Keep reading to find out more…

In the original Emily Brontë book, Heathcliff is described as a “dark-skinned gipsy in aspect,” per Variety, and is often depicted in a derogatory way by other characters.

Many experts throughout the years have questioned the character’s origin, as it is not explicitly defined, though he gets many different derogatory terms thrown at him and is described in various ways.

“The ambiguity is really inclusive, because he, as a character, then speaks to a range of people, cultures and communities who were impacted by colonialism and who were othered and abused and oppressed,” Claire O’Callaghan, a senior lecturer in Victorian literature at Loughborough University, shares. “Some people have said, ‘Well, maybe Emily didn’t know exactly who or what he is.’ I’m not sure I agree with that. I think that she’s been deliberately powerful in how she is representing everything, because that’s what novelists do.”

Jacob is also not the first white actor to portray Heathcliff on screen. Other stars who have played him include Laurence Olivier, Richard Burton, and Ralph Fiennes. In 2011, James Howson was the first person of color to play the character.

There are many fans, of course, who find it as a missed opportunity for a POC to play Heathcliff.

“It’s not a response to an individual case, but really a cumulative response to decades of erasure,” Soraya Giaccardi Vargas, a senior researcher at the USC Lear Center’s Media Impact Project, said. “The reality is that BIPOC communities overall are severely underrepresented in media. Regardless of the historical context of the storyline, any time in which there was an opportunity to showcase an actor of color and the decision is made against that, it raises a lot of feelings about whether or not the worthiness of those communities is really understood.”

Just recently, an actress dropped out a movie after a lot of backlash and finding out her character was originally written as a POC.