To ask if you're looking forward to the "re-imagined" Wuthering Heights?

[Toeragg]

I can't wait! Jacob Eldori's wig looks a bit dodgy in the first part but he scrubs up well when Heathcliff becomes rich. Not sure about the Yorkshire accent.

Margot Robbie looks a bit too old and glowy to be Cathy but I'm there for the frocks, the interiors and the scenary!

Anyone else going?

I think the casting choices were shit. I was pretty young when I read the book and I picked up that Heathcliff was likely mixed race. Margot Robbie may work as Barbie, but she's wildly miscast as Cathy.

It looks like it's going to be a reimagining of WH with what those involved think is edgy. 🙄

What is with the weird miscasting choices for the recent remakes of classics? This and Matt Damon as Odysseus in the Odyssey, I saw the trailer of that too and just, head desk.

I'll probably watch it when it comes on streaming because I'm interested and I'm sure it'll look gorgeous but based on casting and Emerald Fennell's comments I don't have high hopes.

He’s referred to as ‘dark-skinned’. That coukd be olive I guess. But I think you have to work quite hard given all the clues in the text to conclude he’s white. And especially since the novel clearly explores social divisions of various sorts.

I don’t think he’s mixed race, more “dark and swarthy” as it was described then.

Dark and swarthy are discussed in terms of him being foreign looking though. He isn't a local boy with a tan, and isn't viewed that way by the characters.

Given that many of the people who help "tell" the story in the book, or who comment on Heathcliffs appearance have barely travelled outside of Yorkshire I don't think they could be expected to come to an accurate description of his likely origin. They fill in the blanks according to their own preconceptions and prejudice.

Like another poster said Brontë likely left Heathcliffs actual background, and how he made his money, deliberately vague so that the reader has to fill in the blanks according to their own preconceptions.

My husband, depending on whether he has a tan, has either been assumed as a native Irish Celt or as Spanish or Turkish.

And, my personal bugbear - Moors! Othello was Moorish. They're so often missed out.

It's the Where are you really from that non white people get a lot. Swarthy was and still is a loaded word when it comes to race.

We can explain away how Heathcliff is now a white bloke with dark hair but it just shows how superficial this movie is. No mystery at all, an it wasn’t anything more than ‘he is hot, he’ll be good for the sex scenes’.

If they wanted to mix up the ethnicity, they could have made him fully black, Indian whatever and made an interesting narrative for him. And explored the race dynamics further.

I’ve never liked the book, but I love the song by the wonderful Kate Bush

I think it’s a problem to attribute a nationality to a character that is not given in the book. If Heathcliff was Irish you’d think someone might have mentioned it.

His ethnicity is intentionally uncertain but his descriptors “dark-skinned”, “gipsy”, “Lascar”, “American” and “Spanish castaway” point beyond the British Isles.

I don’t think we can speculate what Mr Linton had seen. We don’t know if he travelled abroad. We do know he visited Liverpool where he would have encountered relatively diverse ethic and national communities as well as foreign travellers. No reason why he wouldn’t have seen Romani people - there were communities across the U.K. Gipsies turn up in George Eliot and Jane Austen.

Yes, ‘swarthy’ comes via swart from the German “shwarz” meaning black.

I enjoy a Meatloaf video, so maybe I am missing something not seeing it.

I haven't quite decided if I will watch or not, certainly might wait for it to stream (fan of the book if that matters).

I didn't know this! I have only seen it used about well-built men like pirates in fiction so I assumed it was a bit like ruddy - outdoors/manual labour type complexion.

Margot Robbie has some ego to cast herself as Cathy.

absolutely

Alternatively, they just need a big name to sell the film

Either way, not very appealing as a potential viewer

I don’t want to see it for reasons I’ve already said, but I don’t see why it needs ‘ego’. What are you suggesting about Cathy? I’ve never imagined her as a great beauty, or even as a particularly nice person.

Apparently he licks things a lot 😆

I remember being very annoyed with Cathy when I read the book. I am thinking I'd like to reread & figure out what I think now.

I would love to have seen what a director like Chloe Zhao would have done with Wuthering Heights.

I doubt it would have involved shock factor execution scenes.

From the trailer, sound bites and initial reviews, it all sounds a bit vapid. I'll still watch it when it comes out on the small screen.

I don’t want to see it for reasons I’ve already said, but I don’t see why it needs ‘ego’. What are you suggesting about Cathy? I’ve never imagined her as a great beauty, or even as a particularly nice person

MR is too old to play Cathy. That's what I mean.

Not at all. The trailers have put me completely off.

No! I love Wuthering Heights. Sounds like they have totally spannered it up. I normally love Margot Robbie too so am very disappointed..

And arguably also too perfectly beautiful and too polished (I would love to have that as a problem so no offense to Margot Robbie but she isn't right for the part).

I studied WH for A Level English and still remember my teacher being outraged when I suggested that Heathcliffe was very likely Cathy's half brother. Mr. Earnshaw having a foreign born mistress, who he kept in Liverpool and who gave birth to a baby boy didn't seem very far fetched to me?

If later, his mistress died, it would make sense for him to bring Heathcliffe home with him and pass him off as a 'foundling.' It would also explain the intrinsic bond between Cathy and Heathcliffe, and the many similarities between them.

Agreed. Retrospectively you can feel vindicated that you were being perceptive and your English teacher was wrong. I think it's generally seen as a perfectly valid interpretation even if it's one most of the TV adaptations would downplay because....ewwww