Backlash over Jacob Elordi playing Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights

Jacob Elordi has been cast in Emerald Fennell’s upcoming Wuthering Heights adaptation opposite Barbie star Margot Robbie – but not everyone is thrilled.

Deadline reported that Elordi is set to reunite with Saltburn director Emerald Fennell, to play Heathcliff opposite Margot Robbie’s Catherine Earnshaw.

Despite Saltburn‘s success, and Robbie’s Barbie triumph, social media users are not happy.

In the first half of the novel, Heathcliff is considered a romantic hero, but he later becomes vengeful and bitter, turning into a “Byronic hero”, destroying himself and those around him with jealousy.

Although Heathcliff has been played by a series of white actors in the past, including Laurence Olivier, Richard Burton, Timothy Dalton, Ralph Fiennes and Tom Hardy, there are references in the book that suggest the character isn’t white.

Note: This section contains outdated language.

In the original copy, Heathcliff is described as “dark-skinned” and “a little Lascar”, a 19th-century term for an Indian sailor.

In chapter four, he is described by Mr Earnshaw as “dark” and later asked: “Who knows but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen?”

All of which has left fans debating the casting of Elordi, who is Australian with Basque-country heritage.

People have pointed out how Heathcliff’s character is informed by years of “racist abuse by his adopted family”, and emphasised his description being at odds with Elordi.

“This is so weird, his being a POC [person of colour] is one of the major themes in the novel,” one person wrote. “I hope there’s enough backlash for a recast, this is insane.”

Another said: “Heathcliff… was not white but likely [Romany] or Indian.”

Elordi is also set to appear in queer film On Swift Horses, directed by Daniel Minahan, best-known for his work on Game of Thrones and Fellow Travelers, with the screenplay by Lizzie writer Bryce Kass.

Euphoria star Elordi plays Julius, a Korean War veteran turned gambler, who has many “dream-like” sex sequences with Babylon’s Diego Calva.

Next year, he will be seen as The Monster in Guillermo del Toro’s reworking of Frankenstein.

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