Jacob Elordi, Heathcliff and the Controversy Over ‘Wuthering Heights’

Emerald Fennell’s new Wuthering Heights casts Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, a choice that has prompted accusations of whitewashing online. In Emily Brontë’s novel Heathcliff is described as a “dark-skinned gipsy” and a “Lascar,” and at one point says, “I wish I had light hair and fair skin.” Nelly even imagines he might be a “prince in disguise,” adding, “Who knows but your father was emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen.” Scholars differ on what Brontë intended.

Some read the character against the Liverpool slave trade and the Brontës’ links to abolitionism; others see echoes of anti‑Irish caricature, with the description matching “almost exactly to the caricatures of the Irish,” as Elsie Michie notes.

jacob elordi, heathcliff, wuthering heights, emerald fennell, whitewashing, emily brontë, lascar, liverpool, slave trade, abolitionism