Ok DCUM, what do you think of the Wuthering Heights movie?

[Anonymous]

It's crazy to think that a novel written in 1850 is more progressive about race and colonialism than right now. It's so regressive these days

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From what I read, Heathcliff is described as a gypsy and a dark stranger in the novel. Could it just be that he’s dark in mysterious or does it imply that he’s from a completely different race? I never understood it this way. The actor who plays Heathcliff is tall, dark and handsome.

I'm French and have lived in the UK. "Gypsy" means traveling Roma people that mostly came from Eastern Europe but that have very distant Indian heritage (they migrated in the Middle Ages or something). They are not of African or Arab descent. In Bronte's time, gypsies would have looked like the gypsies of today, and since the settled populations looked down on them, they probably wouldn't distinguish between impoverished English folk without a home and actual Roma, if both looked relatively similar. If you walk in the streets of Paris right now, you can see gypsy women holding babies in their laps begging for money, usually near metro stations. They are purposefully scruffy to attract sympathy, but they do actually have relatively pale skin and dark hair (also today they're slaves to a begging racket, so don't give them money - they'll have to hand it over to the menfolk in charge).

So casting a Caucasian with dark hair in the role of Heathcliff is entirely appropriate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's crazy to think that a novel written in 1850 is more progressive about race and colonialism than right now. It's so regressive these days

+1 I can't support whitewashing right now with everything serious that's going on.

Margot Robbie wearing the Taj Mahal necklace (stolen via colonialism) in publicity for the movie cinched it for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Heathcliff was not white in the novel? I didn’t realize that.

He is ambiguous and could be anything but possibly not white. Anyone who actually saw this movie saw Edgar was Pakistani and Nelly Asian, and Elordi is Basque so it’s not like there was no diversity.

[Anonymous]

The costumes and set design were absolutely incredible in such away they took away from the plot for me. I would not say it was a great movie but so original and creative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From what I read, Heathcliff is described as a gypsy and a dark stranger in the novel. Could it just be that he’s dark in mysterious or does it imply that he’s from a completely different race? I never understood it this way. The actor who plays Heathcliff is tall, dark and handsome.

I'm French and have lived in the UK. "Gypsy" means traveling Roma people that mostly came from Eastern Europe but that have very distant Indian heritage (they migrated in the Middle Ages or something). They are not of African or Arab descent. In Bronte's time, gypsies would have looked like the gypsies of today, and since the settled populations looked down on them, they probably wouldn't distinguish between impoverished English folk without a home and actual Roma, if both looked relatively similar. If you walk in the streets of Paris right now, you can see gypsy women holding babies in their laps begging for money, usually near metro stations. They are purposefully scruffy to attract sympathy, but they do actually have relatively pale skin and dark hair (also today they're slaves to a begging racket, so don't give them money - they'll have to hand it over to the menfolk in charge).

So casting a Caucasian with dark hair in the role of Heathcliff is entirely appropriate.

NOPE.

For the love, people. Can you do some reading. The evidence is in the book. You can google it.

[Anonymous]

https://www.mentalfloss.com/literature/books/everything-wuthering-heights-says-about-heathcliffs-race

Things get more pointed in Chapter 4, when Heathcliff’s origins are explained. Mr. Earnshaw brings home "a dirty, ragged, black-haired child" from Liverpool, claiming he "picked him up" in the streets and even asking whether the boy had an owner. Mrs. Earnshaw’s reaction is blunt: she calls him a "gipsy brat."

Heathcliff doesn’t appear to speak English at first, either. Nelly Dean, the family’s housekeeper and a secondary narrator, recalls that he repeated "some gibberish that nobody could understand"—a term often used at the time to dismiss non-European languages. She also describes him as “dark, almost as if it came from the devil” and an “imp of Satan,” linking his appearance to fear and moral suspicion.

The novel keeps piling on. In Chapter 6, Mr. Linton refers to Heathcliff as "a little Lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway." At the time, "lascar" was a term used for Indian and Southeast Asian sailors—and sometimes their children—employed or trafficked by the East India Company. Being labeled a castaway from the Americas or Spain (including the Caribbean) only reinforces the idea that Heathcliff is not meant to be read as a white English boy.

Heathcliff’s arrival point isn’t random. "Wuthering Heights" is set decades before its publication, during a period when Liverpool was one of Britain’s busiest slave-trading ports. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, ships from Liverpool transported an estimated 1.5 million Africans across the Atlantic under brutal conditions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From what I read, Heathcliff is described as a gypsy and a dark stranger in the novel. Could it just be that he’s dark in mysterious or does it imply that he’s from a completely different race? I never understood it this way. The actor who plays Heathcliff is tall, dark and handsome.

I'm French and have lived in the UK. "Gypsy" means traveling Roma people that mostly came from Eastern Europe but that have very distant Indian heritage (they migrated in the Middle Ages or something). They are not of African or Arab descent. In Bronte's time, gypsies would have looked like the gypsies of today, and since the settled populations looked down on them, they probably wouldn't distinguish between impoverished English folk without a home and actual Roma, if both looked relatively similar. If you walk in the streets of Paris right now, you can see gypsy women holding babies in their laps begging for money, usually near metro stations. They are purposefully scruffy to attract sympathy, but they do actually have relatively pale skin and dark hair (also today they're slaves to a begging racket, so don't give them money - they'll have to hand it over to the menfolk in charge).

So casting a Caucasian with dark hair in the role of Heathcliff is entirely appropriate.

NOPE.

For the love, people. Can you do some reading. The evidence is in the book. You can google it.

NP- Maybe do some watching of the movie? It’s not a faithful adaptation of the book at all and it’s not aspiring to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From what I read, Heathcliff is described as a gypsy and a dark stranger in the novel. Could it just be that he’s dark in mysterious or does it imply that he’s from a completely different race? I never understood it this way. The actor who plays Heathcliff is tall, dark and handsome.

I'm French and have lived in the UK. "Gypsy" means traveling Roma people that mostly came from Eastern Europe but that have very distant Indian heritage (they migrated in the Middle Ages or something). They are not of African or Arab descent. In Bronte's time, gypsies would have looked like the gypsies of today, and since the settled populations looked down on them, they probably wouldn't distinguish between impoverished English folk without a home and actual Roma, if both looked relatively similar. If you walk in the streets of Paris right now, you can see gypsy women holding babies in their laps begging for money, usually near metro stations. They are purposefully scruffy to attract sympathy, but they do actually have relatively pale skin and dark hair (also today they're slaves to a begging racket, so don't give them money - they'll have to hand it over to the menfolk in charge).

So casting a Caucasian with dark hair in the role of Heathcliff is entirely appropriate.

NOPE.

For the love, people. Can you do some reading. The evidence is in the book. You can google it.

This. The different descriptions allude to him being both gypsy and Indian and other. Not appropriate.Read the book.

[Anonymous]

Ok curious who ya'll think should have been cast in place of JE?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Heathcliff was not white in the novel? I didn’t realize that.

He is ambiguous and could be anything but possibly not white. Anyone who actually saw this movie saw Edgar was Pakistani and Nelly Asian, and Elordi is Basque so it’s not like there was no diversity.

Basque is white

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From what I read, Heathcliff is described as a gypsy and a dark stranger in the novel. Could it just be that he’s dark in mysterious or does it imply that he’s from a completely different race? I never understood it this way. The actor who plays Heathcliff is tall, dark and handsome.

I'm French and have lived in the UK. "Gypsy" means traveling Roma people that mostly came from Eastern Europe but that have very distant Indian heritage (they migrated in the Middle Ages or something). They are not of African or Arab descent. In Bronte's time, gypsies would have looked like the gypsies of today, and since the settled populations looked down on them, they probably wouldn't distinguish between impoverished English folk without a home and actual Roma, if both looked relatively similar. If you walk in the streets of Paris right now, you can see gypsy women holding babies in their laps begging for money, usually near metro stations. They are purposefully scruffy to attract sympathy, but they do actually have relatively pale skin and dark hair (also today they're slaves to a begging racket, so don't give them money - they'll have to hand it over to the menfolk in charge).

So casting a Caucasian with dark hair in the role of Heathcliff is entirely appropriate.

+1
I never thought of Heathcliff as black. I pictured him as swarthy, with dark hair and eyes - which in comparison to the pasty white Brits would have definitely looked “foreign.” But black? That never crossed my mind.

And for those upset about the casting, were you also upset about Laurence Olivier previously playing Heathcliff? How about the casting in Hamilton of POC when the people they were playing were (factually) white?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From what I read, Heathcliff is described as a gypsy and a dark stranger in the novel. Could it just be that he’s dark in mysterious or does it imply that he’s from a completely different race? I never understood it this way. The actor who plays Heathcliff is tall, dark and handsome.

I'm French and have lived in the UK. "Gypsy" means traveling Roma people that mostly came from Eastern Europe but that have very distant Indian heritage (they migrated in the Middle Ages or something). They are not of African or Arab descent. In Bronte's time, gypsies would have looked like the gypsies of today, and since the settled populations looked down on them, they probably wouldn't distinguish between impoverished English folk without a home and actual Roma, if both looked relatively similar. If you walk in the streets of Paris right now, you can see gypsy women holding babies in their laps begging for money, usually near metro stations. They are purposefully scruffy to attract sympathy, but they do actually have relatively pale skin and dark hair (also today they're slaves to a begging racket, so don't give them money - they'll have to hand it over to the menfolk in charge).

So casting a Caucasian with dark hair in the role of Heathcliff is entirely appropriate.

NOPE.

For the love, people. Can you do some reading. The evidence is in the book. You can google it.

DP. So how did you feel about the actually inaccurate casting in Hamilton? That wasn’t about fictional people, open to interpretation.

[Anonymous]

The actress who played Isabella was amazing, so funny and weird. My theory is that this story is her vision of the romance. Without spoiling it (because a lot has been changed from the book) it makes perfect sense considering a scene with her early in the movie and the ending. It ties together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok curious who ya'll think should have been cast in place of JE?

I thought he was perfectly cast.