Fennell's Wuthering Heights Adaptation Fails by Stripping Away the Novel's Core Themes of Class and Race
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/rhiannon-lucy-cosslett. "Wuthering Heights is at its heart a story of class and race. Emerald Fennell has got it all wrong | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett | The Guardian." February 17, 2026. www.theguardian.com
The Gist
The author argues that Emerald Fennell completely missed the point of Wuthering Heights by turning it into a sexy romance movie instead of keeping its powerful messages about racism and class inequality. She believes Fennell's privileged background prevented her from understanding what the book was really about.
Conclusion
Emerald Fennell's film adaptation of Wuthering Heights fundamentally misunderstands and betrays the novel by reducing it to a superficial love story while ignoring its radical themes of class struggle, racism, and social inequality
Premises
- Wuthering Heights is fundamentally about class struggle, racism, power dynamics, and generational trauma, not primarily a love story
- Fennell's casting choices (white Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, older Margot Robbie as teenage Cathy) contradict the novel's essential character descriptions and themes
- The director's privileged background limits her understanding of class struggle, leading to a superficial interpretation that misses the novel's political core
- Fennell's focus on sexual content and shock value strips away the novel's groundbreaking social commentary about abuse, inequality, and resistance
- The adaptation transforms complex characters like Isabella from abuse victims into complicit participants, undermining Brontë's feminist messaging
- Fennell's statement that 'you can only make the movie you imagined' reveals an inability to see beyond her own privileged perspective
Assumptions
- Literary adaptations have a responsibility to preserve the core themes and social commentary of the source material
- An artist's class background significantly influences their ability to understand and represent class struggle authentically
- Wuthering Heights' themes of class and race are more important than its romantic elements
- The novel's political radicalism was intentional and central to Brontë's vision
- Contemporary audiences would benefit from engaging with the novel's social critique rather than sanitized romance