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Dear Self,

You will never, ever read viewer comments on the 2011 version of Wuthering Heights again. They are all written by nincompoops who can't deal with the fact that Heathcliff was written IN CANON as non anglo-saxon. Neither can they accept the fact that the so called "darkness" of the film is another canon hold over. Yes, people of the UK,

Comments

[moonagedaydream]

Okay, okay. I agree with you A LOT. A lot a lot a lot. I thought this was finally going to be the one, the one where they got it right. But Black? I get it, he's not white but he wasn't black either. He was likened to a gypsy, so dark, maybe Romanian looking but not Black.

D: At least he's not Ralph Fiennes though.

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Yeah, I have to admit that making him out right black through me for a huge loop at first. I mean there's that part where Nelley Dean is teasing him and (forgive me if I'm wrong, I don't have my book with me) she has that part where she's talking about how maybe his father is an Indian prince and his mother a Chinese queen, so I've always believed he probably looked very Indian/Oriental. Or some other race that might have equally seemed very sensuous and exotic at the time. However the more I thought about it, the more I realized that a black version, while not 100% textually accurate, is just as plausible. I mean Mr Earnshaw picks him up in Liverpool which was a notorious for being a huge port for slave trade to America back when this novel was set. So it's not completely erroneous to take this route of interpretation.

But the reaction to his being black is just way over the top and I do think that people are judging the film way too harshly because of it. By all accounts it's mostly a good film. :/