“Wuthering Heights” follows Cathy Earnshaw and Heathcliff, an orphan taken into her family home on the Yorkshire moors. Cathy loves Heathcliff but chooses a richer husband because her family is losing its money. Heathcliff leaves, returns with money, and turns their love into a revenge fight. The film uses bright colors, strange rooms, strong sexual tension, and a dark, sad tone.
The film gives two important supporting roles to Asian or South Asian actors, including Cathy’s husband Edgar and her companion Nelly. The film also gives Nelly a brief crush on Cathy, adding a small queer element. Cathy and Isabella get much of the film’s focus on female desire, consent, and sexual power. These choices are visible, but they support the wild romance more than a larger political message. The film leaves Heathcliff’s non-English background out of the story, so its identity focus is mixed rather than central.
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Was our 51% Woke rating accurate?
Breakdown
These are the editorial factors and ratings behind our score for Wuthering Heights.
Woke representation / casting
The film puts white actors Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi in the central roles. The film gives prominent supporting roles to Asian-American Hong Chau and British-Pakistani Shazad Latif, including an interracial marriage. The film gives no plot reason for those identities in the rural period setting, so the choices are easy for viewers to read as visible diversity. The white Heathcliff also removes the novel’s dark or outsider look, which became a major race debate rather than a diversity message. The film does not frame the casting as a representation campaign.
34%
Woke political dialogue
Not present. No modern activist language, identity lectures, or ideological speeches appear. Dialogue and conflicts stay rooted in personal obsession, jealousy, class status, love, and revenge, matching the novel's core without added contemporary framing.
0%
Identity-driven story themes
The film makes female desire and sexual power central to the romance. Cathy openly pursues pleasure and uses sexual games to control the people around her. Isabella agrees to repeated acts after Heathcliff asks for consent, which reframes the novel’s abuse as a sexual role-play scene. Nelly has a brief same-sex crush on Cathy, adding a small queer element. The film uses these choices for erotic fantasy and doomed romance, not for a wider political lesson.
42%
Western institutional / cultural critique
Not present in this title.
0%
Woke character or canon changes
The film gives Nelly a brief same-sex crush on Cathy, which is not in Brontë’s novel. The film also changes Nelly from a working servant and narrator into Cathy’s companion and a lord’s secret daughter. Those identity changes are visible, but the same-sex thread is brief and played as a joke. The film’s other large changes, such as cutting the later generation and changing Isabella’s abuse into consent, serve its romance and sexual style rather than a stated identity goal.
22%
Anti-woke backlash and complaints
Some conservative-leaning reviews call the Asian supporting roles “diversity hires” and describe the sexual focus as feminist activism. Another review says the film softened Heathcliff to suit a woke audience. Public posts also attack the film’s sexual content, but they usually describe it as tasteless or unfaithful rather than woke. These complaints are visible but small beside the larger race, age, sex, and adaptation debate.
28%
Creator track record context
Emerald Fennell’s past work centers stories about gender, sex, power, and taboo in Promising Young Woman and Saltburn. Margot Robbie and LuckyChap repeatedly support complex female stories and women filmmakers. Kharmel Cochrane has a public profile built around fresh and diverse talent. Emily Brontë adds no modern activist context, and most listed producers have little political or identity-focused context. The film’s sexual style and focus on women fit Fennell’s past work more clearly than they fit an activist campaign.
55%
Production
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