Fans slam Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi erotic film for ‘whitewashing’ classic as graphic trailer drops
Fans have slammed a brand-new Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi erotic film, claiming it ‘whitewashes’ a classic story.
This comes after the film’s graphic first trailer dropped to an incredibly mixed reaction.
Robbie and Elordi star alongside Netflix’s Adolescence stand-out Owen Cooper, as well as Hong Chau and Shazad Latif.
Directed by Emerald Fennell, the director who made the deeply controversial and racy Saltburn, the trailer appears to be her most sexually explicit yet, showing hints that the film is going to feature graphic sex scenes.
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The movie is the latest adaptation of Wuthering Heights, the classic Emily Brontë book about the forbidden love between a member of the landed gentry and a foundling from below her social station.
The steamy trailer seems to have reimagined the gothic tale of romance, revenge, and social class, and has turned it into a far more sexually explicit affair.
Margot Robbie stars as Catherine Earnshaw with Jacob Elordi’s casting as Heathcliff being the focus of many fan’s consternations about the trailer.
Whilst some fans enjoyed the new tone, the majority on social media slammed the trailer.
One quote tweet of a post of the trailer said: “Gotta give it to them it actually surprised me by being worse than I imagined.”
Elordi’s casting as Heathcliff was problematic for many due to the book’s implications that he is non-white.
The character is described as having dark skin and being of gypsy descent, as well as comparing him to a ‘Lascar’, a term for sailors from the India subcontinent, South-east Asia, Africa, or the Middle East.
Whilst Heathcliff has been white in many classic adaptations of the novel and is racially ambiguous in the book, newer adaptations of the story tend to cast the character as a non-white actor.
One fan posted about the trailer, also hitting out at the decision to have a Charli xcx song over it, saying: "The whitewashed version of Heathcliff. Original music by Charli xcx. Emily Brontë did not die for this s**t.”
Over on Reddit, the top comment under the trailer simply said: “This is not for the book purists.”
Another said: “I actually like the casting of Margot and Elordi and from this trailer I am fine with them in the roles, [however I] do wish Heathcliff was a POC like he was supposed to be.
“Personally think Dev Patel would have been perfect but we move.”
Several fans on X pointed to the fact that casting Heathcliff as non-white person is not simply a move for diversity’s sake, but that his societal position as person-of-colour in 19th century England was vital to the story.
One fan quoted the trailer saying: “Not to be that one friend who is too woke but bleaching the class and racial otherness out of Wuthering Heights to sell a horny whitewashed romance genuinely pisses me off.”
Others pointed out that some of the film's marketing puts quotation marks around the film's name, calling it "Wuthering Heights", and have suggested this is supposed to point to this being a loose adaption of the book.
Wuthering Heights releases in cinemas February 13, 2026.
Topics: Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi, Film, Social Media, TV and Film, Books
Michael Slavin