Too sexy or erotic? Why everyone is so shocked about the ‘Wuthering Heights’ trailer

The first trailer for Emerald Fennell's adjustment of Emily Brontë's 1847 classical caller “Wuthering Heights” came retired this week and it’s proving to beryllium divisive, shocking fans of nan root worldly and getting galore online to telephone it retired for being "soft porn".

Fennell, whose movie Promising Young Woman won her an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay successful 2021, besides directed nan 2023 thriller Saltburn, which went viral owed to scenes involving graveyards and bathtubs. If you know, you know.  

For her 3rd characteristic film, she’s adapting a literate classic, starring Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi and Adolescence prima Owen Cooper. 

It comes retired connected Valentine’s Day 2026 and from nan looks of nan trailer, it’s going to beryllium a steamy matter – intersexual tension, revealing corsets, raunchy breadstuff kneading, suggestive fingering of eggs and fish, and a reside much overtly seductive than nan temper conjured by Brontë's Gothic tragedy.  

Granted, nan passionate communicative of destructive emotion betwixt Catherine and Heathcliff ever was a communicative of powerful yearning, but Fennell has really upped nan sexy ante.  

Check it retired for yourself:  

The taglines “Drive Me Mad” and “Come Undone” person been going viral, and nan truth that nan euphony for nan movie will see original songs by Charli XCX has bedewed appetites moreover further – particularly disconnected nan backmost of nan singer’s banner twelvemonth successful 2024, erstwhile everything was ‘Brat’. 

However, societal media sermon regarding nan trailer hasn’t each been positive, arsenic galore are bemoaning nan truth that nan book’s seductive charge, which is owed to nan deficiency of intersexual interaction betwixt nan 2 protagonists, is being cheapened by what galore person dubbed “50 Shades of Brontë.” 

Except galore are forgetting nan umlaut connected nan ‘e’ - and without wanting to topple into pedantry, that diacritical people matters. The Brontë sisters, without a diaeresis, would make nan finale ‘e’ shut up – and it astir surely isn’t.  

Moving on.

The racy quality of nan trailer has intelligibly confused fans of nan book. “Did they really request to make Wuthering Heights this steamy?” asked 1 user, pinch different adding: “It looks weirdly pervy.”

Others raised concerns astir whether nan forbidden literate romance, featuring plentifulness of musings on social people divisions, will beryllium dropped successful favour of a Saltburn and Bridgerton-coded steaminess pinch a hyperpop soundtrack.  

One X personification wrote: “Like woman if you wanted to make a horny play portion past do that. nary request to terrorise emily bronte."

Further sources of discontent person been nan casting of Elordi arsenic Heathcliff (who is described successful nan book arsenic having acheronian hair, acheronian eyes, acheronian skin, and is thought to person travel from a Roma aliases Gypsy background), arsenic good arsenic Robbie arsenic Catherine (who is successful her precocious teens successful nan book and acold little blonde).  

Adding to that is nan 1980s-style wedding dress seen successful nan trailer, which galore person pointed retired arsenic not being play accurate. 

Check retired much reactions to nan trailer below:

It has besides been reported that a trial screening for nan movie past period produced “mixed” reactions and a fewer raised eyebrows owed to nan schematic intersexual scenes. 

World Of Reel reported connected nan audience’s guidance and specifications of nan crippled which characteristic “hyper-sexualized imagery - acold much definitive than immoderate erstwhile adjustment of this material”. 

“The movie opens pinch a nationalist hanging that quickly descends into grotesque absurdity, arsenic nan condemned man ejaculates mid-execution, sending nan onlooking crowd into a benignant of orgiastic frenzy. A nun moreover fondles nan corpse’s visible erection”. 

The study continued: “Later, a female is strapped into a horse’s reins for a BDSM-tinged encounter. There are respective masturbation scenes changeable successful that now-signature Fennell style - intimate, clinical, and purposefully discomforting”. 

As always, it’s important not to judge excessively hastily and reserve judgement until nan movie has really been seen. But really to explicate nan already beardown backlash against nan trailer?  

It could beryllium genuine concern that a beloved book doesn’t get betrayed by a request to equate desire with activity and by shabbily ticking zeitgeist boxes (Robbie! Sex! Charli XCX!).

It could besides beryllium revealing of really galore are questioning nan request for gratuitous activity scenes successful cinema if they don’t service nan narrative.

There’s a lawsuit to beryllium made for problematic whitewashing – but past again, "Wuthering Heights" has been adapted respective times before, and Heathcliff was played by achromatic actors successful nan 1939 type (Laurence Olivier), nan 1970 type (then-future James Bond character Timothy Dalton) and nan 1992 return (Ralph Fiennes), while a achromatic character (James Howson) portrayed nan characteristic successful nan 2011 adaptation... All these adaptations were good received.

Could it simply beryllium nan activity of blimpish activity negativity truthful often seen successful nan trad-wife nostalgia that continues to problematically pearl-clutch its measurement onto Instagram feeds, starring to nan question: Would group beryllium truthful up successful arms astir nan Wuthering Heights trailer if it was directed by a man?

Or it could simply be less astir prudish puritanism, sexist double standards and Gen Z becoming sex-phobic but alternatively a motion that cinemagoers are progressively discerning. Cinephiles are now attuned to nan truth that trading movies done sexually charged buzz and nan committedness of explicitness whitethorn person worked successful nan past but that these strategies tin beryllium a small inexpensive and much revealing of studios hopeless for hype.

We’ll person to hold until Valentine’s Day 2026 to find out.