I typed up an entire thing before tumblr mobile crashed and killed me forever, so this might seem a bit disjointed (pulling from scraps in my mind). You can call me out if I start to sound too conspiratorial
I feel like for a lot of WH26 fans, and perhaps even Fennell herself, it isn't that they enjoy BDSM dynamics or like dub/noncon, but that they have a deep hatred towards poc and it's leaking INTO the media they enjoy. You can see it especially in the way some viewers are talking abt Shazad Latif's Edgar, and occasionally in people talking about Hong Chau's Nelly
The whitewashed main couple has to be comically woobified and defanged compared their source material. Margaret Robbie's Catherine is afraid of Elordicliff's violence, she's more innocent, she has altruism that book-Cathy tends to not embody. Elordicliff has a purposeful scene of asking consent from Isabella to show that he's not a reaaaal abuser, of course! All of this is contrasted with the characters played by poc, who have been turned more cruel, sexual, and both suffocatingly domineering, and paradoxically weaker.
The thing is, these viewers NEED the whitewashed Earnshaws to be "virtuous" in comparison to the "base" and "degenerate" poc. All the incest and rape subtext is written out of Cathy and Elordicliff, because that would make them too gross for the comfort of WH26's white fans. It loses their perceived moral superiority over poc, and the sex that poc supposedly have, according to this movie. The fantasies aren't necessarily of bdsm or "taboo fetishes", but the idea of a strong white partner saving them from the "corruption" of a Nasty Asian Person. Very often violently, as many have already pointed out before me.
and I would argue this goes from racism to more general colourism with Oliver's Isabella. While Blond Cathy can now be a poor sensitive soul, Brown-Haired Isabella's agency in the original text is turned into vapidness, immaturity, and a "sexual deviancy" that says "she deserved her abuse because she wanted it, actually!" The only compliments fans of WH26 has towards her is that she's "camp," her abuse/kink is Entertaining because she's Dramatic About It. (apparently her actor is also Irish, which feels very ironic considering the "white irish heathcliff" argument)
(side note: I also think she is infantilised and Latif's character has been adultified by the change from siblings -> ward, and that doesn't sit well with me for either character. i'd say it's racist, but I don't quite know where to include this, so it's in parentheses here)
Throughout this film, characters who are darker in colouration, be it skin or hair, are constantly shown as mentally and sexually perverse. Violence towards them is considered "deserved" because of their Deviancy, and this isn't only an idea held by fans, but also by EF's narrative itself. When people say they just want to have sexy fun with the movie, I wonder if their fun is the puppyplay or the violent subjugation of nonwhite people
Hey, just coming out of hibernation, I'd seen your message as it arrived, but life has been hectic over the past few days!
So... this movie reads as confirmation bias to me.
From its creation, to the way fans engage with it.
You are completely correct that the audience's own perceptions and prejudices seep into the media they consume, and this is a broader discourse: we see it when we have white people who couldn't name a single movie that doesn't have a majority white cast (and even when they can name it... have they watched it? Often, the answer is no - and this applies to all forms of media), we've seen it with the multiple "Dev Patel was right there!" comments regarding Heathcliff (name another Brown actor, go!), and we're seeing it with the reception of this movie, too.
A movie has been written by someone with a clear bias, both classist and racist, for people with the same bias to consume. While the rest of us are absolutely horrified.
To me, it isn't accidental that the only way Fennell could make an upper-class man "undesirable", was casting him as a MOC. It isn't accidental that Nelly had proximity to that very same upper-class, but casting her as a WOC implies that this is the true reason she can't join that crowd. And both their stories could have been fine stories to tell, too, if they were handled with grace and a will to denounce discrimination, rather than perpetuating it.
There was a video on the official Wuthering Heights instagram stories where Fennell talks about how Heathcliff is the most unlikable/unforgivable leading man in classic literature (that's the gist of it, I can't remember the exact wording and I wish I could find it again!), and she accidentally made the same exact point you made about needing the (now white) lead to still be likeable and desirable, and therefore removing some unsavoury aspects from his character now that Elordi is playing him, and the audience will empathise with him. She made it sound like a good thing, and all the while, I was completely gobsmacked, because in what world is the original Heathcliff not a character one can empathise with, or feel for? Not that he should be forgiven for what he ended up doing, but not empathising with him for the treatment he received for existing is absolutely wild to me, especially since only the first part of the novel made it on screen.
What's also wild is that she specifically chose to adapt this novel, while siding with every single Linton and Hindley the plot has to offer.
She really said the quiet part out loud, when she stated that people would now have empathy for Heathcliff, because Elordi plays him.
The Edgar/Isabella dynamic bothered me quite a bit.
It feels, again, like a desexualisation of his character through boxing him into a parental/carer role (which isn't true in life, of course, but often happens in media), and agency taken away from her through infantilisation.
All this to say... yeah, you definitely have a point, and a point I agree with!
