#hufflehug

[ponfarratthedisco]

I just read a review of the new Wuthering Heights movie and I found out how the movie treats Isabella’s character…I’ve never been more infuriated in my life. I loved Isabella in the books, she did not deserve Emerald Fennell’s blatant disrespect towards her character like this. She really made Isabella more naive and turned Heathcliff’s abuse and sexual violence that he inflicted on her into a weird kinky joke 😭 I wanted to break book Heathcliff’s kneecaps for the way he treated Isabella and Cathy and then Hareton, Cathy II, and Linton later on. EF and a lot of Hollywood directors really cannot handle the fact that Heathcliff is quite horrible and monstrous at times (as an adult, not as a kid), but he’s still nuanced and one of the most fascinating characters in the whole book. Anyways, justice for Isabella (and this whole book really)

Oh, I have my issues with Isabella in this adaptation.

Someone in another review described her both as "the epitome of unsexy" and "a self-insert for weird fangirls" (paraphrasing, I'd have to find the video again - but that's the one where I found out she's Linton's ward).

Which, to me, reads as a sexist dig made in times where they're trying to shame women and girls for reading, because the stereotype is that they read smut.

Which, honestly? Valid.

I have my issues with said smut being Maas and Yarros, because we shouldn't be promoting zionist authors, but I was raised on a healthy dose of self-insert fanfiction (I pre-date the "x Reader" fics, if you couldn't tell lol).

I'm a Star Trek blog, when my favourite book isn't being mauled by Emerald Fennell.

Do we really think I haven't read all of the Spirk and Garashir my heart desired?

Reading romance and smut is a bit of a rite of passage, and I'm happy it's being talked about without shame.

All this to say: making her a laughing stock for being a geeky girl and having crushes doesn't sit right with me. At all.

And I said it back in the days of the first WH trailer drop: I'm not shocked or scandalised by this adaptation being more sexual than the original material (to be quite honest, I find all of the scenes we've seen so far... tame? Maybe TMI, but as someone who knows the kink world, it doesn't surprise me that this is what Fennell imagined at 14).

I was concerned, and these concerns are being solidified by the second, that portraying sex as shocking or scandalous would further stigmatise sex-positivity, and move us towards more conservative attitudes by equating the mediocrity of films with the amount of sexual content in them.

I also fear (piggybacking off of what you said), and this is more from a technical, screenwriting POV, that she just doesn't have the guts to explore the complexities of Heathcliff, and is doing with him what Del Toro did with The Creature: all his flaws, all his questionable actions, all of the atrocities he commits are suddenly... smoothed out, erased.

Which makes sense when Heathcliff hasn't suffered the trauma he did in the novel (because it's vital that we see how he was never innately the demon the other players portrayed him as, but was shaped into what they believed him to be due to prejudice), but also leaves me wondering why we're telling a story with such low stakes at all.

And it leaves a really bad taste in my mouth, because suddenly we take away a plot of female empowerment from Isabella (which was absolutely revolutionary for the time! Pregnant wife leaves her abusive husband anyway, regardless of societal expectations, because she loves herself and her unborn child enough to face the unknown and look for safety. Powerful stuff!).

Another point that has to be addressed, and I know I'm beating a dead horse, is how racist it is to make Isabella Edgar's ward. Because, in context, it reads: "Brown people can't be seen as desirable, so we made Edgar a non-sexual party pooper who is both repressed and kind of pathetic / obsessed with whiteness.

But Isabella needs to have sex with hunky, white Heathcliff, so she has to be white, too! Let's make her a ward instead!".

Was it the intention? Was it subconscious? I don't know.

But impact > intention.

All of these choices are vile.

[life-of-an-asexual]

A thing that I've heard a lot of allos say but I've never understood is "I already have enough friends, I don't need anymore. I want a partner." Wanting a partner is absolutely fine and normal of course, but the idea that after a certain age or time period, not having a partner is seen as weird or that friends should be less of a priority as time goes on is very weird and honestly kind of sad to me. I do understand that life happens and circumstances change, but I feel like people in general, not just aros and aces, would be less lonely if we just tried to show up and be there for each other in any ways we can. I'm saying all of this as an acespec person who does eventually want a partner, but I just feel like amatonormativity would be so much easier to deal with if we stop putting relationships in hierarchies.

i agree

~Mod Q

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

How do you think Barty Crouch Jr. felt when he saw Neville again in that first Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson he gave while Polyjuiced as Moody? Do you think he tried to help Neville feel better afterwards because the actual Moody would have done it or because a tiny part of him actually felt sorry for him? Also how do you think Barty managed to keep up the act as Moody for so long, considering how unstable Barty seems to be as a person? I really enjoy your meta about how incompetent and weird the characters in this story are, and I really want to know what your thoughts are here.

Barty Crouch Jr. and Neville

I'll put it like this.

Barty chooses to have a lesson in which he displays all the Unforgivables to his students, casting them on spiders, and giving the kids a real up close look at how it's done and how it happens.

He knows Neville Longbottom is in this class.

While Barty had his reasons for putting the kids under the imperious (sort of), to do a trial run to see if Harry could be dealt with that way, he didn't have to do this and it did bring him under immediate scrutiny by the staff (for all it was dismissed as something Moody would have done).

What I'm saying is he didn't have to do this, but he did anyway, and he purposefully called out both Harry and Neville as having experience with this.

I don't think Barty felt sorry for Neville at all or any kind of pity or compassion for him.

I think Barty was having a great time making the kids uncomfortable/suffer. Approaching Neville afterwards, in his own way, is like rubbing salt in the wound.

"Oh, so sorry about your parents, Neville. Weren't they amazing?" all the while knowing he was the one who did it.

Barty's not a great guy.

How Did Barty Manage It?

Because it was Moody.

Moody had become so unstable and paranoid that nobody questioned Barty's caricature/irrational behavior. Barty just had to say "vigilance!" enough, turn Malfoy into a ferret, and everyone said, "Yeah, that's Moody for you".

It doesn't matter that Barty himself is unstable because Moody, in his own way, is even more unstable and erratic.

Barty could do almost whatever he wants, help Harry cheat in the tournament for no fucking reason, and no one will blink an eye.

Oh, Barty spent an entire lesson putting the kids under the imperious curse. Classic Moody. Oh, Barty spent a class torturing and murdering spiders? Classic Moody.

[blueteehood]

helga  hufflepuff created the room of requirement so students had a place to hide, cry or just chill out and you can’t change my mind

[katesattic]

Can we fanders just all collectively give Thomas Sanders a huge, virtual, Hufflehug?

Please?

[huffleduffle]

Why do y'all think that Hufflepuffs are soft and not dangerous. If I feel threatend I will rip you just the same apart as a Slytherin would do, you'd just need to threaten me longer before I attack than you'd need to do it with a Slytherin.

[ponfarratthedisco]

I watched one of the clips that’s been released of the new Wuthering Heights movie, the one where Cathy is asking Heathcliff about what he’d do if he were a rich man. In that same clip, Cathy mentions that she doesn’t have time to argue with him or something, because the Lintons might be calling on her at any minute, and I honestly felt so disappointed by it. Not only do Heathcliff and Cathy feel so out of character in that clip, but there just isn’t any tension between them in that scene, even though it’s full of tension in the books, and in the book Heathcliff isn’t even talking about being rich, he’s very jealous of Cathy’s friendship with Edgar Linton. I’m rereading the book right now, and so much of the tension in that scene comes from how young all the characters are, Heathcliff’s inability to handle his jealousy well, Cathy unintentionally hurting Heathcliff’s feelings by sending him away because Edgar’s coming to propose to her and she’s planning to accept, Nelly lowkey not wanting to deal with anyone in this situation but her still being a bit worried anyways. It’s literally moments before impending (and kind of self inflicted) disaster but I didn’t feel that at all from the new movie clip. I’m upset that the tension is being sapped from one of my favorite Gothic novels tbh. What do you think?

Hi!

Sorry for the wait, I wanted to give you a proper reply, and I pretty much just got home!

I haven't seen the scene in full but, from what I can gather, it seems like the context for that little trailer clip, the "what would you do if you were rich?" snippet.

With the little context I have, I can only give you my own impression, which wasn't positive either.

Wuthering Heights, to me, is a story that is constantly simmering.

It keeps you waiting for the explosion, and waiting, and a lot of the tension comes from that fact alone.

Which is not something I'm getting from any of these characters at all, so far (except maybe Linton in that split second we see him in one of the trailers, where he looks like he's so done with everything and everyone - which, honestly? Same).

Secondly, I fear like these two leads could be acting their hearts out, but are just so miscast that the tension is gone.

It wouldn't be entirely out of character for either of them to wonder what they'd do if they were rich (although having them discuss it among themselves is just exposition. A huge part of the tragedy is the miscommunication between them that leads to Heathcliff leaving, and I wish Fennell trusted the audience enough to show us the story, rather than telling us).

The problem is that removing the obstacles to Heathcliff's path to wealth, and his awareness of said obstacles, is just terrible writing.

Heathcliff literally has a scene where not only does he wish he looked like Linton, but acknowledges that this very difference is what's standing between himself and financial stability. Even when he does get rich, everyone assumes he got into some shady deals, for crying out loud! Even as Nelly herself observes that he has the posture of a military man, almost no one believes he could have accumulated wealth by legal means, which is an assumption solely founded in racism!

You remove that aspect, and you remove the tension that comes from his feelings of hopelessness.

And you're also removing that from Cathy's characterisation, because she is also painfully aware of this dynamic.

I think she truly believes that marrying Edgar could help Heathcliff in the long run, however convoluted and misguided that belief is. Perhaps she convinced herself of it, because marrying Edgar is the safer option regardless, but it is important that she has this awareness, too.

All in all, yes - it is less believable that the characters would reason in such a way if you age them up, and it's worse when you remove the racial tension from it.

I am not feeling this at all.

Also, minor gripe:

Cathy and Heathcliff have wildly different accents, and neither is Yorkshire.

The latter wouldn't bother me as much, Brontë makes it a point to spell thicker accents phonetically.

But two people who grew up in the same household having completely different accents is sending me, and taking me out of the illusion.

[ponfarratthedisco]

Hey! I hope you’re doing well ❤️ I also *ahem* ✨found a way✨ to watch the new Wuthering Heights without giving money to racists, and I…oh dear god, I have thoughts. Mostly negative, some neutral. I’m looking forward to your review also, but I did want to share some of my thoughts here too, if you’re okay with that.

All the dialogues in this movie are literally just telling the story, not showing them. The characters just seemed like they were doing things because it’s in the script, not because they naturally would do those things (that being said, the scenes with the child actors were the only bits of story I liked, and I didn’t hate all of Margot’s acting either. I like the songs too). 

All the women feel like they were written by men, even though this movie was written and directed by a woman. They deserved better. 

I was waiting to catch a glimpse of Shazad the entire time I was watching. The only moments I liked of him were the first time Edgar meets Cathy and then when Cathy tells him she’s pregnant after they are married.

I liked the idea of Thrushcross Grange looking like a dollhouse and the artificiality of it. But then the actual dollhouse included in the scene made the whole thing feel SO ON THE NOSE. I liked that the movie was colorful too. It doesn’t fit the vibes of Wuthering Heights, but I haven’t seen good bright colors in a movie in a while, so that was nice I guess. 

I didn’t care for any of the sex scenes (not because I’m a prude. I’m not. I just didn’t feel anything because there was no good build up. I do want shirtless Shazad intimate scenes in something good though, I can vibe with that 🙈)

How…HOW did this movie manage to make Heathcliff dull? Even the way the book quotes were used in the movie felt dull and it didn’t gel properly with how the other dialogues were spoken. I didn’t understand anything Heathcliff said either (which is fine because this isn’t my Heathcliff. Or Cathy). I don’t want this ask to get overwhelmingly long, so I’ll save my other thoughts for later. But yeah. What even was this weird movie? 

I saw this in my inbox when I woke up, and I waited to read and answer until I had written out my own thoughts, and... man. We had almost the same exact impressions of this movie!

STRONGLY AGREED. The kids were more interesting than the adults, to the point it almost seemed like they were two separate stories! I'll be honest, Margot's accent took me out quite a few times. But yes to everything else. Especially the exposition!

Yes, exactly. Every single female character was a misogynistic trope of some kind. I was side-eyeing the character choices taken with them extremely hard.

Not entirely agreed, I actually thought Edgar was the one decent person in this entire movie (as much as I hated the way his character was handled). Helps a lot that Shazad's acting was the only main cast's I truly believed. Also, can we talk about how good he actually looks in a lot of scenes, and how they handpicked very unflattering clips for the promos? That seems like it's done on purpose, too.

Had they used the dollhouse en lieu of the various "boxes" Catherine finds herself stuck in, I might have liked it. But, yes, waaaay too on the nose and underutilised. I must admit, I seem to be the one person who does not like extremely colourful movies and tends to love darker screens. But Thrushcross Grange could have worked!

Same on the sex scenes. They were just... very tame. Even if they obviously have to only be suggestive, they just... fell flat. Either make them actually hot, or don't centre the entire marketing on that. If you've seen the trailers, that's as risqué as it gets. (And, on Linton's sex scenes... only ever in the dark, only ever under the covers. Something something about shameful/unwanted. Which is wild, given that they cast one of the most attractive men that ever lived in this role).

YES. They removed so much from his character, that even the exact book quotes fell flat and felt jarring! Who knew this would happen, when you remove the racism suffered by the character in a story about a character suffering racist abuse! 🤦‍♂️