#kcrabb rambles

Heathcliff comes back as a vengeful adult because he was subject to YEARS of racist abuse!! The book is a commentary on English classism and racism!!!! This is why most adaptations of this source material don't WORK. But in this film they don't even cast a white man and then like, pretend he's not white by the way he'd addressed (such as in the Ralph Fiennes and Tom Hardy versions). Heathcliff isn't just getting revenge on the specific people who harmed him. He's getting revenge on like, society. People like Hindley and Edgar are avatars for every slur he's had thrown at him.

Posts like "these are the Jedi failed movies" truly just make me shake my head. They're actually the "fascism wears a smile until it strikes you down and then it's too late" movies. They're the "the senate became corrupt and clapped in the face of genocide" movies. They're the "make people scared enough of war until they accept authoritarianism" movies. They're the "fear and possessiveness will tear you up on the inside" movies. The Jedi were the heroes of lore, people loved and looked up to them, looked to them for safety, and then too much got put on their shoulders on purpose by Palpatine, and also by a senate that didn't want to act (not you Padme and Bail and Mon, you're perfect). They were drafted and used and scapegoated, which is, you know, a tenet of the vast majority of authoritarian governments (Hitler and Stalin, for instance, might be on different ends of the political spectrum, but they sure both did scapegoat specific groups and commit mass murder, just differently).

When some people say "these movies are about the fall of the Jedi" what they mean is "the Jedi failed" but that's not what "the fall of the Jedi means." It means they were wiped the fuck OUT. Like, Jesus, in Rogue One Tarkin is talking about burning out the final MEMORY of the Jedi by blowing up the holy city in Jedha. Palpatine had to get rid of the Jedi because to get rid of the Jedi was to get rid of the final people standing in his way after he had already worn them out. His intention was not only to kill them, but to alter the galaxy's entire perception of them. To rip away hope. People are always looking for the Jedi to be Bad or nitpick their mistakes (because while other people are allowed to make mistakes, the Jedi never are). Palpatine made himself look like a benevolent grandpa who would keep everyone safe. And that, more than anything, is what gave him SO much power. He stole the narrative.

It's just like. Of course WE know what was going to happen! We know from watching the OT that the PT can only end in tragedy. But the characters don't know that! They don't have all the info! That's how a tragic story structure works. We see it coming and they can't.

I keep thinking about the pair of them standing in the hallway, of Bail clasping Mon's hand, and how he knows EVERYTHING--that Palpatine is a Sith, why Padme died, who Anakin is, why the Jedi were killed, that Obi-Wan is alive, the truth of his own daughter's identity along with her brother--and he knows that for any of that to matter, for the rebellion to have a SHOT, that they have to name the monster. He can't tell Mon all of that yet, but he can let her make that speech, he can get her out of there, he can save her like he couldn't save Padme, and then, if he's lucky, he can get out too. But he's willing to stay just a little bit longer, in sight of the monster, to make Mon's incredible bravery worth it.

It started off with a graphic hanging scene where the dying man had an erection, so uh. That about set the tone.

First, and this is the least of its crimes, but can period dramas stop putting corsets against bare skin? This is very basic historical research and doing it to be transgressive is just ... stupid.

Where to begin? I don't even need to bother saying it isn't like the book--it isn't. And while I don't hold classic lit adaptations to a page by page purity test by any stretch, this was straight up insulting to the source material. Heathcliff is white, which we all know by now, but that change was even more noticeable here than in all the other white Heathcliff adaptations. Gone is the implication that Heathcliff is likely Cathy's half brother. He's brought in at random by the combo Mr. Earnshaw/Hindley character when a drunk Mr. Earnshaw randomly decided to bring him home. Cathy names him after her "dead brother" which winks at the incest of the original without being bold enough to actually do it. The abuse Heathcliff suffers is extremely watered down. He's a servant from the beginning. Hindley isn't there to be jealous and cruel. Mister Earnshaw just beats him sometimes because he's drunk. This adaptation, like too many, cuts out the second half of the novel entirely, but here, his revenge scheme is all out of whack and entirely focused around Cathy. Forget Heathcliff, the abused brown kid, becoming the abuser of children as he not only gets back at the men who abused him and took from him, but he's getting back at the society that kept him from Cathy.

Also! Edgar, who is supposed to be this avatar for pretty white blonde rich English men, is a brown man. So a brown man stole Cathy from white not-Heathcliff. Cool!!! That's definitely what the book is about.

Now, one of the most egregious things about this was that Nelly, played by a Vietnamese actress, is a villain in this. To me, it really, really seemed like Nelly, played as an almost same-age companion to Cathy, is immediately jealous of Heathcliff. It felt like sapphic-coded jealousy to me? So, when she has the chance, she makes sure Heathcliff hears Cathy talking about her "degradation" if she married Heathcliff and keeps them apart. I won't go into it, but she's also basically responsible for Cathy's death. It's INSANE how it was done, whether I'm right about the sapphic piece or not. Gone is the irrefutable fact that Heathcliff and Cathy were kept apart by insurmountable societal forces and Cathy's own fleeting desire to have what the Lintons have because that's expected of her. No! Nelly just got in the way.

RE: Sapphic stuff, Isabella was played as Edgar's ward rather than his sister, and she was depicted as really infantile, collecting ribbons and being super childish and ALSO IN LOVE WITH CATHY. She literally made Cathy a creepy doll and put it next to hers in a doll house. She handed Cathy a "friendship book" that had a cut-out "rose" that looked like a vagina. I dunno what Emerald Fennell's problem is, but in my view, there was a frumpy POC sapphic and an infantalized sapphic, and only not-Heathcliff's white dick could save Cathy from that.

There's no Hareton since there is no Hindley. There's not Catherine junior. There's no Mister Lockwood. No ghost of Cathy. Hardly any gothic elements at all except for sweeping moors and dark houses. Cathy dies, and only then do we get the "haunt me then" speech, entirely without Cathy's part. The costumes were ugly. Emerald Fennell kept showing me dripping egg yolks and fingers stuck in fish mouths to be like hey!! Look!!! Sex!!!! It wasn't sexy. It was gross. She was trying so hard to be bold, but it was BORING. I kept sighing just wanting it to be over. No Heathcliff digging Cathy up from her grave here, sir!!! You won't find it!!!! No commentary on generational abuse cycles and breaking them nope!

Oh, and did I forget to mention the, I hesitate to call it puppy play, because it wasn't, not really, but the bit where Heathcliff chained a willing Isabella up and she barked like a dog??? And also the random scene where two servants were having pony play in the barn??? Does this director like kink and is showing it badly? Or does she hate it and is showing it badly? WHO CAN SAY.