Dear Readers,


I now consider this blog to be my Juvenelia. Have fun perusing the archives, and find me at my new haunt, here.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Dear God, No, no no nooooo. NO!



Via the wonderful Bronte blog, we learn the latest in a series of seriously TRAGIC events for the lovers of egaitarian bookworm heroines and their onscreen embodiments.

They started with Kiera Knightley.

Then they sicked Anne Hathaway on our shocked selves.

And now they are casting f-ing Natalie Portman as CATHY from Wuthering Heights. SHE is going to have to say "i am Heathcliff" and give birth and die while he gashes his forehead against a tree and call out all ghost-like from the moors and abandon her wild, feminine self to submit to a life of propriety and holy crap.
This is so wrong on so many levels. I don't even know where to begin. And yes, I am a bit hysterical, but come on people, this is Wuthering Heights.

(Oh, and apparently Evan Rachel Wood is starring in a possibly-not-happening Bronte biopic.
Just great.)

So what are my quibbles, you ask?

First of all, these actresses, especially Portman are all WAY TOO SKINNY and tiny.
Second of all, they do not have the period "look" (except for knightley, who fits into a flapper era thingy in Atonement).

Third of all, THESE ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT FEMALE CHARACTERS IN LITERATURE. Cathy-Earnshaw-Linton-Heathcliff is full of rage, and sex, and wildness, and anger. She is not to be played by a pixie who has already desecrated Anne Boleyn and the Star Wars trilogy.

The greatest female characters in literature are NOT the same as hot-right-now starlets. They need TALENT and HEFT and GRAVITAS.

Let me tell you whom they might have cast: ANYONE who doesn't simper and giggle and bring smallness to the role. Look at the brilliant actresses the BBC has found: Jodhi May, Daniela Denby-Ashe, Romola Garai, Jennifer Ehle, Hattie Morahan, Ruth Wilson who all could have pulled off a Cathy to die for.

Maybe I should just chalk it up to Hollywood--I mean Brad Pitt played Achilles and Colin Farell played Alexander and so on, but...we have so few heroines who were not written by men. It'd be nice to do 'em justice.
Sigh.

Also, major HT to Mags for the LOLBronte idea, of course.

2 comments:

  1. OMG.... I feel your pain!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous2:57 PM

    It's all about money. It really is. Who can draw the biggest audience?

    But, I adore Jodhi May and would love to see her play this role.

    ReplyDelete