Why everyone is dragging the ‘disgusting’ portrayal of Isabella Linton in Wuthering Heights

Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights has only been out for a weekend, and it’s already the most polarizing thing on our timelines, perhaps somewhat down to the treatment of character Isabella Linton.

Warner Bros

While the box office numbers are looking healthy, the discourse is becoming a total bloodbath. Between the quotation marks in the title distancing it from the book and the drama over Jacob Elordi’s casting, anyone who has read the 1847 classic was on edge long before it was released.

Played by Saltburn’s Alison Oliver, the film’s version of Isabella Linton is a massive departure from the source material, and people are calling it disrespectful to the character’s tragic history.

In Emily Brontë’s original novel, Isabella is a sheltered, pampered figure who is essentially kidnapped into a life of misery. She is a pawn in Heathcliff’s revenge plot, suffering through a harrowing marriage that ultimately leaves her a traumatized single mother fleeing the Yorkshire moors. Her story in the text is one of domestic horror and survival, ending in her untimely death.

Warner Bros

However, Fennell’s adaptation has traded that trauma for something much more provocative. In a scene that has left audiences stunned, handmaid Nelly arrives at the Heights to find Isabella chained up like a dog. While the book mentions Heathcliff hanging Isabella’s pet spaniel as a warning of his cruelty, the film takes this literally with the character herself.

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The controversy stems from Isabella’s reaction; instead of showing fear or a desire to be rescued, she crawls toward Nelly with a smirk and a “mad glint”, appearing to be a willing participant in a dark, submissive roleplay.

Speaking to Elle, Alison Oliver defended the choice as an “uncorseting” of the character, suggesting this version of Isabella finds power in being “undone” after a life of being treated like a child by her brother, Edgar. She described the shift as Isabella stepping into a new, albeit twisted, phase of her life.

Tore to shreds what the character was supposed to be. A survivor of abuse and single mother reduced to an s&m roleplay enjoyer barking on command for her husband… we’re not giving emerald fennell enough lashings for this https://t.co/XehjuxtJQT

— Advit (@advitwake) February 15, 2026

This “raunchy twist” hasn’t gone down well with the Brontë purists, with many claiming the film has stripped away the character’s agency and replaced her survival story with shock value. One post claimed the movie “tore to shreds” the essence of the character, reducing a survivor of abuse to an “S&M roleplay enjoyer barking on command”.

Another scathingly suggested that any nuance from the original gothic masterpiece has been “reduced to fetish slop”. Whether you view it as a bold feminist reimagining or a total betrayal of the text, Emerald Fennell has ensured we won’t stop talking about the Lintons anytime soon.

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Featured image credit: Warner Bros