THE FUSE

ALTHOUGH THE STORY of Wuthering Heights is nearly two centuries old, Heathcliff—the goth romantic lead to end all romantic leads—has always represented a culmination of masculine ideals. He’s a figure whose incarnations track shifting definitions of what it means to be a man, what men are allowed to look like, and how we’re supposed to feel about men acting a certain way. Across nearly nine decades, adaptations of Wuthering Heights offer a gallery of trending male archetypes, from brooding beefcakes to tender antiheroes to dangerous outsiders. Each casting, adaptation, and performance reflects the era’s acceptable—or, in one case, unacceptable—version of masculinity.