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Brett
So Hollywood might just have ruined yet another piece of famous literature. And between alleged race swapping and affair rage baiting and out of touch promos and a porn brained director, those are my words. It seems like nobody online is happy with the new Wuthering Heights, possibly not even the star, Jacob Elordi. So the context here is that Margot Robbie and her production company are about to release their adaptation of Emily Bronte's novel Wuthering Heights. And the Internet, needless to say, has a lot of concerns. Now I remember back when this was first, when they talked about the casting, when they talked about who was going to be doing the music. FYI, that is Charli xcx, which just seems criminal. That is criminal that that is who's doing the music. Anyway, even back before the cameras started rolling, people were not thrilled about this adaptation because first and foremost, like everything I just said without even seeing the film, they just do not think that this version, this take on the story, is respectful, is accurate, is intelligent in the slightest. They just believe it is an absolute outcry. And one commenter on X put it so eloquently and said, this is wine mom porn slop. It is essentially a darker Bridgerton, maybe even into 50 shades of gray. But like the Victorian Gothic edition, that is what we are dealing with here. And I have to be real here because I would love to sit here and be like, I just love Wuthering Heights so much. I need to defend this novel. I care so deeply about this. But honestly, up until now I really have not paid this film much attention because out of all the big gothic Victorian novels, Wuthering Heights was never my favorite. It actually might be the least favorite that I was ever assigned in school that I ever just decided to read on my own. Like I have read Jane Eyre, for example, about 10 times. I chose to write essays on it in college. I picked classes based on whether I could read it again. Like I it's just incredible. And Jane Eyre was written by Emily Bronte's sister Charlotte. But reading Wuthering Heights was a completely different experience for me. Like that was a slog, it was painful to finish. I just did not love it. So going back a year and a half when the Internet first started talking about this, like the new adaptation did nothing for me, was not impacted, obviously. Great piece of literature being decimated by Hollywood, nobody likes that. But I just really didn't care until, until this week, until I started to notice how they were going about this press tour for the wine mom porn slop movie, how odd and obsessive the behaviors of the actors were and how it's even stranger because of who? Margot Rob. Now, before we get into all of this, two housekeeping things. Number one, I still have my show on March 1st at Zany's here in Nashville. The one that was going to be tomorrow was unfortunately canceled because I am still iced in. So if you got tickets for that, we will be resetting that date. Do not worry. But I will be at Zany's on March 1st. And also if you want ad free episodes and behind the scenes content, story times, vlogs, farm information, all of that sort of thing, all of that can be found at my subscription site over@cooper confidential.com TLDR what you need to know before we really dive in here is that the PR around Wuthering Heights is giving Shein. It's giving tea. Moo. Sydney Sweeney, Glen Powell promoting Anyone but you. I will say I have had some new folks come and join the fun. Join the family. You might not have been around back in December of 2023 when we dove deep on that story. Picture this, it is 2023, December of 2023, and all anyone could talk about in the pop culture social media world was whether Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney were hooking up while filming their rom com, Anyone but yout Or. Or whether they were just met on this rom com of theirs. You can see a headline here. Sydney Sweeney gushes over Anyone but you. Co star Glen Powell after affair rumors. I mean, like they were all over each other, clinging, laughing, giggling, her bosom just popping out of shirts. They were going on family trips together and posing. They were gushing over one another. Just watch.
Glen Powell
Sidney is very easy to pretend fall in love with. The ideas of love are swirling through your head while these big romantic moments are happening. So sometimes harder to differentiate between real life and fake life.
Brett
Sometimes harder to differentiate between the story and real life. Glenn. Glenn, oh my God. I'm sorry, you said that. It is hard to differentiate between real life and the story. Like, sir, you had a girlfriend, she had a fiance. And had, by the way is the key word there. They both were in relationships. This whole thing, it went so far. They were like so in the story together. You know, it was so crazy that even Hoda on the Today show even asked them if they were actually a thing, if they were in relationships. Even though it was public knowledge that he had a girlfriend and she was literally engaged. I have to ask because there's chemistry sitting here. Is there? Is this like A little romance. It's not. Well, then you guys, really.
Glen Powell
But we do love. We do love each other. And honestly, this is one of the most spectacular humans I've ever met. She's really incredible.
Brett
Oh, well, y' all are so cute together. Well, I just want to say I'm glad that you guys are in this movie together. Y' all are adorable. Now, needless to say, both of those relationships ended very soon after this movie finished filming. Glen and Sidney never publicly dated. So it does seem like maybe this was all some kind of publicity stunt or they dated behind the scenes, whatever. Maybe it was, you know, some kind of a fair turned cash cow. I have no idea. But the point being, this worked. It got everyone to go stream the movie, including myself. It was terrible. And yet we all were obsessed about it. We were all talking about it. And so the Internet is now theorizing that Margot Robbie and her co star Jacob Elordi for Wuthering Heights are doing the exact same thing. They saw that success. They saw it was a fun, silly little, you know, rom com situation. It's Wuthering Heights again. It's like wine mom porn slop. It's releasing on Valentine's Day. They said we're gonna do the exact same thing. But unlike Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell, nobody is gushing, nobody is giggling and kicking their feets on TikTok. We are all actually very concerned. And they're concerned because this was obviously so staged. And it's even stranger again if you think about who Margot Robbie's husband is and what his role was in this entire situation. Now, before we get into that, before we get into all of these clips, something that you should know is that on top of people just being weirded out by the adaptation, people have already been concerned about the casting of this film. Because in the novel, if you haven't read it, the bulk of the story takes place when the two lead characters, Catherine and Heathcliff, are very young, 15 to 19 years old. Not really trying to spoil anything, but that is about how old one of them gets. Like, it is 15 to 19 years old. However, that is very obviously not represented in the modern story that they are telling. And it is not represented in the casting because Margot Robbie is pushing 40. She is 35 years old, and Jacob Elordi is 28 years old. I do think that they did this for two reasons. Now, number one, this is Margot's film. She is producing it. She probably wanted to star in this. She's queen of taking stories that she wants to tell, putting Herself in them, more power to her. That's great if you have the opportunity to do that. Amazing. But number two, because they have turned this story into a porno. They took a love story, this deep, gut wrenching love story about these young people and they turned it into a porno. Somebody posted this on X and said, Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi playing 16 year old Catherine and Heathcliff in this scene. Seven year old boy. Yeah, that is basically what they're doing. And of course Die Hard fans are gonna be upset about that. But you know, we could also argue that maybe finally somebody in Hollywood had common sense and they were like, you know what, maybe, maybe let's not cast 16 or 17 year olds for the Victorian era. 50 shades of gray. Maybe that would not go over well. Anyway, I say all of that, that is important because they are like desperately trying to make this film work. They know the people online are not too happy about it. They know that it's like a stretch, this adaptation they're doing. Margot knows that she is 20 years older than the character is. And so they want us to look past all of that, look past the possible, you know, offensive adaptation, the strange casting, and become obsessed with the film. As obsessed with them and it as they are with each other. They wanna bring us into this world of Catherine and Heathcliff, hence taking the anyone, but yout PR tour route. And let me tell you, they are going hot and heavy. Just look at this photo shoot that they did for Vogue Australia which really like set this thing off. This is Jacob and Margot in. Yes, in that dress. She is fully nude. Fully nude. Excuse me, you have a husband, you have a child and you are half naked with your co star who was seven years younger than you. It's just a bit odd. And many of the comments were about that. They were about her husband. Somebody said her husband. Meanwhile, another one said her husband going through it. I mean, like, I just picked two of them. All of them bas, they say the same thing. Her husband is our strongest soldier. Here's the thing, guys, this is what I've been teasing. Her husband is the executive producer of the film. He is part of all of this, which is what makes it so strange and icky to me personally. Maybe not to other people, maybe not to people in Hollywood, but it's just odd. Even the Vogue article leaned into this. Like, it's literally titled Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi. Pure obsession. Cinema's wild romance. They're not talking about Wuthering Heights here. They're not talking about Wuthering Heights, the romance. They're framing it as Margot and Jacob having this pure obsession and wild ro. And again, listen, I get it. Don't jump down my throat. I understand that it's marketing and obviously it gets people talking. Here I am doing an episode about it. But this is where the lines between work and personal get so blurred in Hollywood and you wonder why so many of their marriages fall apart while people are cheating and bouncing around from husband to husband. I'm sorry. It's things like this and I think that this is. It's like one thing. If you have two single co stars, maybe they start dating. Like Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson are a great example of that. They obviously played it out for the camera. I was absolutely baited. I was like, oh my God, they're such a cute couple. It was pr. It was obviously pr. They were not dating. That was very. But Margot Robbie is very publicly and happily married, hopefully with a child. And Jacob has long been in a relationship with Olivia Jade, who is Lori Loughlin's daughter. You know, rowing scandal, usc, that whole thing. It's that Olivia Jade, however, they did recently kind of go through a breakup where they broke up end of 2025, but they were just spotted together, so we don't know whether they're actually together. But the point being, he has been in a relationship. The point is they are not single. And it is disrespectful. Just like it's disrespectful to be eating meat that was not raised in the usa. Thankfully, you don't have that problem with good ranchers. Now, as America turns 250 this year, it is worth remembering the people who truly built this country. The ones who woke up before the sun season after season without applause. And obviously that is America's ranchers. 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Brett
But back to the point about the personal and professional in Hollywood. In my opinion, personal opinion, professional opinion, whatever you want to argue. My opinion is you show up, you act, you do your job, the cameras turn off, that's it. Boundary is set. You go home leaning into Your characters and the speculation about obsession and affairs just to sell tickets, possibly at the expense of your marriage and family, is crazy to me. Again, remember, Sydney Sweeney is no longer engaged to her fiance. Glen Powell's girlfriend is on record saying that this is the reason why she broke up with him. And it's like, one thing. If the movie comes out, you do your thing and audiences latch onto something, they become obsessed with the character's relationships. There are fan edits, whatever. That just means you're a good actor, you're doing your job. But for you to lean into that for press and attention, that is weird. Objectively, that is weird behavior. But it's what Margot just keeps doing because that Vogue Australia photo shoot was just the beginning. Now, from there, it really took off after Margot revealed what her co star, her coworker Jacob Elordi, got her for Valentine's Day while they were filming. This was in the interview that they did for Vogue. And she said to him, my question for you. As we were shooting on Valentine's Day, you made my day. And as Heathcliff in character filled my room with roses, and it was so cute. And then she went on and she said, you definitely beat me. Like he beat her Valentine's Day gift. Yours was so epic. I remember thinking on Valentine's Day, oh, he's probably a very good boyfriend, because there's a lot of thoughtfulness in this. He did a lot of very thoughtful things. It wasn't just the gesture of the roses. It was the thing written from Heathcliff and the little tombstone thing. I was like, ah, Crafts. I love that. It was crafty, it was meaningful, it was dramatic. And, you know, at the beginning, I saw this and I was like, okay. Like, that's fun. That's cute and sweet. I remember when I was watching the press for Barbie, which obviously Margot Robbie did just a couple of years ago, she apparently gave Ryan Gosling a different gift every single day. They were like funny, quippy little gifts. He brought them home to his kids. It was. That's fine. Whatever. He's in character. It's a bit odd, but, you know, actors are odd, emotional people. But it just kept going. The obsession theme kept going. Later, in a roundtable with the entire cast, I think that this just came out this week. She talked about how Jacob would always be around her on set, just kind of leering, standing in her vicinity. And quickly, as the days went by, on set, she became codependent, as she said that she often does on movie sets. And she said this. She said, I found Myself starting to look around to see where he was. Jacob Elordi. I was really unnerved and unmoored and I felt quite lost. Like a kid without their blanket or something. It's just like a very odd way to talk about your co star. But then in another interview, she talks about the most romantic thing that somebody has ever done. News flash, it wasn't something her husband did. It was something that Jacob did. Just watch this. You know the bit where it's raining and then he goes and covers his.
Margot Robbie
That was an on the day thing. Yeah, that was wondering. Because I didn't.
Brett
I was like.
Margot Robbie
Do you know how that happened though? Is we went to rehearse it and they rehearsed it with the rain machines on because we were checking if the rain machine level was right. And I. I was going like that because the rain had started. And of course, when you looking at. When you're acting with Jacob, you're like looking up like this all the time. So I went like that. And he just automatically went to cover my face because he's a gentleman. And it's just like that's second nature to him. He just automatically went like that. And honestly, both Emerald and I just went, okay, stop.
Brett
I know.
Margot Robbie
And he was not aware that he had done anything chivalrous or romantic at all. And we were just like. That was one of the most romantic things I have ever experienced and seen.
Brett
I mean, guys, I watched that clip earlier today when it came across my feed. My jaw was on the floor. Ma', am, you have a whole husband who was producing. He was probably on set watching this and you're like, oh, my God, that was the most romantic thing. It's enough, enough. Cut the cameras. Like, this is too much. But no matter. Let's continue talking about how hot Jacob Elordi is. How hot and bothered he's getting all of these women. Which he did talk about when she was interviewed by Jimmy Kimmel.
Margot Robbie
Just to put this into context, it's like 20 women were like frothing at the mouth. They were like rabid dogs. They had. There were a couple of drinks in already. And then the movie started. And I was like, all right, I.
Brett
Have to pause right there. So what Margot Robbie is talking about here is that she hosted a screening for all of her girlfriends. They were watching it after the Bachelor. They were a little drunk and they were foaming at the mouth because of Jacob Elordi. What did we say at the beginning? Wine, mom, porn slop. Literally. That is what we are dealing with here. All right. Anyway, she says one other thing.
Margot Robbie
Jacob came on screen and I just, like. I think it registered on the Richter scale.
Brett
It was, yeah, they go bananas.
Margot Robbie
It was. Honestly, I was like, if he walked in right now, I think they were. Would eat him. It's safer that he's not here.
Brett
Is this back home now, granted, have to be fair here. She was obviously talking about her friends. But again, it's the sex. It's hot and heavy. It's obsession. They're rabid dogs foaming at the mouth. Like, again, this is what they are promoting here. But now this is where it really shifted for me. Because in my mind, I'm like, all right, this is kind of odd. Jacob's giving her presents. Is he leaning into this? This is a bit weird, you know, like, is this. And anyone but you, you know, 2.0. But it shifted for me because in another moment in that same roundtable, Jacob casually joked and he said, you know, we have a mutual obs with each other. He was kind of like, feeding onto what she had said about her being a baby who needed her blanket, AKA Jacob. And the Internet just ran with that comment. Suddenly there were headlines. Bop, bop, bop. Mutual obsession. They're obsessed with each other. All of these things. But what Jacob was really trying to say, if you watch the entire clip, he was trying to make it all about work, which, whether or not it really is, whatever was happening behind the scenes, I do respect that he was trying to pivot back and be like, I was obsessed with her work. Just listen.
Jacob Elordi
We have a mutual obsession. I think the thing is, if you, regardless of plot or screenplay, if you have the opportunity to share a film set with Margot Robbie, you're gonna make sure you're within 5 to 10 meters at all times. Watching how she drinks tea, how she eats her food, how she does it. When is it gonna slip? When is the thing gonna come undone? And it never comes undone. She's just like an elite actor.
Brett
Okay? So that is what he says immediately after, she's like, he was leering near me and always happy. So I think that there are two ways to read this now. I think. One, he's just being like, regardless of what you're doing, if you get to act with Margot Robbie, that's really cool. You wanna learn from her? I'm gon. Also, I'm playing her love interest, so I'm always going to be around her. Or some people have said her demure giggling. He's staring her down. People in the comments were like, oh, my God, I'VE come undone. This is so amazing and it's so hot. So you could read it like that. Like this is some kind of steamy situation that they have going on. For me, it kind of felt like he was just going, okay, yeah, we were acting together. I don't really know. And then it just got weirder because I went into this whole thing thinking that both of them were being odd. But now to me, it seems like he's this Australian heartthrob trying to be a nice guy, kind of intense. And he obviously was excited and grateful to be working with one of the most famous actresses of his generation. And then she and the PR team just decide to run with the obsession for Clix. And it's just like, objectively, I keep saying objectively in my opinion, I mean, based on the Internet, objectively. But subjectively, in ret world, it just doesn't make her look good. It's just weird because the chemistry, in my opinion, just isn't there. Look at them together at the premiere. Tell me if you think that this is like hot and heavy mutual obsession in the way the Internet is arguing. I'm sorry. I know that she is very tightly wrapped into this insane corset dress and she's probably very uncomfortable, but if we're looking at him, he looks like he just got ripped into by his girlfriend, Olivia. Jade, in pulling this screenshot right here, this is the face of I am in trouble. I need to not be here. I need to be getting home. And everyone has caught onto it. Somebody said, this is for pr, I swear, because I see no chemistry. Another person said, ariana and Cynthia have more chemistry than this. Literally. I don't think that that was pr. I think that that was just genuine instability and actual codependency. And apparently, side note, that weirdness between Cynthia and Ariana, apparently it cost them Oscar nomination. Literally. Like, that is what sources have said because people were so weirded out. People who vote at the Academy, they're like, this is just a bit odd. We're not gonna vote for this. So PR can go in both ways. Another person said, why is everyone so mad that there's no chemistry? They are literally both in relationships, there should be no chemistry. And like, that is the point. And that's what people are commenting on. Because after weeks of mutual obsession in these hot and heavy photo shoots and teasing and all of that, everyone is seeing through the fact that this is very much an over the top PR play. And if I was a betting woman, if I was a betting woman, I would say that this whole thing was cooked up by the director of the movie who, I'm sorry, is obsessed with sex. That is not something that I am just making up. This is the woman who was behind the movie. Cover your children's ears, parents. I'm giving you two seconds. She is the woman who was behind the film where a man had sex with a grave and then drank another man's bathwater in a sexual way. And funnily enough, by the way, Jacob was also in that movie. It was his grave, his bathwater, that whole thing. So maybe we can theorize that he's just tired of the scrappy, does not want to be involved anymore. He's like, I don't know why he's signed onto this. Who knows, Maybe that's other option. But anyway, according to this very sexual director, in keeping with the infamous bathtub scene from that movie, which is called Saltburn, something similar is going to happen in Wuthering Heights. Just watch. I'm curious, what was the first visual that you had in mind since the slurping in the bathtub was the first one you had for Saltburn? Well, it was a similar one, but I probably can't spoil it, but something happens on a rock. Okay, so according to this director, the first visual that she had when she was brought onto this movie, Saltburn, was this very disgusting, infamous bathtub scene. And now when she's coming into Wuthering Heights again, one of the most most famous, deep, dark, tortured pieces of literature, she's like, there's gonna be some sex on a rock. That was the first thing I thought of. Lady, get your vagina out of your head is all I need to say. Anyway, somebody commented and said, she is so porn brained. Another person said, emily Bronte wrote Longing and Grief. Emerald Fennell heard, let's traumatize everyone aesthetically. Another person tweeted and said, wuthering Heights is a book about racism and cycle of abuse and healing from generational trauma told through two very unreliable narrators. But a passionate love story inside that is far from healthy. And it is so frustrating to see Hollywood turn it solely into a sexual fantasy. And yeah, and here's the thing about gothic literature, which Wuthering Heights is, it's always very dark. It's always brooding. It's like edgy. And there is romance and you usually have these two characters that are like antiheroes and they're wrong for each other. And it's deep and it's dark and there's sinister and there's like Sexual tension. But that's not really what the stories are about. There's always things that are running underneath it. Like with Jane Eyre. Very similar. There are also, you know, it's classism, it's ra. It's women's insanity and women's issues in the Victorian era. Like, all of these things. That is what is so important. And the romance really runs through that and helps tell the story. But it isn't about sex. And what this movie is doing is turning this work into something that is literally just about sex. It really does feel, as this commenter pointed out, that it is just this director playing out her sexual fantasy that she had when she was reading the novel. Like when she was pressed by some of these liberals who were outraged online. Like, why she hired Elordi to play Heathcliff when he is described as dark in the book. She said that she just wanted to create the fantasy that she saw in her head. Anyway, I'm not even gonna get into that today. That's a whole other episode. Like, needless to say, the alleged race swapping. It's a whole other political discourse online surrounding Wuthering Heights. Whether dark meant black or whether Bronte just meant brooding and not, you know, actually dark, whether she meant Irish, whatever it is, it's all problematic. Everybody's angry. Don't worry. We don't need to talk about it. But back to the point. Regardless of who is pushing or plotted this affair, obsession bait, it's bad. And again, it's just reflecting poorly on Margot Robbie. I've seen seen so many comments across all different platforms like this. Somebody said, I cannot wait until this promo is over. She is just showing herself in not a good light, embarrassing her marriage. Another person said, lady, please, you are married with a kid. And then another one. I thought this was most astute and simple, ma'. Am. You are married with a child and an excellent actor. You do not need to do this bs. Like, yeah, that's the thing. She's so good. She doesn't need to prove herself to anybody. She makes so much money. She has done incredible films. She's been nominated, got like three Oscars. If she wants to make a slutty movie, go make your slutty movie. We don't need to bring us all into this weird affair thing. Your marriage, whatever. Just do the movie and move on. Margot Robbie has been on, I would say, a generational run over the last decade with her films. Like, why? Why are we tainting it with an awkward fake affair obsession to promote a Victorian porno Where Charli XCX is doing the music, that just does not feel worth it to me. And you guys, again, may I remind you, her husband is the executive producer, which just makes makes it so much weirder. And yes, while I am sure that this movie will do well regardless of the Twitter and TikTok discourse, women will want to go see it. They will go on Galentine's whatever. That does not take away from the fact that first of all this PR strategy did not work the way that they intended maybe. And also the sexual fantasies are just a bit much. They're a bit overpowering. Like I think Hollywood in general is a lot hornier than the rest of America. Like just listen to some of these comments on Instagram. This is on the trailer and other promos. One person said, I am genuinely penalty that the cinematography for this movie looks incredible because I want to see a movie with that look on the biggest screen possible. But I also don't want to watch all of the diabolical stuff on the biggest screen possible. I do not want to see Jacob Elordi shoving his fingers in a sexual way down Margot Robbie's throat on the biggest screen possible. That is basically what this person is trying to say. Another person, Ghana did it and said they really made Wuthering Heights into a shitty smut movie. And then this one highly relevant, this guy tomfoolery photo said Booktok has done irreparable damage to the youth. And guys, this is where we all come full circle, which I love because this, this is the same book Talk, the same TikTok sub genre that we talked about when we covered that TV show Heated Rivalry just a couple weeks ago. If you don't know what I'm talking about, well, click the link below. We'll put that episode there. But it is porn brained women online fueled by BookTok on TikTok believing that smut pornographic literature are esteemed literature. And now they are taking esteemed literature and they are turning it into smut. And you might think, okay, Brett, that is so chronically online. That's not real life, that's just weird. Ahem. I must say that a new smut bookshop just opened in Nashville this month and it went viral because the line of women waiting to get in this bookshop was wrapped around the block. They could have gotten those books on their Kindle, they could have ordered them on Amazon, but no, they waited over an hour in January in Tennessee to get in to the smutty bookshop. Meanwhile, my generation is saying, Hollywood, it is too much. It is literally everywhere in our lives. We do not need to see all of this sex on screen in every single movie and TV show as well. We do not want it. Those stats came out of a report from ucla. Gosh, I think maybe a year and a half ago now. So only time will tell if Hollywood actually listens to the young people and the tide turns. But regardless, the point is, this is not a good look for Margot Robbie or the film or literature or Hollywood in general, in my opinion. But I will say Margot Robbie does actually look good, even though morally value wise, I don't think she looks good physically. She looks good because like with Barbie, she is all in on the clothing for her press tour. And out of everything that has been the most redeeming part of this entire Deb.
Date: February 1, 2026
Host: Brett Cooper
In this episode, Brett Cooper critiques the upcoming Hollywood adaptation of "Wuthering Heights," produced by Margot Robbie’s company and starring Robbie and Jacob Elordi. She explores why the internet—and particularly classic literature fans—are outraged, attributing the controversy to "BookTok's" influence and Hollywood's obsession with sexualized marketing and PR stunts. Brett dissects how these trends reflect generational changes and what they reveal about shifting cultural values, relationships, and how beloved classics are reinterpreted (and, in her view, degraded) for modern audiences.
The moment news broke about Margot Robbie's "Wuthering Heights" adaptation, social media expressed skepticism and disdain. Brett describes it as a “criminal” choice to have Charli XCX compose the soundtrack for a gothic novel adaptation.
Notable Quote:
"It seems like nobody online is happy with the new Wuthering Heights, possibly not even the star, Jacob Elordi." (00:22)
Viral online comments, such as “wine mom porn slop,” summarize the prevailing sentiment that the adaptation is little more than a "darker Bridgerton," or “Victorian Gothic 50 Shades of Grey." (00:57)
Brett draws a parallel to the PR campaign for “Anyone But You,” where Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell’s chemistry was heavily marketed to fuel tabloid and internet speculation about an offscreen affair—despite both being in relationships.
"Sometimes harder to differentiate between real life and fake life." (03:25)
"Sir, you had a girlfriend, she had a fiancé. And 'had', by the way, is the key word..." (03:36)
She suggests the Wuthering Heights campaign is similarly trying to fuel obsession or speculation but nobody seems charmed—just uncomfortable.
Robbie’s husband is the executive producer, which Brett finds “so strange and icky.” (07:35–08:15)
The Vogue Australia photo shoot ("pure obsession... cinema's wild romance") fueled concern, especially with Robbie posing nude with Elordi while married (to the film’s executive producer).
Obsession motif: repeated stories from Margot about Jacob’s on-set gestures—roses on Valentine’s Day in character, and an unsolicited display of "gentlemanly affection"—are repeatedly cited as "the most romantic things" she’d ever experienced, eclipsing anything her husband did.
"That was one of the most romantic things I have ever experienced and seen." (14:38)
Brett argues it’s “crazy” and "objectively weird" for married/co-involved artists to massage obsession rumors to sell tickets. (11:36)
Brett shows skepticism about the "mutual obsession" narrative:
"We have a mutual obsession... If you have the opportunity to share a film set with Margot Robbie, you're going to make sure you're within 5 to 10 meters at all times." (16:41)
Many viewers feel the chemistry is forced or PR-driven, not genuine:
Brett chains the explosion of sexualized adaptations and discourse back to BookTok (a TikTok community), which has mainstreamed “smutty” literature aesthetics.
A viral "smut bookshop" opening in Nashville, huge lines wrapped around the block, signaling BoardBook’s real-world influence.
“BookTok has done irreparable damage to the youth.” (22:37)
She notes young people are increasingly unsatisfied with constant sexual content in media, citing UCLA research: “My generation is saying, Hollywood, it is too much... We do not want it.” (23:40)
“Why are we tainting it with an awkward fake affair obsession to promote a Victorian porno where Charli XCX is doing the music, that just does not feel worth it to me.” (22:05)
“They wanna bring us into this world of Catherine and Heathcliff, hence taking the Anyone But You PR tour route. And let me tell you, they are going hot and heavy. Just look at this photo shoot for Vogue Australia...” (09:15)
“That was one of the most romantic things I have ever experienced and seen.” (14:38)
“My jaw was on the floor. Ma’am, you have a whole husband [...] Cut the cameras. Like, this is too much.” (14:47)
“We have a mutual obsession. I think the thing is... if you have the opportunity to share a film set with Margot Robbie, you're gonna make sure you're within 5 to 10 meters at all times...” (16:41)
“Hollywood in general is a lot hornier than the rest of America.” (22:10)
“BookTok has done irreparable damage to the youth.” (22:37)
Brett’s tone is irreverent, often sarcastic, candidly judgmental, and draws heavily on both firsthand internet reactions and her personal opinions as a pop-culture commentator. She is direct, uses colloquial and internet-native expressions ("wine mom porn slop," "porn brained"), and frequently references the generational divide between "chronically online" youth and Hollywood elites.
Brett closes with skepticism that Hollywood’s sex-obsessed approach—or BookTok’s tastes—benefit the legacy of classic literature or the image of its stars. She calls out Margot Robbie and the film’s team for PR schemes that cross professional boundaries and fail to capture the deeper substance of the source material. Brett predicts the movie will be financially successful but asserts it marks a cultural low point for adaptations and for the BookTok-driven smut trend dominating youth and pop culture.