There is little doubt that if Peaky Blinders had existed when I was 20 years old or so me and my ridiculous friends would have spent several weeks shouting things like “Please pass the salt ... BY ORDER OF THE PEAKY BLINDERS!” That’s not relevant to anything, of course, but it is a truth1.
Peaky Blinders is a show so stylized all of the actors might have been body scanned in 2012 and rendered as digital avatars ever since2. Ostensibly the story of a 1920s street gang in Birmingham who rose to great wealth and power while solving most of their problems via murder and the invention of newer, more exciting problems3, the show’s connection to reality (and historical accuracy) has always been suspect. This is one of those shows where everyone drinks and smokes constantly without ever showing the effects4, wears perfectly tailored suits, and never smiles5.
To say Peaky Blinders is a grim show would be an understatement. The moment any major character exhibits affection for anything, you know that thing will die. Horribly. It’s a show where the introduction of a child character sparks severe anxiety, and the only reason I was able to finish watching it is due to the lack of small pets owned by the characters. There’s been some ink spilled concerning the way this show highlights masculinity—either the toxic form or the more toxic sigma form—which is understandable. The show is essentially about undereducated thugs who solve their problems via violence6.
But masculinity isn’t really the point of Peaky Blinders, and a study of it isn’t the appeal of the show. We’re all moral grandmas deep down, and the reason Peaky Blinders resonates is because it presents the violent criminal life pursued by its characters as a literal hell.
My Suits Are on the House, or the House Burns Down
A show like Peaky Blinders is misleading because it seems to show a life of violent organized crime as manly, glamorous, and justifiable. The Shelby family come from nothing and have to fight the world just to survive, and they do so with a modicum of style. Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy) has the blank-faced machismo valued by a lot of men7, and he’s a plotter who always comes out a winner in the end, though often at a terrible price. All fiction tricks us into identifying with the protagonist no matter how awful they might be, so it’s easy to be sympathetic to Tommy and his endless goal to make the Shelby family legitimate or—perhaps more accurately—untouchable. And Murphy looks damn good in those suits while also projecting immense exhaustion8. Tommy seems like a guy who doesn’t want to use his murdering skills, but who is forced to use them repeatedly, much to his despair.
Yes, the Shelby’s look cool (well, not Arthur, admittedly), but it’s a mistake to think that the show is about violent crime being cool, because it takes great pains to show that a life of violent crime is actually awful. Everyone on this show is miserable—the entire show is actually misery porn. Everyone suffers, and even when they advance in life and become wealthy and powerful it’s misery all the way down. There’s always another violent showdown, another family member to bury, another enemy to outmaneuver. And everything turns to dust in your mouth—the great genius of the show is that no one enjoys anything. The cigarettes and booze are consumed like energy pellets in a video game, the sex and the money are pursued out of lifeless, joyless mechanical habit—these might as well be inhuman puppets built by aliens and set loose in a Westworld-like park to study human behaviors9.
And that’s key to the show. The Shelby’s aren’t badasses. They’re damned souls, doomed to eternal suffering. It’s just that their suffering is elegant, and so small minds mistake it for cool.
The Cruelty is the Point
This is especially true of the show’s final season. While the characters have suffered consistently throughout, in season six the suffering takes on an operatic tone. Tommy loses his young daughter, his wife, much of his dignity10, and spends most of the story convinced he is slowly dying. He recklessly burns down his life in order to secure the elusive “security” for his family, culminating in the literal demolition of the country house he purchased when he’d hoped to become a legitimate gentleman and raise his family.
Tommy is as reliably in charge as ever, superficially the ultimate power player who is always a few steps ahead of everyone else, always willing and able to feign defeat and endure temporary humiliation in order to achieve his goals. And yet, the whole season is misery, and fairly miserable to watch. No one is having fun here11. Tommy is tortured, his brother Arthur is trapped in addiction and hobbled by what can only be called poor socialization as a child. Tom’s wife, Lizzie, is humiliated and emotionally abused. Children die. Tom is forced to offer a Nazi salute at one point, an act that clearly costs him dearly in terms of his will to live and self-respect. Literally no one on this show has any fun or even a fleeting moment of grace. Because they’re in hell, because they built their lives on violence and horror. That’s the whole point of the show. If you walk away from season 6 of Peaky Blinders jazzed that Tommy once again came out on top, you have missed the point of the entire show12.
Is it interesting? Maybe. Entertaining? Not really. Unless you enjoy watching well-dressed thugs get kicked in the balls metaphorically and sometimes literally. Which, you know, you do you, my friend.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to design and market a machine that kicks you in the groin over and over again, because apparently hat’s something people like to experience.
Next week: Grace & Frankie teach us a lesson about ignoring the past.
It’s possible I would have purchased one of their adorable little caps, too. I am not a strong man. I’m a Level 7 Susceptible, in fact.
When I am a trillionaire I will pay a team of people to ensure that there is always smoke and fire billowing out behind me as I walk in pretend slow-motion down the street. ALWAYS. What other purpose could all that money have?
Is “Solving Problems Via the Invention of Newer, More Exciting Problems” the title of my memoir? Just Volume One.
Here’s a fun experiment: Watch this show, but every time someone takes a drink or lights a cigarette so do you. Surprise! You’re dead.
I suffer from the condition wherein every time I smile my charm and everyone’s respect for me plummets to about zero. It’s not an easy way to live.
Unlike me, an overeducated buffoon who uses humor to pretend he has no problems at all.
If I’d known that you could be a successful actor while suffering from apparent facial paralysis, my life could have been very, very different. Damn these emotions!
If I’d known that half the acting roles in prestige-y dramas would require their leads to simply be exhausted all the time, my life also could have been very different.
Shows like this make me appreciate those nights when I watch dumb TV with The Duchess with cats curled up in my map, a glass of whiskey in my hand, and the remnants of a pizza on the table. That’s the alpha life, kids.
I did the smart thing and burned off all my dignity when I was in my teens. I now stand before you shameless and it’s very freeing.
Certainly not the audience.
I was going to say “spoilers” but seasons of Peaky Blinders only have one ending, really.
"It’s a show where the introduction of a child character sparks severe anxiety, and the only reason I was able to finish watching it is due to the lack of small pets owned by the characters."
Just looking at the previews told me this, which is why I've never watched it. Btw, is that a mullet Arthur Shelby is sporting?
Re: #4s experiment. Many years ago I tried that with a Clint Eastwood movie (High Plains Drifter?). Passed out about half way through.