Peaky Blinders : Understanding the Magnetic Mr. Shelby
I tried to avoid television, but it turned out to be quite difficult.
I've been focusing on movies for the last two years or so, but the very reason why I chose them over television series for this site is the very reason why I've become vulnerable to watching television again: they're concise. Movies take anywhere between 90 to 180 minutes of your time and leave you alone for the rest of the night. That leaves you vulnerable for whatever can help your tired brain fill up your remaining hours of wakefulness in the most passive way possible, which thirty to fifty minutes of episodic fiction can do.
Don’t get me wrong. I still believe the golden era of television is over. It has become somehow more important for studios and networks to spend money on making shows that feel important than actually making money on game-changing shows that are important. In order to reconcile myself with television and feel like I’m not actually wasting my fucking life, I traveled into the past and started a series I always avoided until now : Peaky Blinders.
Peaky Blinders is a great show for many reasons and many characters, but its appeal lies mostly with the magnetic and angular charm of its protagnist Thomas Shelby, played by the equally magnetic and angular Cilian Murphy. Let’s try to understand together what makes him infinitely more interesting than other characters of his ilk.
Sigma Suffering
Thomas Shelby is reputable for being a sigma male character archetype. One of them strong, but quiet and introverted characters that make the everyman tell themselves: "OMG, he's literally me." But if you actually watch Peaky Blinders, you'll really he's not exactly that. What makes him so interesting and relatable is that he's much more transparent than any of these avatars of inner fortitude. Thomas Shelby is suffering. Greatly. Peaky Blinders' showrunner Steven Knight doesn't even try to hide it.
The head of the titular Peaky Blinders (a Birmingham street gang who fights with razorblades hidden in their hats, therefore 'blinding' their opponent) is a WWI war veteran who's seen real shit on duty. He worked as a tunneler (a terrifying job in an of itself) and now suffers from such debilitating PTSD that he numbs himself with Opium in order to find enough peace to catch some sleep. Now such show of vulnerability would normally make any sigma character less appealing, but it's not the case for Thomas Shelby.
Why is that so?
That's what makes Shelby so captivating. He's a full-fledged badass outlaw and a scared boy at the same time, but his almost preternatural capacity to compartimentalize and not let one aspect of his personality bled into the other is awe inspiring. He's an early century thug, but his skill set couldn't be any more modern. He was a forward-thinking man for his era and did great for himself, but Thomas Shelby would excel at anything in any era. Because of that, it feels a lot less far fetched to project yourself in him.
Thomas Shelby is just as broken as any other sigma male in cinema, but he's more transparent about it. He is shown more transparently by creator Steven Knight and normalizes suffering and vulnerability at part of the otherwise stoic sigma personality, rendering the archetype both more realistic and less desirable. Only people who cannot bear the pain of their own existence aspire to be like Shelby. Otherwise the price is too steep to pay. He also makes other sigmas look shallow, juvenile and derivative.
Arthur Shelby: The Negative Image
Thomas Shelby wouldn't be nearly as powerful of an archetype as he is without his brother and negative image Arthur (played by a man named Paul Anderson who doesn't direct movies). An emotional train wreck who seemingly doesn't have any inner life because he wears everything he feels on his sleeve. The good, the bad and whatever it is that's not other people's business. Without Arthur spreading himself without any control whatsoever, Thomas' ability to keep his life in order would not be appreciated.
At least not the way it is in comparison. Because Thomas Shelby is not unemotional. He gets extremely emotional in key scenes of Peaky Blinders. Usually whenever it serves him or there's no real threat to him. One of my favorite emotional Tommy moment is when an IRA officer tries to smother him with his jacket at the end of season one and Tommy panics, goes completely berserk and murders the guy with a spitting pot. We wouldn’t have been able to appreciate this moment if it weren't for Arthur.
Arthur's lack of maturity and self-control validates these traits in Thomas without Cilian Murphy needing to bat an eyelash. This is brilliant writing. If Thomas Shelby is showing so much self-control, it's because he needs to be the de facto elder of his family and take responsibility for their legacy. But he's human and damaged and the beauty of his character lies in the tension between his controlling persona and the fears that control him. If that shit ain't relatable, I don’t know what else can possibly hit you in the feels.
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I guess my ultimate point is that Peaky Blinders isn't a waste of time and that Thomas Shelby is a standout character because of his capacity to integrate every part of his personality into a coherent front and face challenges without letting anything show. I am notoriously not a fan of period pieces, but Peaky Blinders has a narrative that transcends its era and character strong enough to inspire. My point is watch Peaky Blinders if you haven't already. It is its own thing and unlike anything else today.
