2022 Finally Revealed Peaky Blinders' Tommy Shelby Hypocrisy
When Peaky Blinders season 6 released, the hypocrisy of Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy) was finally brought to light. A ruthless gang leader, a cunning political schemer, and a traumatized war veteran, Tommy was certainly a multi-faceted character. However, the final season of Peaky Blinders also proved the show expected its audience to make excuses for Tommy’s questionable behaviors in the interest of maintaining his façade as the hero.
Peaky Blinders tracked the eponymous Birmingham-based gang’s rise in the wake of the First World War. Headed by Tommy Shelby, the Peaky Blinders were willing to commit atrocities to maintain or tighten their grasp on power. In his years on screen, Tommy Shelby blinded a man for a verbal slight, ordered the demolition of a train with six workers on-board, and mutilated a man’s head beyond recognition with a spittoon. Yet, his tendency towards violence was portrayed as part of his twisted charm: Harry, The Garrison’s barman in season 1, told Tommy, “You’re bad men, but you’re our bad men.” This functioned as an instruction to Peaky Blinders’ audience on how to view Tommy Shelby.
Peaky Blinders condoned Tommy Shelby’s actions while simultaneously vilifying other characters who behaved in the same way. Michael (Finn Cole) was the most prominent victim of Peaky Blinders’ skewed, heroic lens. Beginning as Tommy’s ally, Michael’s disillusionment with his older cousin culminated in a failed assassination attempt and his own death. However, Peaky Blinders never entertained the notion that Michael’s resentment of Tommy was justified. Therein lay the hypocrisy: Tommy was exempt from legitimate criticisms and repercussions, no matter how immoral his actions. Peaky Blinders gave its protagonist a license to murder anybody who challenged his ideologies, while expecting its audience to turn a blind eye to Tommy’s failings. As such, Michael was not the villain Peaky Blinders pretended him to be.
Tommy often used the word “betrayal” in admonitions of Michael. His first alleged act of treachery occurred in Peaky Blinders season 4, when Luca Changretta (Adrian Brody) spared Michael’s life with the parting words: “Tell your mother we have a deal.” Polly had offered Tommy up to Luca, provided her son was kept safe. Michael confronted Polly about her plan, and then neglected to tell Tommy about it at an opportune moment. Thankfully for fans of Tommy, Polly tricked Luca, and the bait and switch allowed Tommy to kill three of Luca’s men. However, Michael was not privy to this information, meaning he condoned his cousin’s death sentence.
Yet, this was not the act of betrayal Tommy perceived it to be. Michael was forced to decide where his loyalties lay, and he picked his mother. Given that he’d only recently learned of Polly’s existence, it was rational for Michael not to want to sacrifice her for the follies of Tommy Shelby. After all, it was Tommy’s quest for vengeance that catalyzed the vendetta in the first place. Importantly, Michael never intended to cause Tommy harm directly until after his mother’s death. In this context, “betrayal” is an inaccurate description of Michael’s actions.
Michael, along with everyone else in Peaky Blinders, was held to different standards than Tommy. Tommy committed his own fair share of callous betrayals in the name of ambition, but Michael was forbidden from following suit, lest he be branded a villain. Billy Kimber, season 1’s antagonist, was initially regarded as an ally of the Peaky Blinders. However, Tommy confessed to the Lee family, “I plan to betray him.” Similarly, Michael’s feelings towards Tommy remained consistent until the end of season 5.
Crucially, it was Tommy’s ambition that resulted in Polly’s murder. When Grace was killed by the Changrettas, Tommy toyed with the most effective ways to torture the man responsible. In the “hero’s” eyes, death alone would have been a meagre atonement. Michael pledged to seek revenge on Tommy at his mother’s funeral, but he did not entertain the same twisted notions as his cousin. His plan was to plant dynamite in his cousin’s car and blow it up; this would have been an instant and painless execution. Despite Michael’s increased humanity here, Peaky Blinders portrayed it as an unjustified assassination attempt. The bullet Tommy fired into Michael’s head was approved by the show’s warped moral compass. This scene finally exposed the hypocritical construction of Peaky Blinders’ protagonist.
Michael did not make a villain of himself: Tommy’s pride did this. In Peaky Blinders season 5, Michael offered Tommy a way to retain his status as “Non-Executive Chairman” of Shelby Company Ltd. This proposed restructuring of the company was crucial for the future success of legitimate business. After Grace’s death, legitimate business was supposed to be the priority, yet seasons 5 and 6 saw Tommy shipping millions of tons of opium to America, where Michael had established contacts with Jack Nelson's Boston gang. If he had accepted Michael’s offer, not only would Shelby Company Ltd have thrived, Tommy himself would have also been able to focus entirely on his political aspirations.
Like Tommy, Michael craved power, but he was also actively interested in the growth of the company, whereas Tommy was only concerned with his own ego. This was not the first time Tommy’s pride had negative consequences. It was his refusal to apologize or compromise with the Italians that got Grace killed. Ada Shelby was the most direct critic of Tommy’s pride. When he refused to be dissuaded from his own grand plans, she said, “I’ll put that on your grave, Tom. 'Tommy Shelby: why not?'”
Peaky Blinders did not encourage its audience to celebrate every single one of Tommy’s actions. He was inherently flawed, and the show did not shy away from this. However, it became increasingly noticeable that Peaky Blinders' Tommy Shelby was not subjected to the same scrutiny as the show’s “villains.” Michael certainly wasn’t a hero: he was guided by vanity and ambition as much as his cousin. However, Peaky Blinders seemed to overlook the fact that Tommy Shelby was not a hero either.
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