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The Shelby family bears considerable resemblance to Shuster’s delineation of the family “without any pretense [sic!] of ideality”. The family under attack – often by internal forces – is a major theme of numerous contemporary television series, among them shows that Peaky Blinders is much more closely related to than Downton Abbey: The Sopranos, Ray Donovan (2013-),1 or The Americans (2013-).2 Precisely because it is constantly on the brink of falling apart, however, the family proves to be the last remaining benchmark in a world void of guidance. The Shelby family appears permanently bound to disintegrate. Yet, its instability does not constitute a symptom of the culturally pessimistic diagnosis which identifies modernity as an ailment that has eradicated tradition and thereby induced a loss of community. Quite the opposite, the Shelby family’s unsteadiness testifies to the lasting significance of the community of the family, regardless of its particular constitution. Peaky Blinders thus paints a nuanced picture of the status quo of community under the impact of modernity. This becomes evident when considering what exactly engenders the Shelby family’s disintegration.

At first glance, it appears plausible to assume that tendencies towards individualisation, as pursued by the main characters, should exert a disruptive effect on the cohesive ties between family members. Underlying this inference is, however, the conservative misconception of a pristine and hence intact family structure assaulted by the processes of modern emancipation which Delanty has identified as “a narrow evolutionary view of modernity replacing tradition and with it community”. “This view”, Delanty argues, “fail[s] to appreciate how tradition is produced by modernity, and that much of our view of tradition is a product of modernity” (34). The Shelby family does not comply with the demands of tradition from the outset. Decisions are made according to democratically held family votes. In lieu of a patriarch, Thomas, the second-born son, operates as the head of the family and business, or rather, the family business. His closest ally and harshest critic is his aunt, self-determined and outspoken matriarchal company treasurer Polly (Helen McCrory), on whose views and demeanour the First World War has left an imprint as formative as Thomas’, Arthur’s, and John’s war experiences. Not only does Polly “run[] the business of the heart in this family” (S1/E6, 00:29), she repeatedly reminds the male Shelbys that their “whole bloody enterprise was women’s business while you boys were away at war” (S1/E1, 00:17). Her status as equal to, or, rather, dominating the family’s men finds expression in her work clothing, black, white, and pinstriped tailor-made woman’s suits, often accompanied by collars or scarves that resemble ties in series one, and short hair, ties, and a weapon holster in series four.

The tension between old and new negotiated in Peaky Blinders manifests itself most visibly in the conflict between male dominance and female empowerment. Polly’s exemplification of the modern, emancipated woman clashes drastically with Tommy’s leadership of the family and business. Countering Thomas’ somewhat opportunistic declaration that “[t]his company is a modern enterprise and believes in equal rights for women” (S2/E1, 00:23), Polly clarifies that “when it comes to it, you don’t listen to a word we say” (00:28). Her struggle is dramatised in the shift from series one’s preoccupation with male authority and violence, featuring a soundtrack comprised of male artists such as Nick Cave, to series two’s focus on female empowerment, accompanied by a score made up most notably of PJ (for Polly Jean) Harvey tracks. This shift is anticipated in the last episode of the first series when the Shelby sister Ada (Sophie Rundle), “wearing black in preparation”, ends a foreseeably bloody confrontation between the Peaky Blinders and a rivalling gang by intruding their Western-esque standoff, pushing her way through the belligerent men to occupy the “no man’s land” with her baby in a pushchair (00:38). It is then unequivocally established by the first scene of series two in 1921’s Birmingham, when two female figures dressed in mourning, later revealed to be IRA-fighters, blow up the Garrison pub by means of explosives deposited in prams (00:01-2). Series three witnesses the Shelby women joining a city-wide strike of the female factory workers, fomented by the union convenor Jessie Eden, and, finally, a powerful shot of these women walking united into battle towards the camera previously reserved for similar male formations (see fig. 1). This staging of women’s rights and female revolt with historical reference to Britain’s suffragette movement of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries once again situates Peaky Blinders at a distinctively modern point in time.

Fig. 1a (on the left): the Peaky Blinders ‘band of brothers’ (from left to right: Curly, John, Thomas, unknown, Arthur, Jeremiah) going into battle against Billy Kimber’s army, accompanied by a rock piece from the Peaky Blinders score produced by Mearl (see Shine 50) (S1/E6, 00:35).

Fig. 1b (on the right): the Shelby women (from left to right: Linda, Esme, Lizzie, Polly), accompanied by PJ Harvey’s “Meet Ze Monsta” (S2/E4, 00:13).

Other family members, such as Ada, who leaves Birmingham and describes herself as “not a Shelby anymore” in series two3 (E1, 00:04), or Arthur, who seeks redemption in religion guided by his wife Linda, similarly insist on their personal autonomy liberated from obligations to the family. How, then, does the modern individual’s striving for self-fulfilment affect community, that is, the family, in Peaky Blinders? In order to answer this question, I will further examine the factors responsible for the disintegration of the Shelby family. In fact, the family members’ tendencies towards individualisation do not so much jeopardise the family per se as the conception of family maintained by Thomas Shelby.

“For me, family is my strength” (S3/E1, 00:23). Thus Thomas summarises the immeasurable value family assumes for him. Accordingly, the family serves as a rationale implied in every decision made by Tommy, who then acts for ‘the good of the family’. This is a characteristic of ‘new television’s’ preoccupation with the family, which “is marshaled as a reason for action, as in: ‘I did it for (my) family’” (Shuster 125, emphasis in original). As to what precisely is best for them, however, the family members tend to disagree with Thomas. His absolutist control over and manipulations of family members cause considerable ruptures in the fabric of their community. In series one alone, he decides over the fates of his sister Ada and her husband, the communist agitator Freddie Thorne, and his brother John, whom he marries off to Esme (Aimée-Ffion Edwards), offspring of the then-rivalling Lee family. “Tommy and his parliament of one” (S1/E2, 00:28) eventually alienates Ada from the family and earns resentment not only from John, whose protest “[y]ou have no bloody right, Tommy” (S1/E4, 00:48) remains unnoticed.4 “Everyone in my family hates me”, Tommy observes in series one (E5, 00:03). “What family?”, Esme pointedly inquires at the low point of series two, when Tommy’s leadership has led to the arrest of Arthur and Polly’s son Michael (Finn Cole) and the remaining family members question Tommy’s strategy and motives (E5, 00:18).

Given his authoritative demeanour, it is significant that Tommy’s decisions are not motivated by an ideal of the community of the family based on tradition. He arranges the marriage between John and Esme in order to seal a peace-agreement with the Lee family and gain them as dependable allies, and he urges Freddie Thorne to leave the city since he does not want his business associated with the Communist movement. “Tradition will just fuck us up”, Thomas puts it bluntly in series four (E3, 00:14). What determines Tommy’s policy, then, is business. The disintegration of the Shelby family is mostly prevented by their enormous success. Disillusioned after the war and finding himself in an environment void of normative authority, Tommy does not believe in ethics, but in capitalism. Having accidentally acquired a load of guns meant for Libya, Tommy reasons: “If they want them back […] they’ll have to pay. That’s the way of the world” (S1/E1, 00:46). To Grace (Annabelle Wallis), a secret agent assigned with retrieving the guns and Thomas’ later lover and wife, he maintains that “[e]veryone’s a whore […]. We just sell different parts of ourselves” (S1/E3, 00:49). Indeed, Peaky Blinders repeatedly raises the question of morality, exploring the characters’ conscience plagued by their deeds. Arthur, most notably, struggles to align the integrity of his self-image with his actions. Upon having killed a boy in the boxing ring in a fury induced by unprocessed war trauma, Arthur has a mental breakdown (S2/E2). Tommy’s response is not only pragmatic; it is the only response available to him: he compensates the boy’s family financially.5 Money, Thomas realises in the final episode of series three when paying out his family, “is all I can give you for what you’ve given me. Your hearts and your souls” (00:48).

Fig. 2: Thomas the capitalist watches the workers go on strike (S4/E2, 00:48).

Tommy therein again corresponds to the American movie gangster, whose ghettoised origins simultaneously deny and promise him the rise to the top that is the quintessence of the capitalist myth of success (see Munby 50, 56). The gangster’s unconditional quest for success, then, a quest instituted as an ideological tool within a liberal economic system, is that of an individual. As Warshow argues, “the very conditions of success make it impossible not to be alone, for success is always the establishment of an individual pre-eminence” (133, emphasis in original). What is more, the gangster is essentially an (aspiring) capitalist, and effectively, his tactics do not deviate substantially from the ruthlessness of legitimate businessmen. This is exemplified by Thomas’ origins as a bookmaker, his inexhaustible work ethos, and, most of all, his unyielding will “to move up in the world. Become a legitimate businessman” (S1/E3, 00:45).6 In the end, Thomas, head of the Shelby family, is not driven by patriarchal structures, but by capitalist ones.7 He runs the family not with recourse to tradition, but with strategy, profiling himself in the very first episode as the one in the family who “think[s]” (S1/E1, 00:06). His status becomes most evident in series four, when he owns and manages several factories. Episode two tellingly shows him elevated on the second floor of a factory building, overseeing a panoptically organised workshop (see fig. 2).

Like his American colleagues on the big screen, Tommy is thus a creation of modernity. He shares with them a longing for legitimacy that is paradoxical in nature. On the one hand, Tommy the gangster believes in, as Ada puts it, “[j]ust one last push […]. Then you’ll go legit. Just one more obstacle to get round. Then it’ll all be straight” (S2/E4, 00:34). On the other hand, the gangster considers himself to be above society and its constraining norms of right and wrong. Legitimacy, that is, final success is inaccessible for the gangster, though not because the gangster’s intent of eventual legitimacy and his unlawful means of obtaining the said are ultimately bound to clash: ‘lawful’ means might be as unjustifiable in the shark tank that is modern capitalism. The gangster’s, that is, Tommy’s endeavours are doomed to fail because the system that simultaneously refuses and attracts him lacks the normative authority it invokes, set in the “environment of normative emptiness” of new television (Shuster 7). His quest for success is therefore predestined to remain incessant, the very idea of success becoming a chimera.

What sets Thomas apart from the American gangster is the impact of the First World War, in itself lived reality and symbol of modernity. A longing for legitimacy also signifies the returned soldier’s attempt to re-integrate into society (see Smith 279, 285), an attempt that will not be accomplished. What is more, Tommy’s ambition is most decisively spurred by his inability to leave behind the war. Struggling to make it to the top, Thomas indulges in a ‘survival of the fittest’ mentality, maintaining a perpetual state of war. A planned expansion south in series two, for instance, is met with reservations by family members such as John, who objects that “[i]n the past year, the Shelby Company Limited has been making 150 pounds a day […]. So what I want to know is why are we changing things?” (E1, 00:22) Esme adds: “London […]. It’s more like wars between armies down there […].” (00:23-4) Thomas concludes the argument by insisting on the bond of his family: “[W]e have nothing to fear from the proposed business expansion so long as we stick together […]. [T]hose of you with ambition? The expansion process begins tomorrow” (00:25). This conversation is instructive in two respects. First, it demonstrates that Thomas is lured by war and that an end of battle will never be in sight. “If winter comes, then can spring be far behind?”, Thomas quotes from Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind” in the same episode (00:51). Yet, “spring” remains unattainable for Thomas Shelby. During a short period of peace and holiday in series four, he sinks into depression (E6). His is the “Bleak Midwinter”8 of Christina Rossetti recited when he or his war comrades face death.9

Secondly, it becomes evident that Thomas conceives of his family in terms of war comrades, whose strength rests in their absolute loyalty, that is, the cohesion of their community. The good of the family, then, prevails over that of the individual. Thomas confiscates the medicine prescribed to Arthur to treat symptoms of his post-traumatic stress disorder (in the 1920s not diagnosed as such) in order to keep him ready for battle (S2/E1, 00:39), and he sacrifices his family members at the very end of series three when Arthur, John, Michael, and Polly are arrested due to a deal Tommy has arranged (E6, 00:53-4). They are released only seconds before their execution (S4/E1, 00:05), and the family remains shattered. Their reunion in series four occurs only through the bond of a common battle to fight.

Instead of a traditional family ideal, then, Tommy ‘runs’ his family according to the parameters of business, understood – and practiced – as warfare. Tradition, employed by Thomas where beneficial, thus enters the equation through the backdoor of capitalism. Thomas does not oppose gender equality per se, but he is sceptical of women’s rights where they might damage his business. Marrying John to Esme, he exploits the Lee’s loyalty of kin. “Trust only kin”, Arthur instructs “Tommy’s army” in series one (E3, 00:40). In fact, what the show refers to as ‘family’ is, mostly, a business. This is captured by the double meaning of ‘family business’ as either the commercial business managed by the family or as private family concerns since the latter ‘business’, as denoted by the very term, always implies the dimension of the former. This business dubbed family is nourished by a traditional family ideal; it constitutively relies on the entrenched normativity of the family, which, as a holy sacrament, has been endowed with more value judgments than any other type of community. A similar equation of family and business is characteristic of the mafia, whose structures are more thoroughly explored in series four of Peaky Blinders when Luca Changretta (Adrien Brody) arrives from America to avenge the murder of his father in an elaborate ‘vendetta’. The family business of the mafia is sustained by a strict, hierarchical, and patriarchal Catholic family ideal demanding absolute subservience to the collective good. Stretching to non-blood members, it has proven highly successful. Thomas does decidedly not honour such an ideal of the family, and yet, he eventually conceives of ‘family’ (that is, business) similarly, because, when it comes to leading his family, tradition, “produced by modernity” in the words of Delanty, constitutes an advantage for Thomas.

The beginning of this section posed the question of how the modern individual’s striving for self-fulfilment affects the community of the family. In the end, not the Shelby family per se, but a normative family ideal the Shelby business draws on threatens to disintegrate on account of the family members’ modern tendencies towards individualisation. In other words, modernity’s “promise of autonomy and freedom” does not infringe on the community of the family, but it potentially harms the business. This business exploits a culturally conservative, idealised conception of the community of the family, which thereby becomes a farce, deconstructing the “myth of traditional community” (Delanty 39) as well as the “phantasm[] of the lost community” (Nancy 12). It is all the more interesting that the Shelby family as such rejects the normativity of such a conception. “What family” remains of the Shelbys and in how far “the family” is nonetheless “the sole remaining site of anything that might resemble normative authority” in a world void of such (Shuster 122-3) shall be discussed in what follows.