Professor Carl Chinn, the great-grandson of a real-life Peaky Blinder and a renowned social historian, has publicly lashed out at fans of the hit Netflix series, ‘Peaky Blinders,’ for idolising the gang. He called the trend a “worrying cultural phenomenon” that glamorizes violence and ignores the harsh historical realities.
During a recent interview timed with the release of ‘Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man,‘ Chinn vented his frustration with the show’s stylish portrayal of the gang, which has led many to romanticise the notorious Peaky Blinders of the late 19th and early 20th-century Birmingham.
Who Were The Real Peaky Blinders?
In his decades-long research into Birmingham’s social history, Chinn discovered his father and grandfather were illegal bookmakers, and that his great-grandfather, Edward Derrick, was part of one of several such notorious gangs.
“The real Peaky Blinders were not a gang in the 1920s, in Birmingham. It was a generic term for the hooligans of Birmingham in the 1890s,” Chinn explained, per Express.co.uk.
He continued, “And there were lots of different gangs, they were backstreet thugs that baited the police, they bullied the normal decent working-class amongst whom they lived and battled each other. ”
Chinn called his great-grandfather “a horrible, nasty man,” who was arrested for “many violent acts, including attacking the police and innocent people.”
In the Netflix hit, the Shelbys and their associates operate in similar ways. Cillian Murphy’s gang leader, Tommy Shelby, doesn’t answer to anyone and often commits brutal acts, all for his ambitions, and at times, to protect his family. But largely, the price is paid in blood.
Related: Why Grace Shelby Was Always Meant To Die In ‘Peaky Blinders’
Why Idolising ‘Peaky Blinders’ And Tommy Shelby Is Problematic
Carl Chinn carefully pointed out that fans focus on the fashion: flat baseball caps, sharp suits, and the mythical razor blades in caps. This fixation turns the gangsters’ life into a mere style trend.
“Because of the cultural approach so many people have taken, that they’re ignoring the violence, the racism, the bullying, the sexual assaults of the real Peaky Blinders, which I’ve studied in detail,” Chinn told LadBible.
“[Fans] turn it into something that is just a fashion and ‘we’re dressing like the real Peaky Blinders, we’ve got the hat, we’ve got the suits,” he continued.
For Chinn, this romanticisation ignores the gangs’ actual behaviours like extreme violence, sexual assaults and petty crimes like protection rackets and territorial fights.
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The Dangers of “Glamorised Gangsterism” In Modern Culture
Chinn warned that idolising fictional gangsters can influence young people dangerously. “It is worrying because you can see in a lot of young men, there is this attraction towards glamorised gangsterism, which is not a reality,” he noted.
He questioned whether today’s street gangs would receive similar admiration if packaged the same way, calling the phenomenon a risky distortion of history.
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