MAJOR SPOILER WARNING
*Spoilers for up to and including season 5 of Peaky Blinders
The fifth season of the historical gangster epic 'Peaky Blinders' has brought us gunshots and eye-gouging, relationship drama and international relations drama, politics and Aunt Pol (Helen McCrory) leaning up against a vintage car in a pantsuit. 'Peaky Blinders' is back, and with it come the women who cut deeper with their words than Arthur Shelby (Paul Anderson) ever could with his infamous flat cap.
From the beginning, the ladies of the 'Peaky Blinders' have been just as enigmatic and entertaining to watch as the men that don the caps. Who could forget Ada (Sophie Rundle) storming out into no-man's land with a glare that made even Billy Kimber quiver, or the Shelby ladies taking to the streets of Birmingham in season four to demand equal rights for working women?
Yet not everybody views this powerful sisterhood as reaching its full potential. As critic Sarah Hughes said, "If they would only give the excellent Natasha O'Keeffe, who plays Lizzie, more to do than look lovely and sigh sadly, then I would be truly thrilled."
Hughes is not the first to express dissatisfaction with the structural roles that women play in this steampunk-esque reimagination of early 20th century Birmingham. When examining the characters of Lizzie Stark, May Carleton and Jessie Eden, writer Barnana Sarkar referred to them as "the women that Thomas uses to step on and get ahead". Your instinct is probably to deny this. "Jessie Eden gave Thomas as good as she got!" you might say. "Lizzie Stark went from a trodden-down prostitute to a businesswoman who refuses to be ashamed of her past!" This, to an extent, is true. Steven Knight, the show's creator, has repeatedly affirmed his desire to "do justice to those women" who took the helm in the aftermath of the First World War. Yet, from the first season to the fifth, the complexities of the gender politics rife in the Shelbyverse have continued to undermine this aim. Perhaps it's time to stop esteeming Tommy Shelby as an innovative and modern thinker, and start viewing him as a man of his time: prejudiced.
The love interests of Tommy Shelby
Since the death of his wife, Grace (Annabelle Wallis), in season 3, Tommy Shelby actor Cillian Murphy suggests that for his character, "sex is just a need to be met". Unfortunately, it seems that the many love interests of Tommy Shelby, with nearly every new female character introduced apparently a candidate for the deep-accented mastermind's affections, are tools in meeting this primal need.
Steven Knight argues that Tommy is a forward thinker who values people based on intelligence, not gender, believing it "not at all surprising that, in a family like the Shelbys, strong, intelligent women would rise to the top". But let us take a look at the women to whom Tommy has granted power. Lizzie Stark, former prostitute to secretary, May Carleton (Charlotte Riley), aristocrat slash race horse trainer, Grace, barmaid turned wife. Then we have Ada and Polly, his sister and aunt. Tommy may grant limited power to women within Shelby Ltd, but the motive certainly is not as purely based on intelligence as Knight suggests. All of the women are connected to Tommy either by sexual attraction or by blood, suggesting that for women to get ahead in this cut-throat world, they either have to be related to a man of power or find their way into his bed.
Jessie Eden, portrayed by Charlie Murphy, sparked outrage amongst historically-conscious fans when her socialist feminist character ended up seduced by the very man she had a vendetta against last season. Jessie Eden is one of the real historical figures to show up in recent seasons, alongside Sam Claflin's Oswald Mosley in season five, yet whereas Mosley is embroiled in a political chess game designed to increase fascist power in Britain, Eden's huge historical influence as the mind behind the 1926 Joseph Lucas Motor Components Factory strike is reduced to another pretty face designed to launch Tommy further into the world of politics. Tommy may be willing to put a few women in positions of power, but he's just as happy to use them to increase his own, too.
Up next for Season 5
Things are not looking up for the Shelby women in Season 5. Though the most recent episode revealed that Linda had survived the shooting by Polly Gray, she failed to stop her estranged husband Arthur from slipping further into his violent mindset. Lizzie may have decided to stay with Tommy for now, but the ominous threat of "if you're married to a Shelby, you stay married" suggests that she has very little say in the matter. The death of Ben Younger (Kingsley Ben-Adir) leaves Ada with the prospects of being a single mother to a mixed-race child, once more having to experience the sexism that Aunt Pol so aptly explained in the first season of the series: "You know the words. You're a whore. Baby's a bastard. But there's no word for the man who doesn't come back."
Let us raise a glass of whisky and don our pointed caps in a salute to these women who try to take charge of a world that refuses to make a place for them, and settle in ready to watch them blaze across the screen in the season five finale, broadcasting on the BBC this Sunday 22nd September.
