Abstract

Peaky Blinders is a complex and contradictory study of toxic masculinity as a set of behaviours that are destructive to the self and others. It uses the historical period, post World War I, to explore the damage war inflicts upon the male psyche, but its sympathies for the men also reveal a darker aspect of this narrow concept of male identity. This does not only emanate from its unashamed glorification of criminality, but also from its representation of some of the deep-rooted yet contradictory beliefs that still exist in post-colonial British national identity. This article explores the role of war as a justification for continued violence, the notion that war (and associated state-sanctioned violence) irreparably damages men, the nostalgia for nationalism through working-class and ethnic identities and the objectification of the main characters’ physical and emotional identities through the ever-present potential for ‘good’ women to repair ‘bad’ men.