Peaky Blinders and Bad Reputations: An Ode to Birmingham's Newly Popularised Histories

By Hope Talbot, Year 2 History

As a Fresher, you are consistently bombarded with the three major questions: What are you studying? What accommodation are you in? And (the one I always dreaded the most), where are you from? 

Saying that I was from Birmingham always acted as a fairly reliable litmus test of whether someone was worth talking to. I had a large contingent of people that would snigger, turn their noses up, and outrightly laugh when I said where I was from. I even had someone ask me if I'd ever been stabbed after so many years of living in Birmingham. 

It's fair to say that Brum has a bad reputation. Oft written off as a place of high crime rates, brutalist architecture and apparently bad accents, Brummies are self-aware of the universality of this harsh notoriety. It's become a kind of heart-warming inside joke that Birmingham is universally hated, and Brummies relish this. My group of friends from home both uphold and dismay this reputation in equal measure, making jokes about the seemingly endless amounts of construction plaguing the city and the ugly public library building.

While this reputation might seem like an unshakeable element of Birmingham's identity, there was a brief glimmer of hope that we might shed this reputation. This hope came in the form of the BBC's Peaky Blinders series, a show dedicated to early 20th-century Brummie gangsters. Starring Cillian Murphy and his impossibly sharp cheekbones, the show was a hit success.

Thrifty Brummies jumped on the commercial bandwagon that followed the show, with pubs quickly adopting peaky blinders-themed decor, and historically themed tours around Digbeth setting up shop. In the years following, Birmingham saw a slew of tourists flocking to a city they had only years earlier lamented. 

However, it's worth noting the character of Birmingham that Peaky Blinders served to represent and uphold. As we follow Thomas Shelby through shady dealings in the backrooms of drinking dens, with mass violence and toxic masculinity to boot, Birmingham is presented as a grim and dangerous place. 

In this sense, by leaning into the positive commercial impact that Peaky Blinders has had, the show has only served to uphold some of the most harmful stereotypes that the city still struggles to escape from. While this may lead to a temporary influx of tourism and money, what does this mean for the future of Birmingham's reputation? Will these stereotypes still continue, or in fact, worsen if tourists are only shown this one harsh framing of the city? 

Perhaps I'm being overly pessimistic. While these stereotypes of Birmingham as dangerous and crime-ridden might harm its reputation in the short-term, maybe Brummies have a right to flip harsh stereotypes on its head in favour of earning some much-needed money.

 As it stands, there is a huge disparity in where funding is spread throughout the UK, with London and the South still reaping much investment from both national and international firms. In this economic landscape, maybe cities and their populations have a right to spin their histories in any which way they want, so long as it serves their interests and incomes. 

This still doesn't elide the fact, however, that there are some vital histories that need attention on both a national and localised level. As one of the UK's most ethnically-diverse cities, Birmingham has a duty to uphold this diversity in its history-telling. At institutions like the Birmingham Museums Trust and the Black Country Living Museum, vital work is being done to move beyond the white-centric narratives of the city, like that of the Shelby family. Birmingham's historical ties to slavery have also been buried, with academics reassessing famed citizens such as Matthew Boulton and his support of the slave trade. 

 Like any city, Birmingham is nuanced, with a multitude of historical narratives running through it. With Peaky Blinders providing big profits for the city, it may well be time to redirect that funding into more diverse and more accountable histories.