Peaky Blinders more like “Peek-y” (The White Gaze)
(please ignore this absolutely horrid blog title I tried)
The thing about film as a storytelling medium is that the camera has so much control over the audience’s perception of the story. This becomes obvious when thinking about “the male gaze”—a film term coined by Laura Mulvey in her essay, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, written in 1975.
Let’s get one thing straight—seeing is not a passive act. This is especially true when realizing that although the camera isn’t a direct character in a narrative, camera angles, movement, etc. are conscious choices made by the director, all of which influence how the audience perceives the story.
In its original meaning, “the male gaze” refers to how the camera (or the audience’s viewpoint) is coded to be a cisheterosexual male, and therefore women are seen by the camera and the audience (and often by the male protagonist simultaneously) as objects of pleasure.
In this case, when I say “seeing is not passive,” I mean that in Peaky Blinders, the camera is coded for the “White gaze,” or at least an Orientalist one. (If you haven’t already, read my post on Orientalism by Edward Said here to understand why these characteristics matter) The way the Chinese tailor shop/laundry is depicted in itself is in stark contrast to the rest of the world—loud foreign syllables, lanterns cast a hazy red glow on everything. The air is filled with a hazy smoke while clothing and banners obstruct light and crowd the view.
Additionally, the scenes that take place in the tailor shop/laundry are always face offs between white characters, while the Chinese characters carry on with their work—literally background characters. For the most part, these scenes are tense and not the most “virtuous.” There’s something criminal, or underhanded that happens in these scenes, which makes the obstructed camera view make narrative sense. (See the fifth episode, in which Tommy is colluding with Inspector Campbell, in which, for whatever reason, the camera shoots them from behind a lattice screen, between clothes, and through smoke, always obstructed and never providing a clear picture)
Zhang, the main Chinese character (and possibly the owner of the tailor shop), has very little control over these situations, if at all. When he does actively affect the plot, it is only in exchange for money, characterizing him as, to use Said’s terms, “depraved” and lacking virtue.
All in all, the Chinese characters and setting are characterized as servile and docile while also being dodgy and sinister.
This is not to say that color and setting should not be used symbolically or metaphorically. Indeed, one aspect that sets film apart from any other form of storytelling is how integral color and visuals are to conveying an underlying meaning.
One example that comes to mind for me is Raise the Red Lantern (1991), directed by Zhang Yimou. Similarly to Peaky Blinders, Raise the Red Lantern uses red lanterns and camera obstruction in order to convey a deeper meaning.
However, (as a Chinese film with an all-Chinese cast and a Chinese director), these techniques do not have racist implications. The red lanterns, although strange (and perhaps foreign) to the main character at first, come to represent power, identity, and womanhood. The movie also uses obstruction or distance to hide the Master’s face throughout the film. However, instead of implying dishonesty or an ulterior motive, it is a nod to how the man himself is not important—it is his position and wealth that allow him to hold so much power over his wives, making him into a symbol of the patriarch instead of a fleshed-out character.
In such a media-driven culture, it’s important to both try to understand the implicit subtext of stories as well as critique that subtext when it implies racist ideas. This sort of media literacy allows us to take a step back and reanalyze our own perceptions of those who are “foreign” to us.
