#graham stevenson

I feel like most people get pretty upset about the way that Peaky Blinders took a very real and very significant historical figure, and made her into a love interest. Jessie Eden was a pretty incredible woman and I highly recommend reading this biography from Graham Stevenson (who was a British Marxist and friend of Jessie's) as he has been one of the biggest critics of Jessie's portrayal in the show. Plus, it's got a few bits about how the show is historically incorrect if that is something you fancy. It's also an explanation for why we didn't see her in season 6 because in 1933/1934 she had 'disappeared' to Russia and was helping rally women to build the Moscow Metro! The show really missed out on showing how impressive she actually was.

an article by Graham Stevenson in the Morning Star, a Birmingham socialist periodical that describes the real Jessie Eden and calls out the rampant misogyny of her PB storyline:

SOMETHING of a stir has accompanied an initiative to hold an event celebrating the real life of Birmingham heroine Jessie Eden, who features in the BBC TV series Peaky Blinders. 

Local trade unionists are a tad slighted over the way that the programme, which is set in the city, has used her character in a “love interest” subplot — even if the popularity of the series has brought attention to communist pioneers of the region’s special brand of mass factory trade unionism.

Although the TV series’ cinematography, music and fast-paced action is obviously attractive, especially matched to outstanding charismatic performances, it’s disappointing that an expert in Tudor history was the historical adviser to the series, rather than someone with a background in trade unionism or communism. 

Many local trade unionists are now asking, if you want to write about trade unionists in history, would it not be wise to ask trade unionists? Of course historical drama needs to be subject to the same rigour as historical fact. 

The series implies a thoroughly modern social outlook among the programme’s characters. Seemingly, the 1920s working class held a sophisticated sexual knowledge and their values and tastes were not dissimilar to those held today. 

I knew Eden, and as a callow 22-year-old, I didn’t ask the 70-year-old Jessie about her relationships, let alone sex life. But I doubt her private life was as complicated or dramatic as her eponymous character’s. Nor can I see any young woman during the 1920s gratuitously going into a gents’ toilets, as Eden is shown doing, for any reason at all other than life or death. The social values of the programme are ahistorical. 

It is surely the conceit that Tommy Shelby, the gangster villain-hero of the series, could ever convince a woman like Eden to be wined and dined, let alone be seduced, that finally reveals the true motives of the creators of the programme. A character tells us of Shelby’s plan to “defeat revolution with his cock.” For the British army has offered him lucrative contracts if he can help entrap leading communists. 

Peaky Blinders’ commercially minded creative team displays an outdated and traditional view of women. The focus is on a white male viewership, but Peaky Blinders has many female fans, who have created Pinterest boards and Tumblrs and are creating their own fan fiction. Will some now draw on the real Jessie Eden? 

Especially now that she has been turned into yet another disposable love interest to show off Tommy’s machismo — disposed of like many female characters.