Making cigarettes look cool - Blog Post 4

I’ve been watching this show recently called the Peaky Blinders which is on Netflix. It’s a pretty silly show about this gang in Birmingham who are trying to take over everything around them basically. And it’s only silly because they are trying way too hard to be very serious. But this show is really a great example of how some drugs can be really glorified in television shows. The main character in the show Thomas Shelby is the epitome of a “cool guy”, every scene with him in it basically involves some cool music with him walking in slow motion, he can never do any wrong with the decisions he makes, and he runs the family business which is now bringing in more money than ever before. And this guy is smoking a cigarette in every single scene, no kidding. Cigarette smoking in this show is glorified like I have never seen before. I even want to start smoking when I watch it even though I know I am not a fan of tobacco. But that is the image that they are getting across. The successful, badass business man is always cool, calm, collected, and encircled by cigarette smoke. It creates this amazing aesthetic of cigarettes as if they clear the mind and calm the body, but I’m telling you, if anyone smoked as much as they are showing this guy smoke, they would definitely not sound like this guy does, they would have some serious lung problems. And not only do they glorify smoking in this show, they also glorify alcohol. The family business also runs a pub which obviously sells alcohol, and everytime someones walks into a building they find the liquor and pour themselves a glass of straight brandy and down it right there. The reason why this is so glorified is because the successful “cool” people in the show never, ever get drunk off of it, yet they take a shot nearly every 30 minutes. Again it gives this aesthetic of badassery because they can hold their liquor and it shows that they are restraining their emotions of anger or frustration because they just take a shot instead. You can definitely see that if someone had never had an alcoholic drink, or a cigarette in their life that it would look quite appealing in this show. It is just another example of how easy it is to make bad things look good in a TV show or a movie.