Different perspectives on addictions in the antiheroic narrative of Peaky Blinders characters
- Autores: Montserrat Vidal Mestre, Alfonso Freire Sánchez, Carla Gracia Mercadé
- Localización: Revista española de drogodependencias, ISSN 0213-7615, Nº. 48, 2, 2023 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Imaginarios sociales de las adicciones en las series: representaciones de la hipermodernidad), págs. 46-59
- Idioma: inglés
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Resumen
Introduction: This research analyzes the narrative and the construction of the characters in the Peaky Blinders series (Knight, BBC, 2013-2022), inspired by the real events that the criminal gang of the same name starred in at the beginning of the 20th century in Birmingham. The study aims to determine the different perspectives of its protagonists regarding addictions and drug abuse in the context of their time. Method: Through a methodological design based on the conceptual integration (Ruíz de Mendoza, 2009) of the theories on audiovisual narrative (Canet and Prósper, 2009), film criticism (Orellana, Almacellas and Watt, 2019), the mythical structure and creation of characters (Vogler, 2020) and the film and documentary analysis (Brisset, 2011), we analyze the characters of Peaky Blinders, their plots, narrative arcs and their role in the different seasons of the series. This study’s purpose is to examine how drugs are represented in fiction and how they reflect the social imaginaries and the success and fall of characters and their time. Results and discussion: This analysis provides an interesting discussion on the representation of different types of drugs in the series. While opium is treated as part of the anti-heroic construction of the main character, cocaine serves as an activator for the violence and brutality of one of the secondary characters.
