The cast and crew of Peaky Blinders have spoken out about Ron DeSantis’ most recent weird, delusional, extremely homophobic campaign ad. The ad features a mix of headlines condemning DeSantis’ anti-LGBTQ+ policies (which he takes as praise), intercut with random shots of various random men. That included Peaky Blinders’ leading man Cillian Murphy as gangster Tommy Shelby, and the team behind the show was pissed. They have made it very clear that they didn’t authorize him to use footage from the series.
A statement was released on the show’s official Twitter account, which reads, “On behalf of the partners of Peaky Blinders — Steven Knight, Cillian Murphy, Caryn Mandabach Productions, Tiger Aspect Productions and Banijay Rights — we confirm the footage of Tommy Shelby’s character used within the video posted by Ron DeSantis campaign was obtained without permission or official licence. We do not support nor endorse the video’s narrative and strongly disapprove of the use of the content in this manner.”
The message DeSantis’ ad was proudly pushing is that his policies are disgusting and literally pulled from the dark ages. The ad also features cameos from the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street and serial killer Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) from American Psycho. It also features attacks on the LGBTQ+ community and on his GOP rival for the next election, Donald Trump. There is no real explanation as to why the film and TV clips appear, however, other than to appeal to the worst people on the internet.
This isn’t the first time that DeSantis has dipped his bigoted toe into the pop culture pool. Just last year, he aired a gubernatorial campaign ad featuring himself in a bomber jacket and giving off extremely cringey top Gun vibes. As someone from the U.K., this is all actually so strange it borders on hilarious. Our politics is going down the drain too, but we’re not quite at America-level just yet.
(featured image: Netflix)
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