The production team behind the popular TV series “Peaky Blinders” denounced the bizarre, anti-LGBTQ+ campaign ad Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and his presidential campaign put out last week, saying the 2024 candidate did not have permission to use clips from the show.
The campaign video — posted by the DeSantis War Room, the Twitter account for the Florida governor’s campaign — appeared to tout DeSantis’ aggressively anti-LGBTQ+ policies while attacking former President Donald Trump for some of his past remarks in support of trans rights, including an interview where he said he would allow trans women to compete in beauty pageants.
The one minute and 13 second video starts off running the tapes on Trump’s past support for the LBGTQ+ community, but quickly takes a peculiar turn. Viewers are them smacked with a montage of photos and videos of DeSantis alongside images of shirtless men with six packs and scenes from movies and TV shows with over-the-top masculine male characters, including from “Peaky Blinders” — a show set in 1900s England that follows the story of a crime gang in the direct aftermath of the World War I.
On Wednesday, the show’s production team took to Twitter to slam the Florida governor for the odd video.
“On behalf of the partners of Peaky Blinders – Steven Knight, Cillian Murphy, Caryn Mandabach Productions, Tiger Aspect Productions and Baniay Rights – we confirm the footage of Tommy Shelby’s character used within the video posted by Ron DeSantis’ campaign was obtained without permission of official license,” the statement read. “We do not support nor endorse the video’s narrative and strongly disapprove of the use of the content in this manner.”
When asked about the video during an appearance on the OutKick show “Tomi Lahren is Fearless,” DeSantis said the ad was designed to contrast Trump’s previous embrace of LGBTQ+ issues to his current stance now that DeSantis and other red states have made it en vogue to push extreme anti-LGBTQ+ policy positions.
“Yeah look, I think identifying Donald Trump as really being a pioneer in injecting gender ideology into the mainstream, where he was having men compete against women in his beauty pageants, I think that’s totally fair game,” DeSantis said.
“He’s now campaigning, saying the opposite, that he doesn’t think that you should have men competing in women’s things like athletics,” he continued.
