The Routledge Handbook of the Sex Pistols

List of Contributors

List of Figures

List of Tables

1. ‘No Fun’ - An Introduction to the Sex Pistols (Mike Dines, Gabriela Gelain, Paul Graves-Brown, and John Schofield)

Section 1: ‘Stepping Stone’: Global Geographies

2. The Sex Pistols in Bandung, Indonesia: Histories, Legacy and Practices (Frans Ari Prasetyo)

3. Sex Pistols in the Soviet Union: The Estonian Experience (Aimar Ventsel)

4. Punking the System: Analysing Punk Culture in Turkey through the Netflix Series Uysallar (Melike Asli Sim)

5. Can You Move Up, Dylan, Lennon, Young? The Importance of the Sex Pistols in Dutch Punk Reviews Between 1976 and 1978 (Alex van der Hulst)

6. ‘Where’s the Power?’ – The Empowering Effects of the Sex Pistols on Swedish Punk-Rock (Björn Bradling)

7. Banned in… FINLAND? The Last Sex Pistols Gig That Never Was (Giacomo Bottà and Juho Hänninen)

8. ‘Lazy Sods Up North’: Sex Pistols’ Cultural Heritage and its Representation at Four North Yorkshire Music Venues (Yorgos Paschos)

9. From The Saints to the Sex Pistols and Back Again with Southern Theory (Greg Vass)

10. The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle: Sex Pistols, Exoticism and Latin American Counter-Narratives (Gabriela Gelain and Moacir Alcântara)

Section 2: ‘No Feelings’: Style and Media

11. Anarchy on the TV: 1976 and All That (Marie Josephine Bennett)

12. Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Swindle. Or, Why I Still Believe in the Ruins (Stephen Alexander)

13. The Sex Pistols on Screen: From Deconstruction to Disney (Stephen Glynn)

14. ‘If a bunch of ‘em tell you, it must be true.’: Lonely Boy, The Sex Pistols and Adaptation (Robert Edgar)

15. From Eire Prison to Eurovision: The Sex Pistols and John Lydon in Irish Culture (Michael Mary Murphy)

16. The ‘Anarchy’ Shirt – Vivienne Westwood’s Biography as Egodocument (Cyana Madsen)

17. F**k Femininity: Punk Appropriation of the Working-class ‘Feminine’ (Liza Betts)

18. From Horizontal to Vertical Perspective: A Comparative Analysis on Different Recordings of ‘No Feelings’ (Sangheon Lee)

19. God Save the Tune? Transgression of Musical Norms in the Music of the Sex Pistols, or Otherwise (Pete Dale)

Section 3: ‘Problems’: Sociological Perspectives

20. What was Nancy Spungen for? (Vegas Honey, Lucy Robinson, and Christopher Warne)

21. Dustbin Flowers, Fallen Angels, and Safety-pin Lips: The Surrealist Sex Pistols (Marie Arleth Skov)

22. Not So (Pretty) Vacant. The Sex Pistols, Authenticity, and Gatekeeping from the Standpoint of Punk Women and Non-binary People (Francis Stewart and Laura Way)

23. Sex as a Language of Rebellion – From the Sex Store to the Sex Pistols Stage (Hellen Oliveira)

24. John Lydon’s Unruly Body: Punk Posture and ‘Anarchy in the UK’ (Karen Fournier)

25. A Great Rock ‘n Roll Network: the Sex Pistols and the Early London Punk World (Nick Crossley)

26. The Sex Pistols and Situationism (Matteo 'Babe' Ferrari, Federico Caprari, Damiano Cason, Collin Hawley, Marco Manicardi, Richard Todd Stafford, and Adriana Zdrzalek)

27. Caught Between Ideology and Utopia: The (Status of) Knowledge the Sex Pistols Created (Aldis Gedutis)

Section 4: ‘No Future’: Heritage and Influence

28. Princes In Towers: the Case of the Rich Kids (Peter Mills)

29. ‘Book Now, Pay Later’: Denmark Street Revisited (Paul Graves–Brown and John Schofield)

30. ‘Rotten Cartoons!’ Writing Archaeology Into a Play for the Stage (Simon van der Borgh)

31. This Is What You Want … This Is What You Get: Punk, Post Punk and the Long Shadow of the Sex Pistols (Robert Maxwell)

32. Son and Heir of Nothing in Particular: McLaren Jr’s Posthumous Punk Funeral Pyre (K Cashell)

33. We (Don’t Really) Mean It, Man! Or Do We? (John Ike Sewell)

Index

Biography

Mike Dines is Director of Programmes for Music, Dance and Theatre at Middlesex University (UK) and is co-founder and Chair of the Punk Scholars Network.

Gabriela Gelain holds a PhD in Communication and Consumption (ESPM-SP, Brazil) and is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of São Paulo, SP, Brazil.

Paul Graves-Brown is a Research Associate at the University of York (UK).

John Schofield is Professor in the Department of Archaeology, University of York (UK).

"As we reckon with the impact that five decades of punk continue to have on the cultural zeitgeist in 2026, The Routledge Handbook of the Sex Pistols is a timely addition in the collective scholarly efforts to historicize punk and pay homage to those who were there at its inception. This handbook prioritizes the Sex Pistols as punk pioneers, with credit to their norm-shattering antics and headline-grabbing proclamations—behaviors that brought the band to mainstream consciousness. Through a range of academic perspectives, methodologies, and approaches, the handbook invites readers to explore The Sex Pistols’ clash with the cultural, political, and musical landscapes of the time, as their controversies helped to forge a lasting influence not only on music, but on fashion and mainstream culture as well. It is a significant impact that appears contradictory when considering the band’s short-lived and self-destructive career.

While punk is often contextualized through the visual and the physical, readers are invited to consider the analytical. Through a critical analysis of the internal and external factors that shaped The Sex Pistols’ impact on punk and the band’s continued influence within the genre and beyond, readers gain insight into the global influence of a few London punks and their entrepreneurial manager who saw an opportunity to create controversy, much to the delight of a generation of eager fans who were given permission to raise a middle finger to the ongoing existential crisis brought forth by the status quo.

While The Sex Pistols aggressively proved themselves to be the posterchildren for no future, The Routledge Handbook of the Sex Pistols postulates a compelling counterargument to that premise—readers will enjoy the contradiction in this duality, one that is posited by ardent contributors who have considered the band’s impact via a range of methodologies and approaches in efforts to immortalize the Pistols in perpetuity."

Ellen Bernhard, Assistant Professor of Communication, Georgian Court University (USA).