A tiny shop in 1970s London, in neon pink letters, shouted to passersby: SEX.
The shop, covered in graffiti and barbed wire, sold fetish gear and bondage kits. But it also collected people: Vivienne Westwood, who would go on to become one of the most influential fashion designers in the industry; her partner Malcolm McLaren, a music promoter who put the Sex Pistols and the New York Dolls on the stage; bassist Glen Matlock, who worked the register on Saturdays; sales assistant Pamela Rooke, who, under the single name Jordan, became a face of the punk movement. Chrissie Hynde, a founding member of the Pretenders, hung around. John Lydon auditioned in the back room.
In “Pistol,” the Danny Boyle-directed Sex Pistols series that premiered Tuesday on Hulu, SEX isn’t just a shop. It’s a spark plug.
“That kind of creativity begets more creativity,” Talulah Riley, who plays Westwood, then just an upstart designer sketching outfits in the back of her shop, told the Daily News.
“We’re quite used to counterculture movements today but that was really paving the way in modern times of really putting one’s self out there for an artistic movement or for pure creativity or chaos or going against the status quo. I think there’s probably a certain amount of bravery involved to be there. You had to really want to be there and believe in being there, because it was socially isolating from the rest of society.”
The punk movement of the 1970s wasn’t a reaction to one specific thing, but to all of it. It was anti-establishment as a principle. It was anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist, anti-war and anti-consumerism. And yet it also created music, fashion, art. It offered an alternative.
“There was a need for something new, a need for change,” Maisie Williams, the “Game of Thrones” alum who plays Jordan, told The News.
“We see the punk movement as political and aggressive and painful, but as the show depicts, it was an art movement. You have the music, the fashion, all the art transforming as one.”
The Sex Pistols, in most retellings, were at the heart of the punk movement. But creator Craig Pearce didn’t want “Pistol” to be about the musicians. They were just part of the story.
“It’s not a band pic. It’s not just about the Sex Pistols,” he told The News. “It’s about a movement, a cultural movement.”
The Sex Pistols are the stars of “Pistol,” though. They get front billing, the posters and the title. But there is creative concern and care taken to making sure that everyone else — Jordan, Vivienne, Chrissie (who is likely the most successful musician out of all of them) — get their piece of the story, too.
The punk movement was about saying no. “Pistol” celebrates the rebelliousness, if not encourages it. The Sex Pistols were profane and dirty but they stood for change.
“The older generation will always try to impose order because it suits them,” Boyle told The News, “and the young should always disrespect that.”
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