This article takes several approaches in analyzing Alex Cox's 1986 independent film, Sid & Nancy. It first examines the tension between illusion and allusion that resides in the film's aestheticized interpretation of the title figures and the milieu in which they lived. While hewing to many of the facts about Sid and Nancy, the film also engages in mythologization of them and the early punk era of which they were a part. Second, the author applies a critique of the society of the spectacle to both the punk era and Cox's presentation of it; in this respect, the film understates at least some of the class-oriented politics through which punks engaged and critiqued the commodification of culture. Third, it unpacks the ambivalent politics of the film with respect to the right-wing Thatcher/Reagan ascendencies that were already in motion by the time of the film's release in 1986.
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