Punk only got popular in retrospect. The Sex Pistols first and only LP did not go gold until the late 1980s, over ten years after its release, and did not go Platinum until a few years after the release of Nirvana's _Nevermind_ -- when magically everyone liked "punk." The Pistols' LP -- which I am using as an example of one of the most popular albums of the genre -- barely broke the Top 100 when it came out in 1977. That is very, very different than Beatlemania. Punk was almost universally loathed in its heyday, not just by parents or conservative ministers, but by people that considered themselves cool people, fans of music, normal kids -- normal kids who would beat up kids for dressing punk in the slightest way at school. That is the polar opposite of Beatlemania, where you weren't normal unless you liked the Fab Four, almost. People that know me well know one of my big pet peeves is the false historicization of punk as this cool thing everyone and their grandmother loved. That's just not true. It was not Beatlemania by any means.
Also, Peter Watkins, who made Privilege, is still alive and was making movies in the 80s. He has a (kinda weird) website where he may very well weigh in on how he feels or felt about punk. The guy isn't dead; I don't know what his opinion on punk is or was.
Also, about the Nazi rallies and the connection to libinal, screaming girls -- well, I guess you haven't read as much Wilhelm Reich (_Mass Psychology of Fascism_) as I have, or stuff like Elias Canetti's Nobel Prize winning _Crowds & Power_, where there are very convincing arguments about the connections. Orwell has made them as well.
-B.
Thomas Seay wrote:
"I understand what you are saying about corporate rock, BUT if Peter Watkin's was afraid of Beatlemania in 1967, we can imagine he would have been afraid of Punk in the 80s. Personally, I see very little in common between the two phenomenon (Nazi rallies and libidinal girls screaming/fainting at a rock concert). Frankly, I would say that they are the opposite. Rock was still revolutionary at that point...at least, I think so. Mind you, I haven't seen the film and am just commenting on the above quote from your post."