Anarchy in the UK: the moment punk was decried as the “antithesis of humankind”
When punk arose out of the mire of the 1970s, very few could comprehend the weight of what was happening. In many ways, it was a change in the cultural epoch. In Britain, the likes of Sex Pistols, The Clash and Siouxsie and the Banshees raged against the establishment, musical and otherwise, in a severely unrelenting manner.
As the sclerotic socio-economic state of the country – the era of the dustmen on strike and the three-day working week – was compounded by The Cold War raging on in the background. To say that young people were pessimistic would be an understatement. There was no orgiastic green light of the future as their parents had enjoyed.
Even though this seemed an objective truth, those at the forefront of the scene kicked out. Adopting a maximalist approach to life, they followed their own convictions in the time they were granted, as ends such as starvation or nuclear obliteration were just around the corner. Despite their artistic expression being fuelled by burning anger, it produced much innovation. From the soaring highs on the musical front to the crushing lows such as the Sid Vicious catastrophe, after punk burnt out, culture was revitalised.
Despite this rosy account of the first wave of punk, not everyone felt that way. Firstly, before the musical movement, the term punk was a derogatory one. It originated as an archaic name for a prostitute, with ‘Puncke’ appearing in Shakespeare’s play Measure for Measure. Centuries later, it found a new use in the lexicon as a slang term for charismatic miscreants, who treat authority with contempt. Duly, James Dean’s character in Rebel Without a Cause and Marlon Brando’s in The Wild One – both films from the 1950s – were described in this way. Interestingly, it was also commonly used in prisons as slang for a victim of predatory sexual advances.
So, with that, the word proved a perfect choice when the punk movement appropriated the term, thanks to its modern meaning that denoted an affront to authority. From changing musical attitudes, such as by making prog-rock obsolete, to the literal challenge of power, best defined by the Sex Pistols swearing live on Bill Grundy’s Today in December 1976, the movement made good on its name. Particularly concerning incidents such as the latter, this made punk a polarising force, with many decrying it as a toxic element that had entered society.
Indicative of the adverse reaction punk garnered are comments from Bernard Brooke Partridge, a member of the Greater London Council at the time. After their stunt on Today, he described Sex Pistols as “the worst of the punk rock groups” and the “antithesis of humankind”.
If that wasn’t enough, before tearing into the Sex Pistols, he had already rejected punk by declaring that it was “nauseating, disgusting, degrading, ghastly, sleazy, prurient, voyeuristic and generally nauseating… I think most of these groups would be vastly improved by sudden death.”
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