Favourite depictions of a punk rocker in popular culture.

[sevendaughters]

an actual decent answer might be Tim Roth in Made in Britain but we never really learn if he's into the tunes, just The Exploited plays in the opening and then he runs around in skinhead regalia being a bad bastard.

[kngen]

Penelope Spheeris's Suburbia is by no means a great film, but it did capture the alienation, hopelessness and search for identity and community that lay behind the nihilism which scandalized Reagan-era America and inspired those CHiPs and Quincey episodes. And that's entirely down to her having done her research in the form of The Decline of Western Civilization Part One.

It's interesting that a lot of the examples in this thread are from US shows and films - it just shows how US hardcore and punk was so far from the mainstream as to be almost unknowable (and therefore terrifying), whereas it was subsumed into the mainstream in the UK fairly quickly (and diluted, too, until Crass starting shaking things up again).

I've always wondered why underground art/culture/music was far quicker to bubble up to the surface in the UK than in the US: state broadcasting and population density are the best reasons I can come up with.

[dissolute ocelot]

Mary the punk in EastEnders, especially poignant as she was about 10 years too late. But also by far the most sympathetic character in imperial-period Stenders.

[sevendaughters]

I've always wondered why underground art/culture/music was far quicker to bubble up to the surface in the UK than in the US: state broadcasting and population density are the best reasons I can come up with.

Our music press had a really good reach and kept their ear to the ground, in addition to the good reasons you've stated. NME/MM/Sounds and John Peel at Radio 1, plus enterprising local broadcasters like Tony Wilson, were pulling from each other.

[marquis_de_sad]

I've always wondered why underground art/culture/music was far quicker to bubble up to the surface in the UK than in the US: state broadcasting and population density are the best reasons I can come up with.

For the first wave of punk in the UK I think the answer is the tabloid press.

[Sebastian Cobb]

C'mon Duke, let's do some crimes.

[marquis_de_sad]

What about the worst ones?

[kngen]

Our music press had a really good reach and kept their ear to the ground, in addition to the good reasons you've stated. NME/MM/Sounds and John Peel at Radio 1, plus enterprising local broadcasters like Tony Wilson, were pulling from each other.

Oh yeah, of course. Hard to gauge just how many folk were exposed to those three papers at their height because anyone buying it would have at least 2 or 3 mates/brothers/sisters peering over their shoulders (literally and figuratively), too.

[Swoz_MK]

[Mr Banlon]

Zed's gang from Police Academy 2 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8H403VOOn4

[Cuellar]

What about the worst ones?

Clegg in Last of the Summer Wine

[easytarget]

Happens entirely off screen but this is my favourite:

Cassandra: Well, you now those posters you put in the pub windows  with The Séance and the ghostly face?
Del: Yeah, yeah.
Cassandra: Well a lot of people got the wrong impression. They thought The Séance was a group.
Rodney: The place was packed with punk rockers. There was Special Brew everywhere, people shouting 'Aceed', all that.
Cassandra:  were expecting to see an 'Iron Maiden'-type band.
Rodney: Then Elsie Partridge walked out in her hat.

Sullivan you've nailed it again.

[petril]

Punks As Figures Of Fear seems to be locked into my mind as a thing you got in 80s kids series. The British ones with either the nicey stage brat middle class accents keeping secrets or the ones getting into scrapes in Fatcher's Britain™. always a slightly older kid who was a bit rude and had the rig out who you were meant to be scared of. But they were pretty cool to a young mind, they got to talk back to the adults without getting bollocked for a start.

[thecuriousorange]

The baddies in Streets of Rage.

[non capisco]

The "punk" band on the first episode of Knowing Me Knowing You exist in a hinterland between a vague memory of the Pistols on Bill Grundy and some hasty approximation of something that might have been on 'The Word'. The performance of the song was jarringly naff even in 1994. Having said that it does lead to Partridge saying "Rock 'n' roll, let's all have a pear!" which is one of my highlights of KMKYWAP.

[A Hat Like That]

The baddies in Streets of Rage.

I thought I owned Streets of Rage, but it turns out its actually Final Fight, in which you stroll through 80s New Yoik beating up a series of gay stereotypes. Oh, and Andre the Giant.

[non capisco]

'Ave summa that!

[jobotic]

The "punk" band on the first episode of Knowing Me Knowing You exist in a hinterland between a vague memory of the Pistols on Bill Grundy and some hasty approximation of something that might have been on 'The Word'. The performance of the song was jarringly naff even in 1994. Having said that it does lead to Partridge saying "Rock 'n' roll, let's all have a pear!" which is one of my highlights of KMKYWAP.

I'm "friends" with The Shend on Facebook and he seems very proud of that. You'd think he'd know about punks with The Cravats being signed to Crass and all, but it has always seemed a bit off to me.

[All Surrogate]

Come 'ere, chicken!

[Jockice]

This is one for the oldies but I remember something in which a middle-aged, middle class man (may have been Richard Briers but if not, someone like Richard Briers) was talking to two punk girls, who were fans of a band called Fag Packet. One of them asked where the nearest bog was and of course Briers (or the Briersalike) didn't know it was slang for the toilet.

Anyone have any idea of what this was?

Doesn't anyone remember this? It's really annoying me now that I can't recall what the show was called.

[Astronaut Omens]

What decade do you think it was on? It definitely sounds like it could be be from If You See God, Tell Him, because Briers character in that has some unspecified Asperger's-esque condition which means he frequently doesn't get what's going on. I seem to remember there was an episode in that where he ended up hiring a prostitute by mistake, she might have been a punk rocker

[Jockice]

What decade do you think it was on? It definitely sounds like it could be be from If You See God, Tell Him, because Briers character in that has some unspecified Asperger's-esque condition which means he frequently doesn't get what's going on. I seem to remember there was an episode in that where he ended up hiring a prostitute by mistake, she might have been a punk rocker

I think it was late 70s/early 80s. May not have been Briers though. And there were definitely two punk girls there. I can't remember If You See God etc ever crossing my consciousness. Annoying!  Ta anyway, I'll look up the programme.

Fag Packet is quite a good name for a punk band though.

[purlieu]

I think it was late 70s/early 80s. May not have been Briers though. And there were definitely two punk girls there. I can't remember If You See God etc ever crossing my consciousness. Annoying!  Ta anyway, I'll look up the programme.

Fag Packet is quite a good name for a punk band though.

It's definitely not If You See God Tell Him, but you should definitely watch that anyway. Incredible programme.

Happens entirely off screen but this is my favourite:
Sullivan you've nailed it again.

Early OFAH always has punks in the background, especially in the Nag's Head.

Rodney wore a UK Decay t-shirt in one episode

And then, of course, there's the rich Marxist, Trotskyite anarchists in the community hall.


The best depiction of 'punk' ever is, of course, this infamous advert.

[Astronaut Omens]

I think it was late 70s/early 80s.

Yeah, sorry , If You See God was a bit later than that.

[kngen]

Rodney wore a UK Decay t-shirt in one episode

Haha - fucking hell!

[Jockice]

Haha - fucking hell!

Bet he felt like an unexpected guest, eh readers?

[purlieu]

Here's my favourite cyberpunk.

Here's mine:

[Alternative Carpark]

I think it was late 70s/early 80s. May not have been Briers though. And there were definitely two punk girls there. I can't remember If You See God etc ever crossing my consciousness. Annoying!  Ta anyway, I'll look up the programme.

Fag Packet is quite a good name for a punk band though.

Could it have been 'The Other One'?  Sitcom with Richard Briers and Michael Gambon, ran 1977 - 79.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075553/?ref_=fn_al_tt_3

[confettiinmyhair]

Adrien Brody in 'Summer of Sam'

[massive bereavement]