Believe it or not, at one point rock n' roll and young people were apparently terrifying creatures preoccupied with consuming strange drugs and shaking society to its foundations.
That, combined with the then-controversial debate over lowering the voting age to 18 and, fueled the exploitation film Wild in the Streets, which happened to hit during the riot year of 1968. As one might imagine, it's a little high on the scenery chewing. Observe the trailer:
Yeah, it's like that. Rock n' roll kingpin/LSD manufacturer Max Frost rises from a fucked-up middle class upbringing to become President by leading mobs of The Youth. It doesn't go well for the old. For all the camp, Wild In the Streets is a surprising amount of fun, and worth a watch if just for the scene of a heavily acid-dosed Congress. If you've got a spare hour and a half and Veoh, watch the whole thing.
The movie turned out to be a sleeper hit, and "The Shape of Things to Come," by Frost's fictional band, actually made the Billboard charts. It's largely forgotten now, and it does seem almost quaint in retrospect, that the youth of America were ever viewed, even satirically, as this kind of threat, or LSD as a wonder drug.
Wild in the Streets also marked one of the last moments that youth subcultures were implicitly associated with radical political change, with their very presence perceived as a threat. That's changed, partly for demographic reasons and partly because alt cultures, except for the occasional ritual protests, aren't really associated with political activism except of a defensive nature.
Nonetheless, Wild in the Streets remains an interesting over-the-top romp. I have to wonder, if a similar fantasia were made today, what would it look like?
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