Quadrophenia and Moral Panic

What Happens in Quadrophenia?

Quadropenia follows the life of character Jimmy set in 1960s London. Jimmy hates his job in a company's mailing division and hates his parents, and only feels free and accepted when he's out with his friends on his scooter as part of a drug-induced Mod clique that lives for the night. On August Bank Holiday, the group of Mods head down to Brighton, where both Mods and Rockers converge, resulting in a large brawl as a result of the rivalry between the groups, and Jimmy hopes to make it with crush Steph. However, after he is hauled off by the police during the brawl and the weekend passes, reality sets in and Jimmy descends into a downward spiral of paranoia, isolation and disappointment. Steph is no longer interested in him, so he ditches the Mods, and when he returns to Brighton he finds out his idol Ace isn't what he thought he was, so he steals his scooter and launches it off of the cliffs.

What is a Moral Panic?
Simply, a Moral Panic is an intense feeling, emotion or notion expressed in a population about an issue that threatens social order. They often involve social tension and arguments and disagreement as often the crux of the argument is a taboo subject. The media often instigate a moral panic by reporting facts that generate concern, anxiety, or panic itself. Major moral panics of recent times include AIDS, drugs, knife and gun crime, paedophilia and Satanism.
The government sometimes intervenes to prevent moral panics through censorships- during the World Wars, letters were censored to prevent harsh realities of war from reaching the people, and nowadays in China many websites are blocked and things regulated to prevent the people from seeing things that are anti-governmental, for instance "Tienanmen Square" is strictly policed. Famously in the 1950s, Elvis Presley's live performances were censored from the waist down. But censorship itself creates the moral panic of freedom of speech, creating further debate,

How can the theory of Moral Panic be applied to Quadrophenia?
A study by Stan Cohen looked at moral panics related to the two youth subcultures in the 1960's, the Mods and Rockers, which is what the film is based around. In a moral panic, Cohen states that "a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests; it's nature is presented in a stylised and stereotypical fashion by the mass media" - essentially, the media report on the problem (The conflict, i.e. the Beach brawl at Brighton) making use of stereotypes, partiuclary those geared towards youths, creating a social reaction (negative opinions, i.e. Jimmy's parents attitudes towards the Mods are very negative) which creates new laws, tougher policing and so on. The media hyped up the situation by not reporting on the incident but construct a social reaction of deviance by exaggerating the level of violence and disruption, with dramatic headlines, and they also exaggerated the difference between the two groups which indirecult stirred up more conflict.