Shorter has just returned from a major U.S. tour to his hometown of Birmingham, where, in front of huge church organ, he sings his signature song "Free Me" (later covered by Patti Smith) as a kind of performance art piece, complete with totalitarian cops, that distracts the adoring throngs from (and anesthetizes them against) the real totalitarianism under which they live.

Vanessa Ritchie (supermodel Shrimpton), an artist, has been given the task of painting Shorter's official portrait. Ritchie enters the world of Shorter's handlers and managers, a "fab" tableaux that combines the worst of Austin Powers and Enron. Along with Ritchie, we see officially sanctioned, and state-built, discothèques that pipe the music that the state and corporations want the populace to consume like lotus plants. Attached to the discothèques are Costco-like "Dream Palaces," in which the happily oppressed can buy officially endorsed Steve Shorter fridges, dog food and electronics.

Vanessa notices, in a way that no one else seems to, that Steve's not a very happy young man. This could lead to trouble, as there's another base of power in the U.K. in addition to the state and big business, and it looks ready to come aboard the social engineering project that is Steve Shorter.

Hullabaloo and Shindig ... with Nazis

Much of Privilege is banal. And that's a good thing.

In fact, Privilege couldn't work without banality. There's the banality of Steve Shorter's music publisher Jules Jordan (vaudeville comedian Bacon) trying to pitch songs in front of Shorter's press agent Alvin (London, the Oscar-nominated composer of "To Sir, With Love"). The banality of screaming teen fans of the same stripe as those who were screaming their throats out for the Monkees in the year of Privilege's release. The banality of Shorter doing a series of commercials for the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (urging Britons to eat six apples a day to counter a disastrous apple glut) while dressed up as a medieval knight ... much in the way pop star Peter Noone dressed up like a medieval knight for the 1966 Herman's Hermits movie Hold On!, a film that was, amazingly, also a work of propaganda for NASA. There's the banality of Shorter's handlers counting the hairs on his head in order to market an authentic-looking Steven Shorter wig. The banality of Privilege backbones the movie's satire, exaggerates pop-star obsession so that it's just a little grotesque. A little freakish. A little funny.

While Hannah Arendt, in her 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem, famously articulated the banality of evil, Watkins here articulates the evil of banality. Privilege could simply have been a biting lampoon of prefab pop culture, maybe fondly remembered with, and confused with, such movies of the era as Work Is a 4-Letter Word and The Magic Christian. But Watkins shows just how easily pop-culture fluff and media manipulation can be applied to all-out, Orwellian imagine-a-boot-stamping-on-a-human-face-forever dictatorship ... only in this case, the boot is very stylish and was designed on Carnaby Street. The political climax of Privilege features a chanting rally of 49,000 at the National Stadium that Watkins stages as an abominated hybrid of Top of the Pops, Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will and a modern mega-church. What's comical in its banality becomes really freakin' scary when its political undertones are pulled out from under the bed and made explicit.

Yeah, the idea of a neo-fascist government using a pop star and the cult of celebrity to control the masses seems goofy on the surface. But when you consider that more people vote for American Idol than vote in presidential elections, it seems a totalitarian government would be remiss if it didn't have a Steven Shorter (or a Britney or a Lindsey or a Brad and Angelina) on hand to keep people distracted.

Watkins is more than a satirist, and his technique of using documentary methods is more than just a Cloverfield-like stunt. As he's done in his other science fiction films, like The War Game (depicting the effects of a limited nuclear war), The Gladiators (about corporate TV sponsorship of nations at war), Punishment Park (about Nixon seizing emergency powers to detain and persecute dissidents) and La Commune (Paris, 1871) (about modern media tossed back to the 19th century and being used to televise the conflict between the Paris communards and Versailles), Watkins uses the tools of media manipulation to point out just how manipulative they are. The rock scenes in Privilege are, in fact, rockin' (featuring music by Beatles and Andrew Lloyd Webber collaborator Mike Leander). But when you consider that within the plot of Privilege the very emotions you're feeling while responding to these rock numbers have been engineered by secret cabals of fascists, somehow the gilt is knocked off the rock 'n' roll lilly. By making us aware of the media techniques he's using, Watkins forces us to watch his movies actively, to participate. And if we're participating, hopefully we're also thinking.

For years, Privilege has been available only in goopy, barely watchable VHS bootlegs. The advent of the new New Yorker/Project X DVD finally allows people to see this neglected SF classic without fear of permanent eye damage. And if anyone thinks that Privilege is far-fetched in its depiction of a pop star's life, the DVD features the pretty amazing 1962 short documentary Lonely Boy, about Paul Anka's life as a teen heartthrob controlled by his handlers, on which Watkins based much of Privilege.