I recently re-watched the "Decline of Western Civilization I" on TMC as part of their Women on Film series. I remember not really liking the L.A. Punk scene as a youngster since i was such an Anglophile. "X" i always liked but the other bands seemed to try too hard to be outrageous.
The music is actually pretty cool from my older vantage point, but the racism and homophobia that's documented still bother me like the first time around. You could argue that as a good documentarian that Penelope Spheris just captured the stupidity of youth. The older you get you learn that most people don't grow out of this shit. It becomes the stupidity of life.
Punk is/was so attractive because it allowed women to be creators of music and film as equals whether you liked it or not. As a history piece it deserves it's spot on the Library of Congress registry.