I am a huge fan of both and you always hear of the admiration coming from young teen girls. But how were they perceived among men? Was it similar to the way Justin Bieber is very unpopular with men?
Apparently the French boys loved the Beatles even more than the girls did.
Ringo recalled, “These boys chased us all over Paris. Before, we'd been more used to girls. The audience was a roar instead of a scream; it was a bit like when we played Stowe boys' school.”
George wasn't very enthused about that though, recounting their Parisian tour in 1964
“The French audience was dreadful. We had visions of all these French girls, ‘Ooh La La’, and all that, but the audience, at least on the opening night, was all tuxedoed elderly people and a bunch of slightly gay looking boys were hanging round the stage door shouting ‘Ringo, Ringo!’ and chasing our car. We didn’t see any of the Brigitte Bardot’s that we were expecting.”
Bob Dearborn was a DJ who wrote up an interpretation of Don McLean's American Pie. In it, he discusses how frustrated those '50s male teens over Elvis:
Like many young men his age who were turned off by their girlfriends' screaming for Elvis Presley, he embraced an alternative musical idol named Buddy Holly. While there was no question as to Presley's reign as king of rock and roll at that time, Buddy Holly and his music did make important contributions to that era, and influenced many up-and-coming artists, ranging from Bobby Vee to the Rolling Stones.
Buddy Holly would die in a plane crash in 1959 ("the day the music died" in American Pie's lyrics, according to this interpretation).
He continues about the then-contemporary Beatles and how they seemed (by some) to be continuing the Elvis tradition rather than the Crickets:
Noting the Beatles' continued musical dominance, McLean refers to the "sergeants playing a marching tune," -- the Beatles classic "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album was very big then -- and, although other players tried to take the field, the sergeants refused to yield." At this point, McLean also expresses one of this chief complaints about music since the death of Buddy Holly. The line goes something like, "we got up to dance but never got the chance." McLean feels that there is no fun to music anymore because the kids can't even dance to it.
Whether you buy this interpretation or not (McLean himself tends to stay mum on the matter), Dearborn clearly points out that a lot of teenage boys didn't think much of all the shouting over Elvis and the Beatles.