It's not right to oversimplify, but it's just how our minds work. For instance, if you're going to the bar on 70s night, you don't have to be told to wear something ridiculous and covered in sequins. When you hear the word "Mafia," a very specific image pops into your head -- stroking his chin and whispering stoically, like a dapper mascot for everyone who's ever been involved with organized crime. And while those may be oversimplifications, it turns out we don't have to feel guilty. American history is dominated by groups who looked exactly like we think they did, but only because they totally ripped off their styles from fictional movies.

5 Disco Dancers

The Image:

Polyester-clad guys and gals tapping their boogie shoes and jive talking while stayin' alive and getting down tonight! Shimmering clubs filled with swirling lights cast off by the disco ball spinning in the center of the room like the Death Star's gay cousin! Also drugs. Gigantic mountains of drugs.



"About yay high should do it."

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Totally Stolen From:

Saturday Night Fever.

Almost everything we associate today with "disco" comes directly from a John Travolta movie based on journalism so yellow that it can't even be compared to urine, since you would need lubricant to get that color out of your bladder.

When disco first emerged in New York in the 1970s, it was basically the pre-Wham! George Michael of its time: virtually unknown and mainly found in underground gay clubs. But then in 1977's Saturday Night Fever, Travolta brought disco to the masses, creating a worldwide phenomenon. The movie was based on the New York article "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night" by the U.K.-born Nik Cohn, detailing his personal experiences with disco culture. And when we say "experiences," we actually mean some shit he made up in order to meet a deadline. Cohn's entire article was almost all made up and had nothing to do with real disco.

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Cohn knew absolutely nothing about underground discotheques, but he still had to write an article about them ... so he simply started inventing stuff, mostly using his knowledge of the British mods subculture and passing it off as part of the disco scene. The mods became, for example, the source of the Saturday Night Fever character's fondness for extravagant, custom-made clothing and innovative, complex dance moves. So, when the general public got its first taste of "disco" with the Travolta movie, it was actually more of a "fraudulent mix of some U.K. subculture and parts of obscure American music as understood by a lazy British guy."