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"Ugly American" is a stereotype depicting American citizens as exhibiting loud, arrogant, self-absorbed, demeaning, thoughtless, ignorant, and ethnocentric behavior mainly abroad, but also at home. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] Although the term is usually associated with or applied to travelers and tourists, it also applies to U.S. corporate businesses in the international arena. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
The term seems to have entered popular culture as the title of a 1958 book by authors William Lederer and Eugene Burdick. In 1963, the book was made into a film directed by George Englund and starring Marlon Brando.
The best-selling, loosely fictional account provided contrasting characters with different approaches to opposing Communist influence in Southeast Asia, and the use of foreign aid in particular. The majority of the Americans exhibit a range of blundering, corrupt, and incompetent behaviors, often concentrating on impractical projects that will serve more to benefit American contractors than the local population. A minority are effective because they employ knowledge of the local language and culture, but most of these are marginalized and some even considered suspect. As a result, their influence is more limited than it should be. [13]
The title character, Homer Atkins, is introduced late in the book. He is "ugly" only in his physical appearance. Perversely, Atkins embodies the opposite traits from the pejorative traits now popularly associated with the term "Ugly American". Atkins's unattractive features, rough clothing and dirty hands are contrasted with the bureaucrats' freshly pressed clothes, clean fingers, and smooth cheeks. Their behaviors have the opposite contrast: Atkins cares about the people of southeast Asia and wants to help them create practical solutions to their everyday problems; the bureaucrats want to build highways and dams that are not yet needed, and with no concern for the many other projects that will have to be completed before they can be used. [14] The book led to a move by President Dwight Eisenhower to study and reform American aid programs in the region. [15]
In the book, a fictional Burmese journalist wrote, "For some reason, the people I meet in my country are not the same as the ones I knew in the United States. A mysterious change seems to come over Americans when they go to a foreign land. They isolate themselves socially. They live pretentiously. They're loud and ostentatious. Perhaps they're frightened and defensive, or maybe they're not properly trained and make mistakes out of ignorance." [16]
The idea of the ignorant or badly behaving American traveler long predates this book. Mark Twain wrote about The Innocents Abroad in the nineteenth century, and Algonquin Round Table member Donald Ogden Stewart wrote Mr and Mrs Haddock Abroad in 1924. [17]
The term has also been widely used in the international sporting arena. [18] [19] The term was invoked after Justin Leonard holed a 45-foot putt on the 17th green at the 33rd Ryder Cup held in September 1999, resulting in extensive and adverse media coverage. [20] [21]
Later, at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the term was widely used after members of the US 4 × 100 relay team pranced around the stadium, flexing their muscles and making poses with the American flag, after winning a gold medal. [22] One foreign journalist called the incident "one of the most cringe-making exhibitions that the Olympics has seen". [23] This event was heavily criticized even by the American press and public. The members of the relay team were contrite and apologized for the incident the same day. Then, at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, the term was regularly used after the skiing superstar Bode Miller, who bragged about skiing drunk before the Olympics, was adversely compared to the term "Miller time", and went home with no medals. [24] A lesser-known teammate was sent home for fighting in a bar. [25]
In tennis, the term was used in regard to players at the 1987 Davis Cup for unsportsmanlike conduct. [26] John McEnroe was regularly cited in the media as being an "Ugly American" for his on-court tantrums and off-court negative comments about London and Paris. [27] In contrast, Andre Agassi who early in his tennis career was labeled a "potential ugly American", managed to transform himself into a crowd favourite. [28] In women's tennis, Serena Williams's outburst at the 2009 US Open semifinal against Kim Clijsters, and again at the 2018 tournament reiterated the "Ugly American" label. [29]
After the United States women's national soccer team lost to Sweden in the quarterfinals of women's football of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil, Hope Solo called the Swedish team cowards unleashing multiple Twitter references associating her with this term. [30] [31] At the same Olympics, Gold medalist Ryan Lochte was named the ugly American by media outlets after falsely reporting a robbery at gunpoint during the tournament. Local police investigation showed that he and fellow swimmers in fact caused damage to a petrol station in Rio and were required to pay for the damage. [32]
The term appeared within a few years of publication of the book The Ugly American . In 1964, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson used it in his Great Society speech. [33]
In May 2008, the US House sub-committee passed a bill (House Resolution 4080) that would allow more foreign fashion models to work in the United States, and was subsequently dubbed the "ugly American bill". [34] George W. Bush was often referred to as "The Ugly American" in part because of his stance on foreign policies. [35] [36] [37] In 2007, Presidential hopeful John McCain outlined a series of measures to roll back Bush policies and counter the "ugly American" image. [38] Numerous opinion pieces have accused President Donald Trump of behaving in a way that fits the “Ugly American” stereotype, including in The New York Times , [39] The Washington Post , [40] Forbes , [41] The Nation , [42] Financial Times , [43] and The Sydney Morning Herald . [44]
The "ugly American" tourist stereotype has been heavily depicted in films, with characters such as Sheriff J.W. Pepper in The Man with the Golden Gun , [45] the Griswald family in National Lampoon's European Vacation , [46] [47] and Ralph Jones in King Ralph . [48] The 2004 film EuroTrip was originally slated to be named "The Ugly Americans" due to its depiction of stereotypical American tourists in Europe. [49] The producers changed the title shortly before its release. [50] A study carried out in 2002 revealed that Hollywood also contributes to the "Ugly American" image. The study found that the more access other countries had to American programs, the higher their negative attitudes toward Americans tended to be. [51]
The 2008 black comedy film In Bruges has the two protagonists, Irish hitmen hiding out in the Belgian city of Bruges, encounter obese American tourists who fit the "ugly American" stereotype, being crude, ignorant, loud and boorish. [52] The movie Sex and the City 2 has been cited as a typical portrayal of the "ugly American" image, where Samantha, one of four best girlfriends, makes fun of Middle Eastern culture and women in traditional dress during a visit to the United Arab Emirates. [53]
The Simpsons episode "The Regina Monologues" had the Simpson family getting into all sorts of trouble in England due to their boorish behavior, which results from ignorance of and unconcern for the local culture.[ citation needed ]
Dana Tyrone Rohrabacher is an American former politician who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1989 to 2019. A Republican, he represented California's 48th congressional district for the last three terms of his House tenure. Rohrabacher was defeated by Democrat Harley Rouda in 2018. Rohrabacher has expressed strong pro-Russia and pro-Putin opinions which have raised questions about his relationship with Vladimir Putin and the Russian government. Politico dubbed him as "Putin's favorite congressman".
Max Boot is an American author, editorialist, lecturer, and military historian. He worked as a writer and editor for The Christian Science Monitor and then for The Wall Street Journal in the 1990s. Since then, he has been the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow in National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a contributor to The Washington Post. He has also written for numerous publications such as The Weekly Standard, the Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times, and he has authored books of military history. In 2018, Boot published The Road Not Taken, a biography of Edward Lansdale, and The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right, which details Boot's "ideological journey from a 'movement' conservative to a man without a party", in the aftermath of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The Ugly American is a 1958 political novel by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer that depicts the failures of the U.S. diplomatic corps in Southeast Asia.
Anchor baby is a term used to refer to a child born to non-citizen parents in a country that has birthright citizenship which will therefore help the parents and other family members gain legal residency. In the U.S., the term is generally used as a derogatory reference to the supposed role of the child, who automatically qualifies as an American citizen under jus soli and the rights guaranteed in the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The term is also often used in the context of the debate over illegal immigration to the United States. A similar term, "passport baby", has been used in Canada for children born through so-called "maternity" or "birth tourism".
Nelson Strobridge Talbott III is an American foreign policy analyst focused on Russia. He was associated with Time magazine, and a diplomat who served as the deputy secretary of state from 1994 to 2001. He was president of Brookings Institution from 2002 to 2017.
Brad Gilbert is an American former professional tennis player, tennis coach, and tennis commentator and analyst for ESPN. During his career, he won 20 singles titles and achieved a career-high singles ranking of world No. 4 in 1990, and a career-high doubles ranking of world No. 18 four years prior. He won a bronze medal at the 1988 Olympics, and both a gold medal and a silver medal at the 1981 Maccabiah Games.
Charles "Cholly" Atkins was an American dancer and vaudeville performer, who later became noted as the house choreographer for the various artists on the Motown label.
Mark Deli Siljander is an American author and politician who served as a Republican U.S. Representative from the state of Michigan. He authored the book A Deadly Misunderstanding: A Congressman's Quest to Bridge the Muslim-Christian Divide.
The term liberal hawk refers to a politically liberal person who supports a hawkish, interventionist foreign policy.
Diplomatic relations between South Korea and the United States commenced in 1949. The United States helped establish the modern state of South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea, and fought on its UN-sponsored side in the Korean War (1950–1953). During the subsequent decades, South Korea experienced tremendous economic, political and military growth.
Stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims in the United States have been presented in various forms by the mass media in the American culture. Stereotypical representations of Arabs are often manifested in a society's media, literature, theater and other creative expressions. These representations, which have been historically and predominantly negative, have adverse repercussions for Arab Americans and Muslims in daily interactions and in current events. In American textbooks, which theoretically should be less-creative expressions, similar negative and inaccurate stereotypes are also found for Arabs and Muslims.
Stereotypes of American people can today be found in virtually all cultures. They are often manifest in America's own television and in the media's portrayal of the United States as seen in other countries, but can also be spread by literature, art, and public opinion. Not all of the stereotypes are equally popular, nor are they all restricted to Americans; and although most can be considered negative, a few assign neutral, positive or admiring qualities to the stereotypical U.S. citizen. Many of the ethnic stereotypes collide with otherwise unrelated political anti-Americanism.
John Owen Brennan is a former American intelligence officer who served as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from March 2013 to January 2017. He served as chief counterterrorism advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama, with the title Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, and Assistant to the President. Previously, he advised Obama on foreign policy and intelligence issues during the 2008 election campaign and presidential transition.
Himbo, a portmanteau of the English masculine pronoun him and bimbo, is a slang term for a sexually attractive, sexualized, naïve and unintelligent man. The first known use dates back to 1988; the word gained renewed popularity and attention in the 2010s and 2020s. Since its inception, the term and the stereotype it describes have generated a range of commentary and reactions from writers, entertainers, linguists, and cultural analysts.
Karen Ruth Bass is an American politician, social worker and former physician assistant who has served as the 43rd mayor of Los Angeles since 2022. A member of the Democratic Party, Bass previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2011 to 2022 and in the California State Assembly from 2004 to 2010, serving as speaker during her final Assembly term.
South Los Angeles, also known as South Central Los Angeles or simply South Central, is a region in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, lying mostly within the city limits of Los Angeles, south of downtown. It is "defined on Los Angeles city maps as a 16-square-mile (41 km2) rectangle with two prongs at the south end.” In 2003, the Los Angeles City Council renamed this area "South Los Angeles".
The Barack Obama "Joker" poster is a manipulated image of Barack Obama, then president of the United States, used by some critics of the Obama administration. The image was created by Firas Alkhateeb in January 2009, and portrays Obama as comic book supervillain Joker, based on the portrayal by Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight (2008). Alkhateeb has said the image was not intended to make a political statement. He uploaded the image to the photo-sharing website Flickr, from where it was downloaded by an unknown individual who added the caption "socialism". It was described in 2009 by The Guardian as the "American right's first successful use of street art".
Jonathan Kos-Read, also known as Cao Cao, is an American film and television actor who has worked mostly in China. While well known in China, his work is little-known in the United States. Kos-Read uses the stage name Cao Cao, which is also the name of the penultimate chancellor of the Eastern Han dynasty, a historical figure well-known to most Chinese people.
America First refers to an isolationist policy stance in the United States that generally emphasizes American exceptionalism, non-interventionism, and American nationalism. The term was coined by President Woodrow Wilson in his 1916 campaign that pledged to keep America neutral in World War I. A more isolationist approach gained prominence in the interwar period (1918–1939); it was also advocated by the America First Committee, a non-interventionist pressure group against U.S. entry into World War II.
Cynthia Ann Telles is an American academic and psychologist who currently serves as the United States ambassador to Costa Rica. She is a clinical professor in the UCLA Department of Psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and serves on the executive committee of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. She is the founding director of the Hispanic Neuropsychiatric Center of Excellence.