I went to see The Eclipse last night. (A ghost story/love story set in Ireland. Not so good, if you’re wondering, in spite of some nice reviews.)
Anyway, the cast includes Aidan Quin as a boorish (I mean reallyover-the-top boorish) American. And I sort of wondered why that character happened to be American.
And that made me think of In Bruges from a couple of years back, which featured a boorish and racist American little person. I noticed in that film that when the character revealed himself as an American, he felt obliged to apologize for it. (“Yeah, I’m an American…but don’t hold that against me.”) (In Bruges also had a scene featuring a morbidly obese family of American tourists, but that’s a different stereotype. For now let’s focus on the boorishness.)
I also thought about Four Weddings and a Funeral, in which Andie MacDowell’s character has to apologize (humorously, to be sure) for inflicting all these awful Americans (her wedding guests) on everyone. And then one of those guests goes on to demonstrate profound cultural ignorance (by thinking that Oscar Wilde is still alive).
So what gives? I know Americans don’t have the best reputation abroad, but are we doomed to be forever caricatured in film as loud, violent, ignorant and racist?
Also, can anyone think of any other recent examples (or counter-examples) in British/European film?
I’m struggling to think of many British or European movies that have American characters at all. The first one that springs to mind is the original British version of Death at a Funeral. The American (as with In Bruges he’s an American dwarf, but they aren’t played by the same actor) isn’t a boor as far as I can remember. He’s not exactly a lovely person, since he shows up at the funeral with blackmail in mind, but as far as I can recall he isn’t a particularly rude or ignorant man.
There aren’t any significant American characters in Bend It Like Beckham – an American talent scout appears but IIRC doesn’t have any lines – but the US is referred to favorably in the film. The Keira Knightley character admires American athletes like Mia Hamm and explains to her friend Parminder Nagra that in the US women’s soccer is taken seriously…or at least more seriously than in the UK. The happy ending of the movie involves the two girls being recruited for the Santa Clara University women’s team and departing for California.
I can’t answer the OP directly, but BAs to exist. I think it was in Munich where I saw a family of three at an American Express office that was seriously bent out of shape because in their hotel there was a towel on the floor! :eek: After they’d gone, my friend told the clerk ‘We’re not all like that.’ In Florence or Venice a middle-aged woman called to her husband, ‘Hey Murray! Go stand by that stature. I want to take a picture of it!’ In Vienna: Apparently animals are not permitted in 1st Class on the trains. Their country, their rules. An American man with a toy poodle was angrily complaining, ‘My dog is a show dog! I always travel 1st Class, and my dog always travels with me!’ In Venice we encountered a hostile hostel manager. When he found out we were Americans he began ranting: ‘I don’ wanna no more Americans inna my hostel! They demand too much! They have children, all the time screaming! EEEEEE! EEEEEE! They make love and howl all night! Awoooo! Awoooo! I tell you: If an atom bomb drops on the United States it would be a good thing.’ I almost said, ‘So… Can we stay here tonight?’ But we’d been wandering the city all day with our packs, it was about midnight, and we were dead-tired.
To be fair, we heard from locals in Denmark and Sweden that they thought Germans had reputations as bad as Americans.
In Love, Actually the American president was a boorish horndog putting the moves on the prime minister’s secretary, but he might’ve been just a specific parody of Bill Clinton. The only other Americans I remember in that movie were the sexy ladies who fell weak at the knees to British accents, but that’s a completely different stereotype.
I live in a very beautiful part of the world, but it’s not on the main tourist trail in Scotland by any means. Most of the US tourists we get fall into pretty much the two categories you mention: they’re both “independent travellers” but with vastly different budgets. What they have in common is that they are usually polite, friendly, and generous to an extraordinary degree, a credit to your country, seriously. A bit on the loud side and the college age ones really can’t handle their drink but good people though, and always welcome.
Yes, unfortunately, it’s a stereotype. But it’s rooted in reality, definitely.
I’ve not only lived in tourist country and right on the border long enough to tell you stories all night long about rude/ignorant American tourists, but I have witnessed similar behaviour both in England and in Ireland. Think the Fawlty Towers episode “Waldorf Salad” and you’ll know exactly what I mean.
Where does it all come from? Apparently it starts in the American school system, where most of the history/geography time is spent teaching American kids primarily about their own country and very little about any others, as if other countries don’t really matter. At least, I know this is true of Minnesota, because in University I did a paper in which I compared and contrasted Canadian and American history and geography texts and curriculums.
I’ve had friends who were Customs officers that have their favourite “American tourist” stories to tell, I’ve worked both retail and in the service industry in a border town, and let me tell you, the level of sheer ignorance about your neighbour to the north is appalling. Small wonder that the situation is only magnified outside of the continent.
When Europe needed someone to save them from the over-expansionist Gemany twice in the last 100 years, who did they look to? Maybe next time someone rolls tanks across a border, maybe they should look to someone else??/
I think the Americanness of the character in In Bruges was purely incidental. They needed someone who was a good actor and a dwarf, and the guy they found happened to be American. I didn’t read any more into it than that.
As for Fawlty Towers and Monty Python, yes the stereotype exists but in some ways their humour was rather old-fashioned. The loud-mouthed Yank who turned up at Basil Fawlty’s desk complaining about some country lane called the M5, that was a bit hackneyed even at the time.
The dialogue specifically identifies the dwarf as American (a fact for which he feels obliged to apologize) and the dwarf’s racist rant seemed to me like it was supposed to be some sort of reflection on the US.
Then too, you have the added appearance of the fat American tourists, and the vocal anti-Americanism of Colin Farrell’s character. (And recall that he beat up a Canadian he mistook for a US citizen.)
I love that movie. It’s one of the best of the past decade or so. But it’s hard to ignore the anti-American thread that runs through it.
and the college age ones really can’t handle their drink but good people though, and always welcome.