I watch a lot of British mystery shows, and I know for sure there’s the “boorish group of Americans in a hotel” episode of the show Inspector Morse.
I’m almost positive there’s boorish Americans in Miss Marple (Geraldine McEwan version) and Sherlock Holmes (Jeremy Brett). Marple might have been a story in a hotel, too. I think Holmes was some sort of landowner.
Personally, I think it’s funny when these types of characters show up. Especially when they’re played by British actors with over-the-top American accents.
[Right-wing radio/cable TV ranter mode on]REAL Americans don’t go abroad (unless, of course, it’s to bomb the shit out of some miscreant nation that entertains bad thoughts about us and looks at us wrong). This is the greatest country on earth so why would you want to visit those arrogant, spineless, godless, decadent, socialists with poor hygiene in Europe? Rembember, along with owning a Prius, living on the West Coast or the Northeast, and drinking lattes, chablis, and microbrews, having a passport is a surefire sign of being an elitist.[Right-wing radio/cable TV ranter mode off]
Not just snooty but often the villain. In fact, in the vast majority of American movies that don’t star Hugh Grant, if somebody British shows up, you automatically know he’s the bad guy.
For some reason, I can only think of old examples, and always in British films. The meaning of life has an American couple (with extremely badly done accents). With ivan732, I think it was getting pretty old by even at that time.
At the same time, if you need a character in a European setting who’s foreign, ignorant and loud, American is sort of the obvious choice. Likewise, English for loud and extremely drunk, German for loud and arrogant, Italian for loud and oversexed. It’s all just stupid stereotypes, even if you can find examples.
Oh, I’m not really griping about it either. Not in any serious way. Every group gets stereotyped in some way, I reckon. I just think it’s an interesting phenomenon.
My ancedote - when I was in Rome on holiday, we ended up doing one of those walking tours with a guide; a group of about 20 British people, and one American couple. The husband was the stereotype in ever way - from the shorts and sandles to the way, when the Italian guide help up her umbrella as a way of the group being able to follow her in the extremely crowded streets, exclaimed “Is that supposed to be an American flag?”
The answer being, of course - “no, that’s her umbrella”. Plus why would she hold an American flag up to a group of British tourists?
He seemed quite insulted by the fact that she wasn’t waving an American flag instead of her umbrella.
Miss Marple is based on Agatha Christie’s stories, of course, and those are a special case. Even in the original Christie stories, the Americans are ridiculous charicatures.
Well, at least one counterexample: in Run Fatboy, Run, Hank Azaria plays a type of perfect American - smart, professional, fit, good looking. Of course, he’s supposed to be annoyingly perfect (think Owen Wilson’s character in Meet the Parents), and IIRC at the end, he gets a bit snappish with some kid…but still, he’s not boorish!
**
Side question: I wonder how often Americans are blamed for bad behavior in cases when they’re not involved at all! I know first-hand that a lot of Europeans use English when they’re traveling in other countries; how often are they mistaken for native English speakers? So, for example, a Swede traveling in Italy speaks English to a shopkeeper and is rude. The shopkeeper isn’t good enough at English to recognize the Swedish accent, and just knows that some asshole is speaking English to him, and he assumes it’s an American (or Brit/Canadian/etc.). It’s possible!
And, rather oddly, in American movies stereotypically “snooty” characters often seem to be played with British-sounding accents no matter what nationality, race, or species they’re supposed to represent.
My favorite example of this is the Vulcan Science Academy “admissions committee” in the recent Star Trek reboot movie, who AFAIK aren’t even played by British actors but are snooty to the max.
One of the Sharpe’s Rifles sequels featured a British Lieutenant who was born in Virginia, whose Tory parents were on the wrong side of the war, hence his commission in the King’s army. He wasn’t particularly boorish as such, but had an Elvis Presley accent.
The Triplets of Belleville was pretty unkind to Americans. And Russians and Italians and the French…
“Shut up! Shut up, you American. You always talk, you Americans. You talk and you talk and say ‘let me tell you something’ and ‘I just wanna say this’. Well, you’re dead now, so shut up!”
When my wife and daughter visited London, Sophie (my daughter) was always the loudest person, regardless of where they went. Restaurants, subways, museums, etc.
