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Wednesday, October 20, 2010

The Ugly American in The Onion

Note:  I will not embed the video on the blog because it has sophomore-level humor of crude jokes.  Viewer be warned.

 The Onion, the joke newspaper, has an online video discussing the Ugly American.  In "Has Obama Failed To Reduce Hostility Toward Obnoxious Americans Abroad?" pundits debate why American tourists are still viewed negatively around the world.

Behind the joke is the true phenomenon of the Ugly American.  Besides brief experimentation by Nazi Germany, the United States was the first country where the "less cultured and mannered" middle and working classes could afford to travel aboard.  It was therefore Americans who broke the "learned, polite traveler" stereotype.

Nowadays the Ugly Tourist is international.  In Guanajuato, Mexico, for instance, I met an army of "Ugly Germans."  Meanwhile, "Ugly Saudis" are well known in Bahrain and Monaco.

1 comment:

The Lazy Geographer said...

Well, whether I fit the stereotype or not, most people still consider me quite dashing.