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God bless America.

For added atmosphere, listen to this while reading.

When viewed from the outside, the United States of America comes in different flavors. As with most stereotypes, there is a certain amount of Truth in Television in both of them.

America the Beautiful

A peaceful paradise on earth full of friendly, wise, and good-hearted people whose prosperity is their (God-given) reward for their impeccable virtue. Theirs is a shining city upon a hill guided by destiny: a land of freedom, justice, wealth, and luck, where people can leave their pasts behind and create entirely new lives for themselves, far from the stratified social structures and open ethno-religious bigotry and violence of the Old World. In short, this is the country that embodies The American Dream. Sometimes based on American media during The '50s and The Silver Age of Comic Books, which portrayed the United States of America as a homey, traditional world of heroes built upon (nuclear) family values, love, and old-fashioned simple mindsets. This flavor is, of course, no "truer" than any other, and especially not when it comes to individual US citizens.

'Murica the Boorish

A Wretched Hive full of war-mongering, ignorant Jerkasses whose prosperity, when it exists, is the product of their infinite greed. Americans come into your country either as tourists or invaders, always acting like they own the place and letting you know how it "should be" run. Whenever they talk, it will always be as obnoxiously loud and as offensive as possible, claiming it's "freedom of speech." In the rural areas of the Deep South and The Wild West, you'll find disgustingly obese, Red-baiting, Bible-thumping, gun-toting, heteronormative redneck Moral Guardians who subsist on a diet of synthetic fast food and TV dinners, while in the cities and everywhere else, you'll find crime-ridden ghettoes full of street gangs and cartels desperate to get you addicted to their wares, vapid rich bitches either hailing from or trying to emulate Hollywood California, and Darwinist, Scrooge-like corporate profiteers who view poor people as a plague upon humanity (not that the poor are any better). Woe betide you if you're a minority, immigrant (though why on Earth you'd ever want to move there is anyone's guess), or both; at best you'll be assimilated into the culture and become one of the above, and at worst you'll be treated as utter vermin by the citizens, the law enforcement, the government itself, and even other immigrants/minorities. And if you're a foreign nation, you'd better hope that your country doesn't have some sort of resource or export the Americans want or need, whether it be gold, oil, or anime; because the minute that they sense any threat to their supply, they'll invade you (if you're lucky) or send money and arms to whoever they want in power (if you're not), almost always some godawful kleptocrat who is submissive to their interests. And last but not least, they suck at global geography. The Bronze Age of Comic Books and especially The Dark Age of Comic Books frequently began to reflect this flavor, which once again is no "truer" than any other, and especially not when it comes to individual US citizens.

Mixed Flavor

Other works just decide to split the difference, treating America as essentially the Boisterous Bruiser Idiot Hero of nations: rude, crude, clueless, obnoxious, and vaguely psychotic, but still good-natured beneath it all. A famous saying, often misattributed to Winston Churchill, sums up this portrayal well: "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing... after they've first tried everything else."

Since this trope is about outsiders looking at the USA, you can expect most of the information here to be incredibly stereotyped and (potentially) culturally offensive to actual Americans. If you happen to see a work that portrays the United States or its people as a whole as The Boorish, but it's actually an American production, that will be a case of Cultural Cringe, My Country Tis of Thee That I Sting, or Boomerang Bigot; likewise, an American indulging in The Beautiful is not this trope either, and would better fit into Creator Provincialism, Patriotic Fervor, or My Country, Right or Wrong. And if the work in question doesn't delve into blanket judgment either way but simply refers to US culture and history by both structuralist and functionalist examples, then you're probably reading an in-depth history book. See also Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales; America's strong tradition of self-satire means they are very likely to enjoy foreign depictions, even boorish ones.

The memetic term 'Murica is related to these interpretations: that America is either a Land of Heroes, or a Wretched Hive. For the symbolism this trope is named after, see American Eagle (though the actual Trope Namer is EarthBound).


Related tropes include:

  • The All-American Boy
  • American Robot
  • American Title
  • Americans Are Cowboys: Need to quickly display that a character is American? Just stick a ten-gallon hat on his or her head and a six-shooter in each hand and call it a day.
  • Big Applesauce: "America" defaults to "New York City" at least in the eyes of the (largely NYC based) arts community
    • On a regional scale, residents of Upstate New York will almost always have to clarify "The State, not the City" when mentioning that they come from New York.
    • Outsiders who are aware New York is also a state are often surprised that an obscure place such as Albany note  is the state capital; people tend to assume the state of New York is governed from the city of New York.
  • The Big Easy: New Orleans.
  • Deep South: The Boorish portrayal of the American south.
  • Down on the Farm: Rural America, typically somewhere in the "corn belt".
  • Everything is Big in Texas: It has been said that Americans view Texas the way the rest of the world views Americans. This used to be said of California, as well; both states are (in)famous in America for rampant individualism, flakes, nuts, and Everything More and Bigger, but the two have very different approaches to this.
  • Everytown, America: The stereotypical generic small town found almost everywhere in fiction and practically nowhere in reality.
  • Flag Drop: Expect American flags to be prominently displayed beyond both Beautiful and Boorish patriots.
  • Flyover Country: Generally the vast expanses between the two coasts, more specifically the Midwest.
  • Gangsterland: South Central Los Angeles is infamous for this, but other depictions of Gangsterland may be based on Newark and Camden (both in New Jersey), and some areas of Philadelphia. Older ones are usually based on Al Capone-era Chicago, or on New York in either the 19th Century or the post-World War II period (especially the 1970s and onward, with many overlapping stereotypes with hip-hop culture).
  • Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist: If a ten-gallon hat is too stereotypical, Hawaiian shirts work just as well in showing that a character is American.
  • Hollywood California: A large portion of American films and TV shows are made and/or filmed in California, and even then in only a few select sections of it. This gives a biased impression to the rest of the world (and sometimes even to the rest of the United States itself, including other parts of California) of what the U.S.A. is like.
  • Hollywood New England: Lobster, cod, baked beans, and Boston accents mashed together in ways no real New Englander would recognize.
  • Hula and Luaus
  • Injun Country
  • It's Always Mardi Gras in New Orleans
  • Joisey: If Hollywood (more specifically Jersey Shore) is to be believed, everyone in New Jersey is apparently of Italian descent, speaks with a nasally accent, uses insane amounts of hair gel, goes to nightclubs, and spends their summers doing nothing but tanning at the shore. And New Jersey's citizens, especially the tourism industry, and extra- especially actual Italian-Americans, are not very happy about it.
  • Lovecraft Country: The dark side of New England.
  • Only in Florida: The state best known for sunshine, beaches, theme parks, citrus, and mind-bendingly weird behavior.
  • Only in Miami: Anything set in Florida that isn't Deep South will probably be set here.
  • Oppressive States of America: a common variant of America the Boorish, as are its cousins Divided States of America and Fallen States of America.
  • Pompous Political Pundit: Generally see themselves as the Beautiful. Are frequently seen by others as the Boorish.
  • Sinister Southwest: The scary side of the American Southwest.
  • Southern Gothic: The creepy side of the American South.
  • Sweet Home Alabama: The Beautiful portrayal of the American South.
  • Translation by Volume: Americans of the boorish category never, ever speak a foreign language, and they speak with foreigners using English only in a loud and condescending manner. Particularly bad examples may question why languages other than English even exist or insist on calling it "American" (as in "Speak American, damn it!").
  • "Ugly American" Stereotype: The typical unpleasant American tourist.
  • United Space of America
  • Viva Las Vegas!
  • The Wild West
  • Wild Wilderness

Examples:

    open/close all folders 

The Beautiful

    Arts 
  • The Apotheosis of Washington: George Washington has risen to the ranks of the divine as a symbol of American greatness. Now he's above the five Greek gods who bless America's trades and Lady Freedom herself.
  • Statue of Liberty: She symbolizes the opportunity America provides and its dedication to preserving human freedom. Even cynics get sentimental about it.

    Comic Books 
  • Within the wider Marvel Universe, second generation immigrant creation Captain America is one of the most respected and admired heroes in- and out-of-universe for being America the Beautiful incarnate. He's so idolized that if readers think the writers are somehow disrespecting the ideals that Captain America stands for, they'll take it personally (see the fan reactions to Sally Floyd's lecture during Civil War, Sam Wilson championing political causes during his tenure as Cap, and Steve's Face–Heel Turn in Secret Empire)
  • Superman, who was created by the children of Jewish immigrants and is himself a refugee fills much the same role for the DC Universe. "He fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way."
  • Wonder Woman (1942): In the Golden and Silver Ages, Wonder Woman reflected the shining positives of the U.S. as an immigrant to the country. After meeting Col. Steve Trevor, she decks herself out in a uniform based on the American flag and eagle when she leaves Paradise Island to fight the Nazis and other evils of the outside world.

    Films — Live-Action 

    Literature 
  • Dracula has a pretty good example of the Beautiful in Quincey Morris. One of Lucy's three suitors, he's presented as a cowboy-type from Texas, informal but friendly and honorable. Strangely, although repeatedly described by his friends as a man of action, he doesn't engage in all that much of it until he suffers a mortal wound fighting the gypsies that protect Dracula's coffin at the end and striking one of the fatal blows to kill Dracula.
  • Subverted by Oscar Wilde in "The Canterville Ghost". "Americans have everything in common with us now-a-days except the Language."
  • Corellia in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, with the exception of Legacy of the Force, is written as deeply Beautiful. Corellians are proud, enterprising, independent, and inventive people whose ingenuity led to the development of hyperspace travel, whose military might kept the peace in the farthest corners of the Galaxy, and whose liberal political culture formed the bedrock of democracy in the Galactic Republic. The planet was seen as representing the Republic's soul.
  • Without Seeing The Dawn, set at the beginning of World War II in the American Philippines, has its rural Filipino characters patiently believing that America will save them from the Japanese invasion. Pretty ironic though considering the country was a flat-out U.S. colonial territory at the time, though American policymakers had supposedly committed to a timeline for granting Philippine independence within a half-decade from the novel's time setting.

    Music 
  • Basically the entire career of John Philip Sousa was built on writing patriotic marches that are either odes to or evocative of this trope. One of them, "Stars and Stripes Forever", is basically the Leitmotif of this type of Eagleland.
  • "American Woman", originally by The Guess Who, painted the U.S. as The Boorish. Then Lenny Kravitz covered it up with a funk remix and a music video with American flags, hot girls on choppers and muscle cars, and Heather Graham dancing on top of a bus. Because of that, it's today regarded as more The Beautiful in style regardless of its lyrics. Incidentally, The Guess Who claimed American Woman was never intended to be anti-American in the first place.
  • The theme song to Broforce praises the titular team as the protector of American values, but never mentions the nation by name and is performed by a South African.
  • The song Hollywood by Marina and the Diamonds provides a subversion. The visuals and constant reference to the American Dream are in the patriotic, freedom-searching-immigrants, dream-granting ideal of America—but the message is negative, causing a sort of Stepford Smiler result.
  • Blur's song "Magic America", which is about a man who moves to America entirely because of this view of the country.
  • "U.S.A." by the Japanese boy band DA PUMP describes America as the land of dreams.
  • U.S. Boy by French singer Jena Lee. The song includes mentions of U.S. celebrities and TV shows and this chorus line "U.S. boys sont le rĂŞve des French girls! / On veut un American boyfriend forever" which does not need translating to know it's a Beautiful outlook.
  • "Coming to America" by Neil Diamond presents America as a beacon of liberty and opportunity, where people from all over come to seek their dreams.
  • "Which Way to America?" by Living Colour questions why everything about America on TV is beautiful but everything outside the window is boorish.
  • "Our Country" by John Mellencamp celebrates a populist vision of the Beautiful while acknowledging problems, declaring "there's room enough here" to work them out. Mellencamp as an older rock'n'roll artist gets so little airplay on commercial stations that he departed from his usual standards and allowed this to be used in a Chevrolet truck commercial.

    Pinball 

    Professional Wrestling 
  • Harley Race serves on the Global Honored Crown sanction committe and is seen as one of the biggest sources of legitimacy for the group. Nothing else really needs to be said.
  • LLF fans are famous for their love of wrestlers from the US, to the point Christie Ricci's ruda run failed and the promotion rarely even tried to book them as anything other than tecnicas following, except sometimes against each other when Talia Madison and April Hunter ganged up on American Angel after Angel's inevitable Heel–Face Turn. Fans who dare chant "USA" do tend to get shouted down, but the U.S. wrestlers tend to become so patriotic Mexico related chants work just as well.
  • Citizens of the U.S. are traditionally treated very well in Pro Wrestling ZERO1, such as their "friendship" series with Action Zone Wrestling in Hawaii and the Gorgeous Gaijin run of Leonardo Spanky. Low Ki tried antagonizing the audience but they still ended up falling in love with him, ditto AJ Styles. The promotion was also notorious for proping up struggling U.S. promotions like the California based Ultimate Pro Wrestling and promoting otherwise defunct belts of U.S.-based promotions like the American Wrestling Association. Even legendary heels like Sherri Martel tend to be treated with reverence, which is generally recepriocated once they eventually give in.
  • Chilanga Mask fans tend to be very accepting of luchadores from the US, to the point fans of other Mexican enterprises consider them disrespectful, to the point even rookies like Lio Rush can become instant fan favorites while they all but beg the audience to boo them. The one line they won't cross is chanting USA, which at least got them to be silent when ACH suggested it, but then they went back to cheering ACH over Ricky Marvin after the shock wore off. It's not just mat technicians like Rush or high fliers like ACH either, as Garbage Wrestler Masada was mad over too, as was criminal record brawler Raymond Rowe, though they were able to get heat against each against other USA wrestler.

    Radio 
  • On June 5, 1973note , Canadian commentator Gordon Sinclair did a piece on his daily radio series Let's Be Personal titled "The Americans," in which Gordon emphasized how much the U.S. has done to aid other countries (with a little Cultural Posturing on America's behalf included), but when disasters happen in the U.S., other countries don't pitch in to help. To say the least, it was a significant shot in the arm for American self-esteem. After The War on Terror sparked a huge surge in people who view Americans through a Boorish lens, the broadcast again made the rounds, this time on the Internet.

    Theatre 
  • One of the earliest versions comes from William Shakespeare's play The Comedy of Errors. Dromio compares the bejeweled nose of Nell to the great riches of America, a glowing praise of the place compared to the blatant insults directed towards other countries in the same speech.

    Web Videos 
  • Episode 5 of Missing Reel, "Car Chase Movies," has the narrator talk about how American muscle cars such as the Dodge Challenger were the most common type in car chase movies and how it was the last era of Detroit's dominance of the auto industry.

    Webcomics 
  • The U.S. Forces in Japan invoked America the Beautiful with their comic Our Alliance - A Lasting Partnership. It stars Usa-kun, an Adorably Precocious Child, guarding the older Japanese stand-in, as a way of explaining why American forces are stationed in Japan through a Beautiful lens.

    Western Animation 
  • The Big Guy from Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot is, in-universe, a Beautiful representative of America: he's the product of a collaboration between the U.S. and Japan. Lines like "I have to shoot carefully! Each shot costs millions of taxpayer dollars!" and "I pledge allegiance to only one flag!" are said with perfect sincerity. It's probably a deliberately-crafted image; Lieutenant Hunter is a soldier, and a loyal one at that, but he's not that cheesy.
  • The Danger Mouse episode "The Trip To America" has Texas Jack McGraw, whom Penfold describes as "this weird cowboy." Jack clearly isn't too bright (getting tricked by Greenback very easily), but he's definitely a good guy and, in classic cowboy movie fashion, shows up to rescue DM and Penfold at the last minute.

The Boorish

    Alternate Reality Games 
  • Omega Mart: Americanized Beef is aimed at rural Boorish types, with lyrics sung in a thick Southern accent promising people who buy it will "no longer feel like a special snowflake" and ending with the slogan "Make America Taste Great Again," and a cow mascot implying only Dirty Communists wouldn't buy it.

    Comic Books 
  • Dilly Dreem has a view of Americans as Boorish. When she hears that Americans will be taking over her school, she envisions the radical changes they will make, including turning the school into a New York City skyscraper, changing the school sport to baseball, and turning the local tuckshop into a soda fountain frequented by beatniks. Though it's later shown that it was just a misunderstanding on her part, and the Americans portrayed are very normal and laid back. If anything, much of it seems to be about xenophobia and stereotypes
  • In Untold Tales Of Spiderman #-1, Richard and Mary Parker (Peter Parker's parents) exploited this point of view in India by playing "Ugly Americans" with two goons guarding an enemy installation, portraying themselves as crude and tacky tourists while asking the guards if they'd be so nice as to take their picture. Figuring they had better send these annoying foreigners on their way as quickly and with as little drama as possible, the guards fell for the ruse, the "camera" the Parkers gave them actually being a knock-out gas dispenser.
  • In Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, Private Hank the Yank (as he is listed in official documentation) is an American who hopped the pond to get a jump-start on all that "war" business, and the only American in the otherwise all-British team. An explosives expert wearing a constant grimace and who only ever says "GAWD DAMMIT!", he's a lovely collection of stereotypes (you see, he's really, really stupid and violent) that fits right in with the rest of the Brigade. To be perfectly fair, the series doesn't let the Brits off very lightly, either. Captain Hugo "Khyber" Darcy is a ridiculously exaggerated caricature of a stuffy upper class Brit; being shown constantly spewing hatred towards "jerries" (including going so far as to claim that Germany's fatal mistake in the war was not being Britain), and is unshakably convinced that America is still a British colony (otherwise he would've shot Private Hank ages ago).
  • Watchmen:
    • The Comedian is an amoral, trigger-happy, sadistic black ops U.S. agent who also happens to be a rapist and mass-murderer. In a dark subversion/deconstruction of Captain Patriotic, he wears a flag-printed costume as a way of mocking the American way; he doesn't actually care about American values and became a masked vigilante only as an outlet to vent his violent urges.
    • Hector Godfrey of the New Frontiersman is also a strong example. To better elaborate, he once wrote an article in which he actually tried defending the Ku Klux Klan.
  • The French graphic novel Weapons of Mass Diplomacy exploits it for all its worth. The politicians that represent the United States, while looking kind and being nice to talk to, want nothing more than to conquer the world by having a new war to start up so that they might end up having entire nations under their control, hiding all of those ideas behind euphemisms. Entire chapters are devoted to stopping the United States from declaring a war.
  • 'Rocky portrays America as exclusively Boorish, but it is also made abundantly clear that this has more to do with Rocky being an Unreliable Narrator with a Hair-Trigger Temper and a bee up his arse about his American ex-girlfriend than with anything about America.
    Manny: Come on! You have to admit that the Grand Canyon was pretty cool!
    Rocky: Meh. Oversized, gaudy and vulgar.
  • The Marvel supervillain Nuke, a psychotic Super-Soldier who is obsessed with killing "enemies of America". He's basically a very twisted version of Captain America.
  • Cla$$war, being a British comic about American superheroes published in the early aughts, paints a dark picture of America as a country with a corrupt, warmongering administration and a largely apathetic populace.

    Fan Works 
  • Truth and Consequences: The American mercenary group Mayor Andrej hires to capture Chat Noir are little more than thugs-for-hire toting assault rifles. They talk a big game but accomplish almost nothing outside of harassing Parisian citizens and run like cowards the minute they're faced with an actual Akuma.
    Mayura: And here I thought Americans with assault rifles were the answer to all life's problems.
  • Miraculous: The Phoenix Rises is set within America. Everything from its medical establishment to it's education system is mercilessly lampooned.

    Films — Animation 
  • Being a Russian nationalistic, Orthodox Christian propaganda film, Children VS Wizards depicts the American military as ugly and evil bastards in cahoots with the magicians at HAOS. Moreover, they even sends a fleet of ships, planes, and submarines to protect the school's Global Congress from any Russian forces trying to disrupt it.
  • Donald Curtis from Porco Rosso is an exceptional #2 example. "Make way for the American!" He plans to be a Hollywood actor and later president. Sound familiar?
  • The Triplets of Belleville: While all of the characters are drawn in odd, exaggerated ways, Americans in particular are depicted as enormously fat and impossibly decadent. To drive the point home, the Statue of Liberty herself is a rotund woman holding a dripping ice cream cone rather than a torch, while the tablets in her other hand are being used as a tray for a gigantic hamburger.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Extremely prevalent in Chinese cinema, where virtually all depictions of Americans show them as either ruthless thugs, schemers and pretty much any other sort of stock villain caricature you can think of. Examples vary, from the occupation force in Jet Li's film Born to Defence (1986) to the blatantly cheating and arrogant fighter "Twister" (though he is British, but he embodied boorish American stereotype) from Ip Man 2. (Though there are many cases where the Americans find the portrayals entertaining.) The highest grossing movie ever in China as of 2017, Wolf Warriors 2, has a murderous American mercenary commander as the Big Bad who the Chinese protagonist must defeat in order to nobly protect the helpless Africans. Given how all Chinese films are backed by their Government, the propagandic bent isn't the least bit surprising. The movie was released around the time where American and NATO government representatives, as well as human rights group, starts putting pressure toward China for the alleged human rights violations in the Chinese territory of Xinjiang, in which the Chinese government responds as "fake", "fabricated" or "meddling of national affairs". Note that big American films as of 2010 to this day generally avoid depicting China the same way, as China remains a big market for American action movies and most Hollywood movies are co-produced with Chinese studios in order to be treated as domestic product in China due to tightening import laws.
  • In Bruges:
    • Ray comes across three morbidly obese American tourists whom he (rather rudely) advises not to climb the Belfry Tower.
      Tourist: What exactly are you trying to say?
      Ray: What exactly I am trying to say? You's are a bunch of fucking elephants.
      [Tourist snaps and tries to catch up to him and beat him up, but quickly runs out of breath]
      Ray: Come, leave it, fatty.
    • Then there is the cocky American-accented couple whom Ray knocks out (who turn out to be Canadian), and the midget actor:
      Actor: Try not to hold it against me.
      Ken: I'll try not to. Just try not to say anything too loud or crass.
  • Iron Sky: The American President is a Sarah Palin parody.
  • The movie based on Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel The Colour of Magic has the character Twoflower as a completely oblivious American tourist complete with straw hat, Hawaiian print shirt, and camera. This is different from the book, however, as Twoflower is from the Agaetean empire and is the local equivalent of a Japanese Tourist.
  • A montage in Godzilla: Final Wars shows daily life in various world cities being interrupted by daikaiju attacks. Apparently, daily life in New York consists of pimps pulling guns on cops in the middle of the street. Also, the two American main characters are a quite possibly insane Badass Normal (emphasis on the "badass") and a self-important Nietzsche Wannabe, neither of whom, despite living in Tokyo, ever say one word in Japanese. Kazama spoke English in only, like, two parts of the movie: during the Ebirah fight and the "Watch it, X Man!" line.
  • In the German film Kein Bund fĂĽr's Leben, the Americans (especially the commander) are mostly Boorish but with a subversion: The German soldiers are worse!
  • The American president in Love Actually fits neatly into the second category, a combination of Bill Clinton (a sleazy womanizer) and George W. Bush (bullying behavior and accent). When the UK's prime minister (played by Hugh Grant, of course) tells him off, it is portrayed as his defining moment as a leader.
  • All of Lars Von Trier's movies that deal with America (Dogville, Dear Wendy, etc.) depict America as a severe Boor. Or course, he's never actually been to America, but that shouldn't stop him from being able to portray it as hateful and evil, right?
  • In Quantum of Solace the Americans are portrayed as being generally sleazy and amoral, with the exception of Felix Leiter.
  • Just about any piece of communist propaganda would portray America as land filled with crazy fascists who do nothing but oppress the starving poor, a barely controlled state of violent anarchy, or some combination of both. For example, here is one from North Korea.
  • Soviet silent film Miss Mend is about an American anti-Bolshevik terrorist organization plotting to unleash chemical and biological warfare in Russia.
  • Bollywood film Hisss has American George States as the Big Bad. He is a racist, abusive, vicious, ruthless, all-around despicable individual who pretty much plays "Evil White Guy" to a degree even Indian viewers wince at. Most of his screentime is spent abusing his local Indian hired help for no reason other than he's bored.
  • First Blood is an American film set in Hope, a seedy hick town in Washington State where the local Dirty Sheriff and antagonist of the film runs the place like he owns it and arrests a homeless Vietnam vet named John Rambo on obviously false charges like "vagrancy" (John is guilty of no wrongdoing and wanted to enter only to get something to eat). Carnage ensues. The film is an anti-war psychological thriller that deals with the dehumanisation and mistreatment of The Vietnam Vet and depicts America in quite a negative light, unlike the subsequent Actionized Sequels that present America's role in the world much more optimistically.
  • Mars Attacks!: As a parody of 1950's sci-fi B-Movie schlock, America Saves the Day... but America is a World of Jerkass except for a handful of characters, and most of said jerks end up being vaporized by Martian death rays. General Decker is a perfect example to pick out of the group, a crazed War Hawk who keeps exalting the greatness of America's military as his Defiant to the End Sedgwick Speech.

    Literature 
  • A nice prime example of Boorish from Conan Doyle, in two of his Sherlock Holmes novels, no less.
    • Both A Study in Scarlet and The Valley of Fear suffer from the more gruesome Boorish in their respective second half. The first one deals with early Mormons, all taking place in Utah. The second in the fictional Vermissa Valley, curiously being vaguely inspired by true events. Both are pretty much the same, with the narration being focused on two or three characters who're steadily developed as they run through their exploits. As for everyone else, well... A Study in Scarlet's second half took place during the Mormon immigration, when all the Mormons were more or less literally driven out of the rest of the country and forced to move to Utah, which was apparently the only place people hated enough to actually send Mormons to; and the book itself was first published only a couple of decades after. It's not outside the realm of possibility that Doyle had only ever heard of Mormons from Americans, who, this being the 1870s and 1880s, would not have nice things to say about Mormons.
    • "The Five Orange Pips" features that fine old American institution, the Ku Klux Klan. The letters KKK that appear on a note in the story were no doubt intended to be mysterious and exotic to British readers, but it's kind of an in-story spoiler for those in the U.S., most of whom will immediately guess exactly what's being referred to.
  • Ditto for Ian Fleming's James Bond novels involving Americans (The Spy Who Loved Me, Goldfinger and Diamonds Are Forever): No sentence is complete without at least one "buster", "buddy" or "...see?"
  • In Partners in Crime Agatha Christie depicts an abrasive American who calls Europe "Yurrop" (actually this pretty much is how Americans pronounce it). He's the bad guy.
  • Let's just say most of the writers from the Latin-American Magic Realism movement had a bad image of the USA and leave it at that. GarcĂ­a Marquez's The Autumn of the Patriarch where Americans appear as manipulative diplomats who literally steal the sea at a moment of economic trouble in the country of the dictator.
  • The Ugly American is about American foreign aid workers struggling to win hearts and minds for the USA while being sabotaged by a variety of Boorish Eaglelanders.
  • The Space Captain Smith series contains two Fantasy Counterpart Cultures to the United States. The one that gets the main screentime and the main human villainous faction, the Democratic Republic of New Eden, is an uber-militarised, racist (fantastic and mundane), misogynistic fascist state with a pseudo-Christian death cult as the state religion.
  • In Legacy of the Force, Corellia is a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of the United States written as extremely Boorish. Corellians are loud, boorish, violent thugs who have a myopic worldview outside the immediate concerns of their culture and national government, and their government is distrustful of international organizations for being dictatorial while being fascist under a thin veneer of democratic rule. Note, though, that some of the Star Wars universe's most beloved characters (Han Solo and Wedge Antilles, for starters) are Corellian, and the qualities that make them so awesome are often stated to be common among Corellians. And in Legacy of the Force, the galactic government the Corellians are so distrustful of winds up being even worse.
  • Greg Egan's short story "In the Ruins" reads somewhat like a parody of this trope: in the not-too-distant future, American culture has ramped up its Anti-Intellectualism so far that scientists are marginalized and called "poopy-heads"; the actual word "scientist" having completely dropped out of the English language. Meanwhile, other countries like Egypt and China have advanced and replaced First World countries in terms of scientific knowledge, to the point that aspiring young American students actually compete for scholarships overseas, as they know that they will never get any respect or make any notable discoveries in their home country. The (Egyptian) professor hosting the scholarship opportunity laments that America used to be the country that others looked up to, but now it has fallen into a "Kardashian Type Three" state and will likely collapse soon. Strangely enough, however, even the vapid Valley Girls understand enough physics to answer the scholarship questions in this world; the protagonist, who is one, only throws a hissy fit because she didn't think the problem through, and later realizes that she might have actually gotten the scholarship if she hadn't been so overconfident. That said, because it's an Ignored Epiphany, this still counts as Boorish rather than Mixed.
  • Mass is set around 1970, amidst the background of the (imperialist) U.S.'s support of the ascendant, would-be Philippine dictator, Ferdinand Marcos. Protests are raised over this as well as the gigantic U.S. bases then active in the Philippines at the time.
  • Give Peas a Chance, a short story from the collection of the same name, involves a boy refusing to eat vegetables or do chores until world peace is declared, convincing others to do (essentially) the same, and succeeding at it. America is mentioned as the last country to destroy their weaponry because they keep making up excuses, and do so only because kids aren't eating McDonalds, and that's hurting the economy. At the end, they use vegetables to invade Iran because the latter is now defenceless.
  • There is a chapter in David Sedaris's book Me Talk Pretty One Day where Sedaris describes something that happened to him on the subway in Paris. He was standing near an American couple who played The Boorish straight as an arrow. They mistook Sedaris, an American, as a Frenchman and, not realizing that he is fluent in English, kept on referring to him as a "frog" who would likely try to pickpocket them if he had the chance. They were not aware of metro etiquette and were taking up way too much space, guarding the support bar they were using (intended for use by many people at once) as if it was their personal property. Sedaris described their dress as something like denim shorts tee-shirts and remarked (paraphrasing from memory), "That's great—show up in a foreign country dressed like you're ready to mow their lawn."
  • In The Laundry Files, part of the U.S. goes through Boorish and into outright diabolical. The most visible American occult defense agency, the Black Chamber, is described as "less a sister agency, and more of a bunny-boiling ex-girlfriend" and they use things like Mind Control and Demonic Possession on their agents as a matter of routine. In a series where The King In Yellow is a recurring antagonist, and they found a way to make Roman von Ungern-Sternberg a vaguely heroic figure, the Black Chamber is the closest thing to capital-E Evil. However, the President, most civilians, and some other organizations like the Comstock Office (another U.S. occult agency) fits more into the Beautiful camp.
    • Two of the major one-shot villains in the series were Americans, and firmly in the Boorish camp. Both of them were greedy, gullible, short-sighted and all too willing to call up things they didn't understand in the name of profit and/or Jeebus.
  • In Der Schwarm, all the American characters in charge are negative stereotypes in some way of another. The president is the typical, self-righteous Christian conservative; Li is the classical Asian-American overachiever; Vanderbilt is the fat, greasy jerkass; and Peak is the brutal black man who climbed his way up from a ghetto. Even Frost, who is American too despite not being in charge, is still a cowboy with No Indoor Voice.
  • Gate offers a pretentious example of this. Americans are depicted as being schemers who use military force to get whatever they want. But what makes it really annoying for viewers is that the Japanese do the exact same thing in this alternate world, often simply using their superior technology to force something, if they don't get their way. It is worth noting, however, that the series doesn't specifically reserve this treatment just for America; pretty much every other nation on the planet save for Japan itself is depicted as some form of villainous.
  • In The Sheep Look Up, John Brunner wants you to know he doesn't think highly of the United States. While none of the novel's world is in great shape, the narrative hammers home that America is actually lagging behind the rest of the West in terms of living conditions, despite being the leading industrial nation on the whole choked-up planet; in fact, this excess of industry is the very reason why the country's in bad shape, for all its claims at progress and prosperity. And yet despite all of that, too many Americans stubbornly refuse to recognise how deeply they're wading in filth;
    What hurt [Michael] most of all, made him feel like a sick child aware of terrible wrongness and yet incapable of explaining it to anyone who might help, was that in spite of the evidence around them, in spite of what their eyes and ears reported—and sometimes their flesh, from bruises, stab wounds, racking coughs, weeping sores—these people believed their way of life was the best in the world, and were prepared to export it at the point of a gun.

    Manhua 
  • School Shock presents the Americans as aggressive diplomats with their default tactic being war threats, however backing down when some kind of resistance is shown (though the resister in this case was China). At least their president has an afro and a big smile.

    Music 
  • American Idiot...sort of. While the Title Track has been the go-to song for the Boorish, the album as a whole deconstructs the Punk movement and by the time "Letterbomb" occurs, JOS realizes he's the real American Idiot, but still counts since mindless rebellion is just as bad as blind obedience.
  • Subverted by Kate Bush with "Pull Out the Pin" (with comments). She's confirmed it's meant to subvert the flavor in interviews.
  • The song "Amerika" by the German band Rammstein basically is all about The Boorish. Don't let the beat or cheery-sounding refrain fool you, the lyrics (and music video) satirize this trope rather blatantly. One of the lines says "this is not a love song" in case you forget it's about America being portrayed as Boorish. The lyrics, however, are more of a mixed flavor, describing how Americans aggressively push their culture and values around the globe because they honestly believe they're the best in the world. The band's synth keyboard player has expressed a vehemently Boorish opinion of America.
    • Ironically much like "America, Fuck Yeah!", "Amerika" became a case of Insult Backfire over time, with quite a few Americans (despite knowing the song's intended purpose) embracing it as an anthem of sorts. A love song it may not be, yet all the same it's hard not to associate its catchy-yet-heavy melody to the USA's Memetic Badass image.
  • "Buy American" by Joywave (who are themselves from Rochester, U.S.A.) is a satirical hot take on the nation's wasteful consumer culture.
  • "51st State" by British band New Model Army.
  • America by Pain of Salvation. Have anti American sentiments ever been this upbeat?
  • "(Let's Play) U.S.A." by Peter Schilling (best known for "Major Tom") is a nasty version of The Boorish with a cheery pop beat.
  • The Brazilian show ComĂ©dia MTV made a parody of The Boorish named ""I'm American", with the singers singing in English (with Portuguese subtitles).
  • "Fucking USA" by South Korean activist Yoon Min-suk, another nasty Boor in the style of "Surfin' USA." It was highly popular among Koreans after the Yangju highway incident and controversy at the 2002 Winter Olympics.
  • "Dear American" by South Korean rock band N.EX.T is another song protesting the Iraq War and the Yangju highway incident, among other things. The lyrics called for the killing of American soldiers, police officers, and their "daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law and fathers," slowly and painfully. note 
    • PSY and a number of other popular Korean artists jointly performed this song with N.EX.T at an anti-American concert in 2004 (he did not write the song, despite some claims). When news of this broke internationally years later, PSY issued a public statement apologizing for doing so.
  • "El Norte es una quimera" ("The North is an illusion") composed by Venezuelan Luis Fragachan, is the lament of a person who goes to the USA to get success and fails so horribly he has to go back to his country. It's implied that most of the complaining is merely Sour Grapes, since the song was inspired by a friend of the composer who decided to go to New York to get success, but the guy went at the height of the Prohibition era note  and along that, the language barrier, and the cultural shock between the cosmopolitan city and the very quaint (at the time) Caracas, the poor dude was so shocked that back in the country he complained on his perceived slights of N.Y., and how most to the returnees came back with a swollen head. Still, too many people sing the thing straight.
    Todo el que va a Neva York note 
    se vuelve tan embustero note 
    que si allá lavaba platos note 
    aquĂ­ dice que era platero note 
  • "This is America," by British band Spacehog, portrays Americans as obsessed with television and video games, ignorant of their own history, violent, "needy, cheap and greedy."
  • "I'm So Bored With The U.S.A.", by The Clash, criticizes the Americanizing of England.

    Podcasts 
  • John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman's podcast The Bugle has "the American" (played by Rory Albanese, whom Oliver works with on The Daily Show), whose entire character is Boorish. For instance, when told that the American dollar is neither the strongest currency in the world nor accepted in other countries: "I don't believe you."

    Print Media 
  • This cartoon comes courtesy of the May 2005 issue of "metall," a German magazine by IG Metall (Germany's largest trade union) with two million issues circulated monthly. The featured article for that issue likened American companies to parasites, draining German companies of their profitability then selling them off later. The article caused significant uproar in Germany, to say the least.

    Professional Wrestling 
  • Almost half of AAA's La Legion Extranjera, foreign thugs used by Konnan in his attempt to gain more power in the company, were from the USA, and it seemed like pretty much any pro wrestler from the country, even natural baby faces like Rikishi, Ron Killings, AJ Styles, Samoa Joe and Mickie James were shoehorned into it. There was also that time Jeff Jarrett tried to rename the Mega Championship belt the "AAA World Heavyweight Championship" even though AAA had no weight classes outside of mini estrellas because that sounded better in English. And Jarrett then insisted on being called "King Of Mexico".
  • IWA Puerto Rico had a bizarre example in "The British Militia", in that one member was actually an insane xenophile from the United States trying to convince Puerto Ricans the UK was a superior island. A straighter example was when Jeff Jarrett launched an invasion of the company using wrestlers from N-TNA in an effort to turn the company into a subsidiary farm league for his own Florida based enterprise.
  • The Professional Wrestling Power Trio\Pseudo Power Stable known as the Real Americans were an interesting inversion of the All-American Face, being two Americans (and one Swiss man) who cut promos and ring entrances that involved either boasting of America's superiority if abroad, or insulting American audiences for not being real patriots. Normally this would merely be an example of Cultural Cringe or This Loser Is You, as The Real American Heroes Tag Team it was based on was, except for the fact the group also made apperances in the Puerto Rican WWC, curiously with the Mexican El Patron Alberto and, more understandably, Puerto Rican Ray Gonzalez as unofficial members. While Dirty Dutch, had a Boricua hating reputation that preceded himself, he was a little embarrassed by the length Patron went to prove Mexico's superiority to Boriquen and apologized to Gonzalez. To show his apology was sincere, Dutch sent Jack Swagger to aid Gonzalez against Eddie and Carlito ColĂłn after the feud with Patron blew over.

    Roleplay 
  • Survival of the Fittest: America as seen in The Program would like to see itself as Beautiful, but is very much Boorish. It's basically modern culture 20 Minutes in the Future, however the main difference is that the country has turned militaristic and nationalistic, and the characters are raised to acknowledge and embrace it.
  • NoPixel: The Randy Wrangler song "USA is Number One" is a Boorish parody of post-9/11 patriotic songs. It talks about wanting to kick Kim Jong-un's ass for causing 9/11, all while throwing around random references to bald eagles, how communism is bad, and how capitalism is good.
    9/11 was bad and it made me sad / We got bald eagles flyin' over this beautiful land / Man I wish them 9/11 planes would've landed...

    Theatre 
  • When discussing the topic of English, Professor Henry Higgins had this to say.
    Higgins: There even are places where English completely disappears. In America they haven't used it in years.
    • Granted, Higgins is also of the opinion that the English language is utterly butchered by most of the folks who speak it, including actual Englishmen.
  • In Madama Butterfly, the American sailor Pinkerton, before his wedding to Butterfly, drinks to the day he'll marry a real American wife. Ironically, the opera was based on an American play, which was allegedly based on a true story.
  • The musical Made in Dagenham features Stetson wearing Mr. Tooley, the Ford executive who makes a dramatic entrance in the second act with the number "This is America", praising America and belittling Britsin with a chorus of soldiers and cheerleaders.

    Web Animation 
  • James Lee: In "Infected By Stupid", James briefly acts like a mid-pandemic Anti-Masker, espousing how basic hygienic precautions are a violation of his freedoms before going on a rant about how much he loves freedom more than anything (complete with the American flag in the background). It then shows that he's basically talking to one guy at a gas-station parking lot, having an emotional breakdown after losing his job.
    James Lee: If a terrorist told me to give up freedom or he would blow up the whole planet, I'd say "well shit, that's a no-brainer. Give me the fuckin' trigger. Click, click click." And if freedom was a man, I'd suck its dick. And I'm against gay marriage. That's just how much I love freedom.
  • The South Korean animated series Pucca has recurring villains Texas Lugie and Sloppy Sue. Everything about them is a distillation of how South Koreans saw Americans circa 2006.
    • Their first appearance has them visiting Sooga to open a fast food restaurant. The food is addictive and highly fattening, causing everyone who eats it to become really fat and out of shape. The wife is also a materialistic shopaholic who goes on a rampage of branding things she wants to buy with a freaking branding iron! Including flammable things!
    • They become recurring villains, and manage to be worse examples of The Boorish in their other appearance, polluting the village for no better reason than sheer disregard for its inhabitants and the environment.
  • RWBY's Kingdom of Atlas is, per Word of God, intentionally written as a reflection of different dark aspects of America. One of the richest people in Atlas is a man whose near-monopoly on a resource people need to survive is built on poor work conditions (leading to the rise of the White Fang) and even dirty dealings. Rich people laugh at the misfortune of a Kingdom when it was under attack by a combination of the White Fang, Grimm, and even their own Kingdoms' faulty security. Add all that to how they treat Mantle (which has been criminally neglected to the point where Grimm could casually walk through a hole in the wall) and Faunus and you got yourself a stew of America's worst qualities.
  • Implied in Terrible Writing Advice's "Governments and Politics": JP suggests that, since his audience is primarily American, explaining the American government would imply that he thinks Americans don't know how their own government works. He then immediately proceeds into explaining the American government.
  • Zero Punctuation:
    • Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, British expat living in Australia, strictly views everything American as Boorish. He devoted a major portion of his reviews of Modern Warfare 4 and Medal of Honor: Airborne to Demonizing the United States and Americans.
    • His review of Killzone 3 also had plenty of vitriol levied at Americans. When it was pointed out to him that the developers of Killzone 3 are Dutch, he tried to justify his rancor by claiming that the game was designed to pander to Americans.
    • At one point, Croshaw considered "moving to that steaming shithole across the ocean" because he was sick of the Australian Media Board's aggressive censorship policies, which he then likened to traditional right-wing conservatism in the States.

    Webcomics 

    Web Original 
  • A distillation of how the British think Americans view the world can be found in the Jigsaw Lounge's "The World According to Americans" map; a badly-drawn atlas full of Global Ignorance and Theme Park descriptions of what few countries or regions are named — with one or two Demonizing jabs added for good measure.
  • SCP Foundation: SCP-50-AE-J is a Desert Eagle that shoots a bald eagle. A bald eagle which proceeds to go absolutely berserk at "anyone who displays Communist beliefs, Russian ancestry, or unpatriotic leanings."
  • Fear, Loathing and Gumbo on the Campaign Trail '72: America under the Donald Rumsfeld administration bases every single policy on anarcho-capitalist/free market principles while doing anything to put down anything that even remotely whiffs of communism - including funding terrorism against Britain's Labour government. The end result is an ultra-right-wing, corporate-authoritarian/quasi-fascist America that even many right-wingers like Nixon, Reagan and Tom Clancy are flat horrified by. All forms of commercial regulation, social welfare and workers' rights are removed and working wages are slashed in half all across the board, leaving millions of working-class Americans in dreadful poverty and slave-like working conditions. All environmental standards are removed too, and corporate pollution and climate change are actively encouraged. President Rumsfeld likes to remove political opponents by diagnosing them with bogus mental health claims and sending them off to Bedlam Houses, and also maintains black-shirts who look for any books which criticise free market economics and burn them. Hollywood becomes a right-wing Propaganda Machine which glorifies slavery and vilifies FDR and the New Deal as communist plots. The U.S. military is sold off and falls under Private Military Contractors who equip soldiers with woefully substandard equipment and even execute their own wounded to avoid paying for medical expenses.
  • Ad Astra Per Aspera: A much more chaotic Reconstruction leads to the United States adopting a militant, autocratic mindset, leading to the steady erosion of democracy. After a series of wars of conquest in the 19th and 20th centuries, the U.S. is reformed into an absolute monarchy. When America is destroyed in a nuclear war in the 23rd century, its colonies in space unite into the Coalition of Western Republics, which can best be described as a mixture of OTL Fifties America and Nazi Germany.
  • No W: After being elected to the vice presidency then ascending to the presidency when a freak accident kills the previous president, Rick Santorum immediately sets about trying to turn America into a "Christian nation". Media deemed "immoral" or "un-American" is banned, creationism is pushed in schools, homosexuals and non-Christians are persecuted, and anyone who speaks out against this is killed or disappeared.
  • The Boorish is parodied in an article on The Onion "China To Overtake U.S. As World's Biggest Asshole by 2020" suggesting that China's growing economic and military strength will make it the future equivalent to Boorish America.
  • The Internet meme "Almost Politically Correct Redneck" is a Double Subversion. As the title suggests, it starts with a steroytypcial redneck about to say something surpsingly PC... only for him to screw up by going back to the Boorish type. Such as supporting his sister's abortion, but disappointed that he won't be a father.

    Web Videos 

    Western Animation 
  • The German-language version of Cats Don't Dance subtly shifts a single line of evil child star Darla Dimple's dialogue to suggest a more cutthroat and purely-for-the-money version of Hollywood:
    (original) Darla: Mister Pussycat, listen to me; you don't have to be good, but you had better be...Big and Loud!...
    (German) Darla: Let me tell you my philosophy: you don't have to be good, just better than them!
  • The Americans in the original series of Captain Scarlet have a tendency to be of the former variety- strapping men, near-glowing skin etc. They're also more likely to get the cliche lines (something that also held true in the newer series).
  • Flushed Away features a stereotypical American tourist (a Texan, to be exact) who teases the Royal Guards and complains how "these Brits don't know the first thing about football" while watching The World Cup.
  • Discussed briefly and subtly in Frosty the Snowman. When Hocus Pocus is miming possible solutions to the fact that Karen is freezing to death, Frosty shoots down the idea of calling the President of the United States. At the time, the President wasn't exactly the most popular among Americans, and he would become even less popular the year after this special was first broadcast.
  • An episode of Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain features The Brain threatening France with a weapon that turns what they love most, cheese, into what they hate most: Stupid American Tourists.

    Other 
  • The whole meme of "'Murica" is based on America the Boorish.

Mixed Examples:

    Advertising 
  • The Dydo company brings you American Coffee. While the review there praises the flavor of the coffee as being rather good (a subversion of how the Japanese usually view American-made coffee), the actual packaging comes off as both a compliment and an insult:
    That is why this amazingly detailed can of "American Coffee" is so attractive — all the cliche glamor of an All American Can, filled with everything the iconic sleazy American lives for! Bad taste? check. Sexy stripper girls? Check! Cool classic car? Check! There is even the American flag with groovy 60's lettering!

    Art 
  • Natalie Baxter's work is bright and colorful — its very nature as soft-sculpture making it all inherently harmless symbolically speaking — all of it was designed to criticize traditional American norms.
    • "Warm Guns" makes a mockery of America's infamous gun-culture.
    • The "Squad" series being rather goofy interpretations of the bald eagle.
    • "Money Quilts" on the double-standard boys and girls from affluent families are expected to live, men expected to take on the family business while women are not supposed to worry about such things and focus on their passions.
    • "Alt Caps" are a critique of internet culture and its dismissal of suffragettes and civil activists.
    • "Bloated Flags" are flamboyant mockups of the American flag, done as a critique of the "opulence over substance" process of the 2016 election.

    Comedy 
  • Comedian Joe DeRosa has a bit here that sits somewhere in the middle of Flavors #1 and #2, admitting that Americans can be boorish, but going up to a visiting American and throwing their own stereotypes in their face is extremely rude, and a really bad look for someone trying to claim the cultural high ground.
  • Another comedian talked about how he mostly enjoyed visiting Europe, but he couldn't stand locals who would immediately treat him like "America's Suggestion Box" whenever he'd introduce himself as an American, as though he was going to return home to the States and go "Okay, fellas, huddle in: First, here's what they think about our education system..."

    Comic Books 
  • A lot of the comic book writers from across the pond, even those that have written Marvel and DC books for years, tend to love turning US-themed superheroes on their ear, basically making them even more jingoistic, or just plain jerkasses, for shock value or to go Darker and Edgier. A handful of heroes still hold out as the fair-minded Beautiful idealists, and ironically their scarcity makes them the more remarkable ones.
  • Garth Ennis has a recurring interest in America, often playing off The Beautiful (the national mythology of America and what the characters strive for) against The Boorish (what tends to be the reality in his strips) and the clashes thereof. Examples of this clash include Tommy Monaghan, Hitman, genuinely respecting and idolizing Superman; and the views of British/Irish immigrants and visitors to the States, all of them noticing and decrying the Boorish parts of America while simultaneously loving the place. Slanted more towards the Boorish are Punisher and Nick Fury, self-admitted sociopaths who attempt to restrict their violence to those who deserve it, while surrounded by corrupt cops and generals who fake terrorist attacks to justify war.
  • One of the recurring themes of Captain America comics is contrasting Cap's Beautiful idealism with what can often be a Boorish reality.
    • During the 1970s, Cap became disillusioned by the atmosphere of political corruption, unjust war and the general jaded mood of the country. For a time he abandoned the stars n' stripes for an all-black, millitaristic bodysuit, and called himself "Nomad: The Man Without a Country."
    • A later storyline in the 1980s (by the same writer, Mark Gruenwald, no less) saw Steve Rogers replaced as Captain America when the army and government decided he wasn't acting in their best interest. His replacement was John Walker, who was as honest and upright as Rogers but had a significantly shorter temper and much more conservative values. As the stresses of the job mounted on him, and especially after his parents were murdered by his enemies, Walker soaked up the essence of Boorish more and more, graduating from "misguided" to "an asshole" to "a lunatic." With help, he managed to revert to simply being a nuanced jerk as the U.S. Agent.
    • In an interesting example (at least of reader reactions), during Civil War reporter Sally Floyd accused Cap of being out of touch with modern America. While it was apparently supposed to be taken seriously, her examples of "modern America" involved American Idol, MySpace, and NASCAR so most (American) readers took it as an insulting Boorish stereotype and began to hate her.
  • Ultimate Captain America is quite a bit less idealistic—he's a mixture of the flavors. One of the famous Ultimate Captain America quotes is (upon being asked to surrender) "Surrender? Do you think this A on my forehead stands for France?"
  • Steve Darnall and Alex Ross' Uncle Sam OGN for DC was an attempt to reconcile the character's Beautiful conceit with a perceived Boorish 'reality'.
  • One of the Yakuza in 7 Yakuza is Shugo Samon, a dyed-blond, fringe jacket/cowboy boot wearing gun nut obsessed with American culture, especially movies and comic books, despite never having even been to the U.S. personally. He represents the Westernization (and, obviously, Americanization specifically) of modern Japanese culture, for better or for worse. He's loud and brash, but a good friend and soldier.
  • In Tex Willer, the protagonist and his pards are shown as an example of The Beautiful, if a rather violent one (and while Tex and Carson are whites, Tiger Jack is a Navajo and Kit Willer is the son Tex had from a Navajo woman), and often contrasted with all sort of criminals and jerks, with the ones Tex finds the worst being the ones (often authority figures) who see themselves as righteous while trying to exterminate an Indian tribe to steal their lands. A classic end scene for a story is a Character Of The Week looking at Tex and his pards leaving in admiration, thinking the world needs more people like them.

    Fan Works 

    Films — Animation 
  • Summer Wars brings in a mix; while Love Machine itself was released by the United States Department of Defense in a deliberate cyber attack on Oz for no other purpose than to test its capabilities, a lot of Americans pitch in their accounts at the climax to bring Love Machine down. Over all, it seems to depict the U.S. Military/government as the bad guysnote  but the citizens themselves as good people.
  • In The Triplets of Belleville, Belleville closely resembles New York City. All of its citizens seen in the background are grotesquely obese. Even the Statue of Liberty is a fat woman holding a cheeseburger. On the other hand, they are portrayed as polite, happy, hard-working, and if they have the time to, helpful to anyone in need.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Orvil Newton from Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours and 11 Minutes) is a brash, reckless and very impulsive character who KO's a guy when his back is turned and endangers the film's damsel, but still is one of the most honest and likable people in the entire race. He even throws the first place (and the astronomical prize he needs to get home again) to save another pilot in distress. Still, he isn't any less of a national caricature than anyone else in the film.
  • Moscow on the Hudson, starring Robin Williams as a Russian immigrant, is a perfect example. The joys and freedoms of Vladimir's new country are mixed with poverty and crime, but the film ends on a hopeful note after Vladimir has established his new life.
  • In The Mummy (1999), the American expedition who rival the British heroes start out as rude jerks, but they get fleshed out as the adventure goes on: you have Mr. Burns (an easygoing and helpful sort who invites Johnathan over for a friendly card game), Mr. Henderson (a brave and hammy pistol-slinging Boisterous Bruiser) and Mr. Daniels (a money-centric Unscrupulous Hero). However Rick is implied to be American and there is no question, he is a good Eaglelander.
  • The protagonist of The Forbidden Kingdom has aspects of both Beautiful and Boorish. He's eager and idealistic, but despite his encyclopedic knowledge of Chop Socky movies, he has no clue how to properly behave in another culture.
  • Amusingly, Persia as depicted in the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time movie comes across as this, seemingly being an Expy/allegory for modern America; a monotheistic empire that's praised for its just and fair system of governance, but also seen as arrogant bullies by less powerful civilizations, with obnoxious taxes and a utter failure to find the Weapons of Mass Destruction.
  • The Host (2006): The monster was created in South Korea by careless Americans, who use brutal tactics to try to cover it up and deal with it. However, a vacationing American soldier bravely attempts to fight off the monster in the beginning of the film. Apparently American officials are evil, but regular Americans are okay.
  • Mr. Smith Goes to Washington seems to start out as Beautiful with the character of Jefferson Smith being basically a walking case of The All-American Boy as a Wide-Eyed Idealist, visiting the Lincoln Memorial and quoting the Constitution. However, once Smith gets to Washington, he has a rude awakening to the reality of political corruption and graft, and sees that even senators he's idolized have sold out to rich party bosses. The film still winds up being mostly idealistic, but not so naive: American ideals are fine, but the American government may not always live up to them.
  • CIA Agent Jack Wade (Joe Don Baker) from the Pierce Brosnan James Bond films was loud and portly, and provided an absurdly casual contrast to Commander Bond's tuxedoed charm. However, he could be counted on to lend his government's support, either officially or unofficially, to Bond's missions.
    Wade: We have no interest in seeing World War III, unless we start it.
  • Tora! Tora! Tora!: Most of the Japanese officers see America as Boorish, but Admiral Yamamoto sees it far more as Beautiful (or at the very least as a Worthy Opponent).
  • Nixon: Richard Nixon addresses the difference between the Beautiful and Boorish outlooks:

    Literature 
  • Many popular British authors, especially pre-1965 or so (among them P. G. Wodehouse, Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle and Dick Francis) have real trouble rendering American characters accurately, providing a revealing look at common stereotypes of the era. The "typical American" of these novels is described as taking things "more free and easy," thus depicted as speaking in a sort of stylized slang used by American mafiosos — which is nevertheless composed according to distinctly British grammar rules. The result can be a little jarring to say the least, especially if the character actually is a gangster, or supposed to be similarly menacing. They tended to lampshade and/or justify this by saying that the American character was deliberately trying to fit in and/or be more comprehensible, or had been living in England for some time, etc.
  • As shows An American, Rudyard Kipling saw America as both a mix of the Beautiful and the Boorish, possessing worst sides of the same traits. He defined this as "childishness." Specific American characters in his books may or may not exhibit it (e.g. Laughton O. Zigler in The Captive sees he had it coming and is quite calm about his misfortune). On the other hand, Kipling married an American woman and lived in the United States for a while. He probably saw both good and bad while he lived here.
  • Empires of Trust describes and compares and likens early to late Republican and Imperial Roman to American psychology of Empire building through historic examples.
  • Island in the Sea of Time: The Bronze Age characters refer to the time-displaced Americans as "the Eagle People". The Beautiful is represented by the Republic, the Boorish by Walker's slave-based empire.
  • Ephraim Kishon wrote on America, among other things, that Americans believe:
    • You can get steaks only in America
    • An American family without an American boy and an American girl at the respective age of nine and seven years isn't a real American family
    • You can learn everything from ...For Dummies books, even "How to become president of the USA: In 10 easy steps".
    • Bismarck is a herring, Frankfurt a sausage factory and Napoleon one of the greatest brandies in world history.
  • An internal example by American Chuck Thompson, Better Off Witout 'Em, while portraying the rest of America as a mixed bag treats the South as an unadulterated example of The Boorish.
  • Jules Verne's Eagleland tends to be mixed-flavor:
    • From the Earth to the Moon: In a glorious democratic melting pot of ethnic harmony and scientific progress, ridiculously trigger-happy Americans with names like Impey Barbicane decide to use the Moon as their next target! Hilarity Ensues.
    • Around the World in Eighty Days: American trains are amazing! American train passengers, not so much. Adventure ensues.
    • Robur the Conqueror: High-powered and boorish American inventors decide ballooning is Serious Business, and build a Cool Airship to prove it ... but a non-American Mad Scientist with a much better aircraft design has other ideas. Kidnapping ensues!
    • The Mysterious Island: Five Union Americans escape from a Confederate prison and use their wits and knowledge to survive and even rebuild a functional society on their island, intending for it to be a new state. Though Nab is black, and is automatically treated as a servant (which he chooses to be, being a freed slave), though this falls into Fair for Its Day.
  • In The Piccadilly Murder by Anthony Berkeley, Harold J. Benson "presented a perfect replica of the popular English idea of the travelling American" — ie, The Boorish. He really is American, but is obviously trying far too hard to convince everyone of the fact.
  • Despite Terry Pratchett's stated decree that no part of the Discworld should resemble North America, this inevitably crept in over the life of the series. the Tezuman Empire is an Expy of pre-Conquest Mexico; the existence of a people not unlike Red Indians was revealed in Reaper Man; Witches Abroad saw a Louisiana-bayou place with a Cajun vibe, complete with riverboats and gamblers in white suits with those odd string ties... The posthumously published Complete Discworld Atlas note  gave into this reality. A large and previously undescribed tranche of land was christened "The Great Outdoors", and given a vibe which appears to be the Frontier USA of the nineteenth century with a lot of Canada slipping in by default. It has majestic mountains and rivers, fur-traders, refugees from wars and religious persecution fleeing here to make a new life, salt-flats around a salt lake populated by members of a strict and heretical Omnian sect...

    Music 

    Pro Wrestling 
  • While technically part of the United States itself, a lot of Puerto Ricans really don't look at themselves that way, translating to Boorish Eaglelanders being fairly common in their promotions, such as WWC, usually competing with the ever popular Foreign Wrestling Heel for the spot of most hated wrestler. A prime example being Dennis Rivera of the Puerto Rico Nationalist Party, which seeks independence from the USA, being a top baby face in WWL. The "malo Americano" practice predates him but Sucio Dutch Mantel really cemented it, as his gimmick consisted almost entirely of telling Puerto Ricans how terrible their island and its culture was, often using insults typical of Puerto Ricans who in fact left the island. Oh and Ox Baker, an out an out, murderer who bragged about getting away with it. Hard to get worse than that. On the other hand, many wrestlers who usually worked under card in 50 states and spent a brief time in Puerto Rico antagonizing the locals instead became beloved and fondly spoken of years after they left, such as Bruiser Brody, Abyss, BJ Whitmer or The World's Greatest Tag Team. There are even a few, such as Jacqueline, Jeff Hardy and Sting, booked as Beautiful Eaglelanders upon debut.
  • WWC even had a "Guapa Americana" vs "Mala Americana" feud; Mickie James vs ODB
  • Wrestlers from the USA tend to go through hazing in REINA, sometimes subtley, sometime overtly such as the case of Luscious Latasha's brief runs. The wrestlers do tend to be a bit pompous, so taking them down a peg is understandable, but their mistreatment usually continues long after the fact and ends up turning them into fan favorites, such as when Mia Yim got a loving send off when her contract expired.

    Tabletop Games 
  • New Horizon has Xanadu, a mostly Beautiful stereotype that happens to be quite racist. Of course, this is a faction on an alien colony in the future instead of America proper but...
  • Andoran from the Pathfinder RPG is an idealized colonial-era Fantasy Counterpart Culture example that leans towards Beautiful. They're Neutral Good and everyone acknowledges that their hearts are in the right place, but they're also seen as pushy and imperialistic, and their behavior often falls short of their ideals.
  • The Rocket Age America is a mixed flavour version. The American Army on Mars is busy empire building and in a cold war with the State Department. However, there's also the Rocket Rangers, possibly the most inclusive and idealistic organisation in the solar system, that has frequently gone against government policy to do the right thing.
  • Battletech has two nations that project an American-style 'defenders of freedom and liberty' image to the rest of the Inner Sphere: The Federated Suns and the Taurian Concordat. The former is an imperialist superpower that frequently 'liberates' worlds from the neighbouring Capellan Confederation and is ruled by a First Prince, albeit with a vestigial constitution that guarantees some rights for its citizens. The Concordat, meanwhile, is a xenophobic and isolated nation-under-siege who neighbours the aforementioned Suns; while its citizens do indeed enjoy the most iron-clad constitutional and legal protections of them all (including freedom of the press, travel, association and religion), the Concordat's general irrelevance in the political landscape means they're looked upon as little more than a curiosity prone to Cultural Posturing by outsiders.

    Theatre 
  • 1776, being based on the Declaration of Independence during the American revolution, deliberately chooses a de-mythologized picture of the Continental Congress in all its messy glory. They ultimately choose to break away from the British Empire and chart their own destinies for admirable reasons... and in the process, compromise on important issues like the inherent hypocrisy of preaching freedom while maintaining the institution of slavery.
  • West Side Story has the song "America", which contrasts the two types. The women showcase the Beautiful, pointing out the freedom and economic opportunities America offers, whereas the men are solidly in the Boorish camp, pointing out the poor housing in the slums, casual racism holding them back and how they are forced by circumstances to either become victims or perpetrators of crime. The song's lyrics even out to pro-American, but is contrasted with its very blatantly Latin-inspired sound.

    Webcomics 
  • Scandinavia and the World:
    • Brother/Sister America are mostly Boorish caricatures, but done in a good-natured enough way that it can be classified as a mix. Brother America tries very hard to be The Beautiful, but he is too impulsive and oblivious to actually pull it off. Their Beautiful tendencies are shown when the Scandinavians visit America, although they're still kind of jerks in a sort of teenagerish way.
    • This comic takes the trope head-on: basically, America is that immature fratboy who you quickly find out is really friendly and good-hearted but is also a very typical fratboy.
    • What's more, both siblings actually embody the stereotypes from both of America's political sectors. Brother America is a dedicated right-winger who opposes gun control, gay rights, and immigration while being religious, and Sister America is a pastiche of Hollywood liberalism and vanity, with her fake boobs, airhead tendencies, and rabid support of gay rights to the extent that she ships Denmark and Norway. The author and most of the comic's fanbase have a lot more in common with Sister America socially and politically, but that hasn't stopped them from satirizing the American left just like the American right.
  • Uncle Sam from Sinfest probably counts simply because, while he is portrayed as being a clueless egomaniac with borderline tyrannical habits, he is also generally portrayed as wanting to do the right thing and often just completely misunderstanding what that is and does seem to genuinely love his wife. Of course, he's mostly abandoned those aspects since he cheated on his wife inside a computer (best not to question how this happened).

    Western Animation 
  • Wheeler, the sole American member of the team in Captain Planet and the Planeteers, is the "mixed" variation. He perpetually holds the Strawman Ball, is the most prone to fighting, and incorrigibly hits on most attractive women in the victinity (especially Linka). He's also deeply good-natured (Ma-Ti even praises the amount of heart he has in one episode) and fiercely protective.
  • Both the Beautiful and Boorish perceptions of America get parodied in the Finnish satirical animation Pasila. The conversation paraphrased:
    Helga: Americans are great people!
    Pöysti: Americans are idiots.
    Routalempi: Yeah, that's so true.
    Pöysti: Now, don't generalise, there are lots of smart people there too. [gets a flat stare from everybody] What?!
  • Liberty's Kids is quite literally America the Beautiful: The Animated Series, however it still does shine a light on the Boorish side on occasion when it comes to slavery. And the show's usage of the trope is mainly why it has been forced into No Export for You in a lot of countries.

Alternative Title(s): America The Boorish, Murica

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West Side Story- America

Life can be bright in America! If you're all white in America!

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5 (13 votes)

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