the Ugly American

But beneath those time-honored stereotypes of the “ugly American” lies another one, more dimly apprehended and shadowed by fear, next to which the loud, innocent ignorance of Kimberly and Justin — who have ventured forth from Applebee-land to Venice or Edinburgh or the castles of the Rhineland largely to say they have done so — seems positively benevolent.

I'd already heard the expression "the ugly American" — although I then knew nothing about the prophetic 1958 novel with that title about U.S. diplomatic bumbling in southeast Asia in the midst of the Cold War — and it seemed to me that those interlopers in France fit the term perfectly.

“We try so hard not to be the ugly American,” one woman lamented.

“We try so hard not to be the ugly American, and here is Emily with her terrible accent and garish clothing, shouting at French people in English and expecting them to understand,” she said.

The Ugly American trope is nothing new, of course.