- For other uses of the term, see Ugly American (disambiguation).
Ugly American is an epithet used to refer to perceptions of arrogant, demeaning, thoughtless behaviors of Americans at home or abroad. The term originated as the title of a 1958 book by authors William Lederer and Eugene Burdick, The Ugly American. The film adaptation of the novel came out in 1963, directed by George Englund and starring Marlon Brando. Englund was nominated for a Golden Globe award as director of the film. In the context of this novel, the title alludes to both positive and negative attributes of its characters. The authors state that one of the "good" characters is "ugly" looking to create a contrast with the "bad" characters who were "handsome". In the book, the authors' "good" characters used their skills and resources to make a positive change in the lives of villagers in Southeast Asia and the "bad" characters used their skills and resources for other purposes. For example there is an "ugly" engineer who helps villagers with an irrigation system, and a "handsome" Ambassador who does not care about what happens to the people on the village level. The novel weaves many separate stories with these kinds of counterpoints of an "ugly American". The best-selling, loosely fictional account included descriptions of blundering, corrupt, and incompetent behaviors of Americans in Southeast Asia that were involved with American foreign aid. The book led to a move by President Dwight Eisenhower to study and reform American aid programs in the region. In the book, a fictional Burmese journalist wrote, "For some reason, the people I meet in my country are not the same as the ones I knew in the United States. A mysterious change seems to come over Americans when they go to a foreign land. They isolate themselves socially. They live pretentiously. They're loud and ostentatious. Perhaps they're frightened and defensive, or maybe they're not properly trained and make mistakes out of ignorance."
