Eagle Land

Flavor #1

When viewed from the outside, or sometimes even from the inside, the United States of America comes in different flavors.

Flavor 1: America, Fuck Yeah!

A country full of proud patriots who reside in a nearly Utopian society—a land of progress, wealth, and luck, where people are able to leave the past behind to make new lives for themselves. In short, this is the flavor that embodies the American Dream. Sometimes based on American media during The Fifties, which portrayed the United States of America as a homey, tradition-sticking, almost saccharine place built on nuclear families, family values, love, and old-fashioned simple mindsets.

Flavor #2


Flavor 2: Yeah, Fuck America!

A wretched country full of ignorant assholes who got lucky and like to hide behind their inflated military budget. Americans come into your country either as tourists or invaders, thinking that they own the place and that they rightfully deserve everything. Not only are they less intelligent and less cultured than you, but they also have the gall to look down and patronize you, while proudly waving around the little flags which they carry around everywhere. They're either fat (with a diet solely consisting of fast food and TV dinners), Moral Guardians, trigger-happy cowboys from the Deep South, or shameless anorexic rich bitches from Hollywood California. Oh, and they suck at geography. Always.


Mixed Flavor

Aspiring to complexity and objectiveness, some present the United States less simplistically. Others series just decide to split the difference, treating America as the Boisterous Bruiser of nations—rude, crude, clueless, obnoxious, and vaguely psychotic, but still good-natured beneath it all. A famous Winston Churchill quote sums up this portrayal: "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing--after they've tried everything else."

This Trope is about outsiders looking at the US, so some information here might be heavily stereotyped and culturally offensive to actual Americans. If you happen to see a work that portrays the United States or Americans as a whole as Flavor #2, but it's an American production, that's a case of Cultural Cringe; likewise, an American indulging in Flavor #1 is merely a case of Creator Provincialism. If the work in question doesn't delve into judgment but refers to the US culture and history by both structuralist and functionalist examples then you're probably reading an in-depth history book.

Subtropes include:

Examples of Eagle Land include:

Flavor 1

Anime and Manga

  • In what has to be the pinnacle of a type 1 American in anime, or hell any medium, we have Roy Fokker from Super Dimension Fortress Macross who plays the role of Big Brother Mentor and The Lancer, though he is a bit of Handsome Lech. However, he is very devoted to Claudia.
  • G Gundam's Chibodee Crockett. Take Roy Fokker, Muhammad Ali, Stephen Colbert, and Toby Keith. Mix well, surround with hot young women, and stick in a robot football player/boxer/cowboy/surfer wearing star-spangled shorts. Truly a real American.
  • Aries of Mai-Otome and Mai-Otome Zwei has some definite parallels to the US, from a suspiciously Pentagon-like structure to the attitude of Brigadier General Haruka Armitage, a Determinator to the extreme who often charges in with little to no plan. Aries itself is mainly type 1 being one of the good nations with Yukino being a calm assertive leader who balances out Haruka.
  • GaoGaiGar is probably one of the most positive depictions of America by non-American properties. Swan White and her brother Stallion are kind, noble, and friendly—if a bit histrionic, tending toward cries of "Oh No!" or "Oh My God!" (or, once, "Jesus!"), as well as speaking in odd accents; Dr. Liger, who presumably emigrated from Japan, is a genius scientist well as a hoverboard-riding mohawked iconoclast; and the American Brave Robo Mic Sounders the Thirteenth, while speaking in gratuitous Engrish in his childlike Cosmo mode ("MAI FRENDZU" is a favorite phrase), is probably the second most powerful robot built by Earth. So, in general, Americans are smart, polite, friendly, a bit openly emotional by Japanese standards, and possessed of The Power of Rock. Sounds about right, actually.
  • Subversion: In Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad, the eponymous band was, according to the opening song, "made to hit in America," and the band trying to make it over there was the subject of much of the series. However, their idea of fitting in is wearing t-shirts that say "Jesus is Coming", and America is shown rather realistically (despite some pretty bad Engrish signage).
  • Kimagure Orange Road both subverts it (manga) and plays it straight (OVA). In the manga story, Kyosuke, Madoka, and a new girl Sayuri (not Hikaru) find themselves on vacation in Hawaii. One day, Sayuri disappears after going to her room to change. After unsuccessfully searching for her, they believe her to have been kidnapped. Later, they get a phone call in their hotel room, telling them to go to certain locations, ending in a yacht in the harbor. The owner of the yacht tells them to spend the night, and that he'll be back in the morning with their breakfast. Since neither of them know what "breakfast" means, they assume it is something rather sinister. After a night of drinking, the owner returns, brings them their food, and produces a gun...which happens to be a lighter for his pipe. Turns out they were mistaken for a newlywed couple who had ordered a honeymoon package of sorts, and told to go to their locations. And Sayuri had gone off to a bar to hunt guys, completely forgetting about her friends. The OVA, however, had Hikaru actually being kidnapped by crazy Mooks with guns, and ended with a final shootout, with the police (or any sensible Americans) nowhere to be seen.
  • The Yoroiden Samurai Troopers/Ronin Warriors OAV "Gaiden" takes place mostly in New York City, although they manage to feature some action in Los Angeles towards the end for good measure. Apparently, the OAV's Big Bad carries out his attacks in Manhattan even though his base of operations is located in L.A. The 3000-mile distance between the two cities doesn't mean anything to him...or to the writers.
  • Pluto's America expy "Thracia" is fairly benign, although its leader is quick to give power to the Machine Behind The Man.
  • The "Hollywood World" episode of Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi could be called a Type 1, insofar as it is a love letter to Hollywood cinema.


Comic Books

Film

  • 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 classic Type 1: loud and rough around the edges, but the most honest, fair and likable guy you'll care to meet. He even throws the race (and the astronomical prize he needs to get home again) to save another pilot in distress.
  • Black Hawk Down: The Dragon sarcastically claims that Americans are Type 1, who don't drink, don't smoke, and live long, healthy, uninteresting lives.


Literature

  • Dracula has a pretty good example of type 1 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."


Live-Action TV

  • An episode of Samurai Sentai Shinkenger features an American who's more eager than intelligent when it comes to learning the ways of the samurai.
  • A Bit of Fry and Laurie used this trope more than once, most memorably in song form, when Hugh Laurie, wearing a plaid flannel shirt and a headband (he was making fun of Bruce Springsteen, obviously overlooking the fact that the song "Born in the USA" is actually condescending of America), sang a song that consisted only of the words "...America, America, America..." and "...the States, the States, the States..." and ended with Stephen Fry punching him in the stomach.


Music

  • "American Woman," originally by The Guess Who, painted the U.S. as Flavor 2. 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 Flavor 1 in style regardless of its lyrics. Incidentally, The Guess Who claimed American Woman was never intended to be anti-American in the first place.
    • Considering the man who wrote the song later took American citizenship, This Troper is inclined to believe them.
  • 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.

Radio

  • On June 5, 1973,[1] 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). 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 Flavor 2 lens, the broadcast again made the rounds, this time on the Internet.


Video Games

  • Eagleland, the setting of the EarthBound/MOTHER franchise and an an affectionate homage to America as viewed through the lens of a foreigner interpreting the place based on American media, that falls squarely in the bounds of Type 1. MOTHER actually flat-out called it "rural America". Mother 3 is an interesting example. It starts with a more rural version of Type 1. This gets twisted into Type 2 when the villains arrive and is unrecognizable by the final chapter.
  • In Pokémon Red and Blue, their sequels, and their remakes, the Gym Leader Lt. Surge is Type 1. He appears to have the usual good sportsmanship required to be a gym leader and he is even said to be a war hero (as noted below, though, many adaptations make him a Type 2).
    • The setting of Pokémon Black and White, called Unova (Isshu in the Japanese versions), is based on New York City, where the previous games were based on regions of Japan. There are football players, southern belles, talk about the greatness of diversity, etc. - it even includes a literal American Eagle in the Pokémon Braviary.
    • Pokémon Colosseum, however, takes place in a crime ridden wasteland with the cowboy themed "rider" trainer class, "based on" (and yet somehow has a port) Phoenix, Arizona.
  • Depending on whom you ask, Metal Wolf Chaos could be seen as a parody of the Patriotic Fervor that all Americans are assumed to have as well as an exaggeration of their supposed Boisterous Bruiser nature or the most awesome portrayal of the President of the Great United States of America (FUCK YEAH!!!) ever. Most tend to prefer the latter.
    • The giant mecha and the portrayal of a president saving the country by destroying large swaths of it may influence the decision.
    • Having any head of state personally fighting a one-man war to unambiguously defend his country's ideals makes the game fall into the "awesome" category. That the Japanese game designers chose America is simply flattering, even if it wasn't meant that way... though they did choose to slap him into the epitome of Japanese awesomeness, a suit of robot armor.
  • Urban Chaos: Riot Response tends towards flavor one - loading screens tend to either have eagles or American flags, and the true heroes are shown to be firefighters and paramedics. (Plus the main protagonist, a cop with License to Kill - something that actually terrifies many hardcore gun-supportin' conservatives). The bad guys' ultimate goal? Show America how much they suck, and how they need to die.
  • Disgaea has an odd example of this trope. Although not blatantly stated to be American, CAPTAIN GORDON, DEFENDER OF EARTH! and his crew are an Affectionate Parody of the classic view of American sci-fi heroes and television shows from the mid-20th century, particularly Flash Gordon and Lost in Space. The rest of the Earth Defense Force seems to also be fashioned after classic American sci-fi as well. Interesting in that the two sets of characters seem to represent both of the above types, with the heroic Defenders of Earth crew portraying the first type, and the Earth's invasion army portraying the second.
    • Jennifer, in the Japanese version, routinely blurts out incredibly stereotypical American things: "Jesus!", "Oh my gaw!", and "OH!", for starters.
    • Turn the Greek Chorus on in the DS port, and when Gordon tells Carter to have a parade ready for his triumphant return, and the Prinny says "This is a typical American victory speech. And let's not forget the 'smart American' joke, either."
  • Subverted in EVE Online: the Gallente Federation is clearly modeled on the United States (more type 1). Everyone drinks their soft drinks and watches their entertainment, they bang on about freedom all the time, and their government has a Senate, President, and Supreme Court. The subversion? They're actually French.
  • Street Fighter II introduced Guile. Guile is a tattooed, buff military man, but he's a decent guy and is considered one of the good guys, even becoming the main character in some Western adaptations.
  • Persona 2 has Mr. Tominaga, a chiropractor who is obsessed with American culture. He has patches such as NASA and FBI on his jacket, wears a red and white striped shirt and a blue with white stars tie, has an American flag in his office, and is convinced that his Goldfingeeeeers can cure anything. Interestingly enough, he's Japanese but studied chiropractic in America. Amusingly, wearing a FBI patch, depending on context, could be a full on federal crime in the United States. Pretending to be a law enforcement officer is serious business.
  • Sonic's personality is said to be derived from free roaming western heroes who go where the wind takes them, a type 1 style America. Imagine the typical "free spirit" cowboy (in contrast to the "law man" cowboy) and you have Sonic in a nut shell.


Web Comics


Western Animation

  • The Big Guy from Big Guy and Rusty The Boy Robot is a solid Type 1. Lines like "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.


Other

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 grls? Check! Cool classic car? Check! There is even the american flag with groovy 60's lettering!

  • This Google.com logo for the 4th of July, 2011 is filled with all sorts of American patriotic marks, including a bald eagle and a surburban house and, accentuated by a rainbow.


Flavor 2

Anime & Manga

  • In one of the earlier books in the manga version of Ah! My Goddess, Keiichi races against two students from a California technical institute. They are shown as hypercompetitive, cheating, and, in the girl's case, obsessed with looks.
  • 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 a Funny Afro and a big smile.
  • Carrie from Bamboo Blade is depicted as a somewhat stereotypical American type 2. She is obnoxious and in-your-face, extremely arrogant, and generally disregards the traditional rules of Kendo in favor of practices she thinks are more cool. However, by the end of the anime series, she and her rival Miya-Miya do seem to have a grudging respect for one another.
  • The third episode of the 1990s OVAs of Black Jack features the "Federal Unites," complete with shots of the Statue of Liberty. This Eagle Land is a corrupt, imperialist bully bent on controlling and oppressing weaker nations for the sake of their resources. This makes it very satisfying when Dr. Black Jack beats the crap out of the Vice President for murdering his patient. Black Jack is generally a very anti-establishment work anyway, so it's likely that this was just more of the "anyone with power is a corrupt dick" mindset than an anti-American one.
  • Blood Plus: This one wins hands-down for Eagleland #2 in anime (Condi and Rummy are raising an army of vampires. Well, not personally. Yes, this is seriously the anime's plot). The writers balanced this (somewhat) through the characters of David and the American members of Red Shield.
    • In the Japanese version they outright left the French Van Aragano to die because he wasn't American(this was changed in the English dub to the more plausible reason of "you caused all of this so you can stay".)
  • Flavor 2 shows up in Darker than Black a couple of times. In the first season, the guy overseeing the American embassy is a stuck-up idiot who deliberately gets in the way of Misaki Kirihara's attempts to prevent a terrorist attack by The Syndicate, and won't even let the Japanese police in to help security when "someone" drops a smoke bomb outside as an obvious distraction, which leads to the immortal line: "Don't test my patience-" * KABOOM* . In the second season, attempts by the American government to restore their superpower status are one of the causes of the Melee a Trois.
    • It's too mind-screwy to really tell, but the ending of the second season seems to cement America as this version it essentially implies they successfully invade/conquer Japan.
  • An episode of Excel Saga was set in Flavor 2 Eagleland, with a humongous New York that seemed to be nothing but Mafiosi and slums. Obviously Played for Laughs, though; Excel immediately recognizes that she is in America by landing "...in the very definition of a slum."
    • She tries to interact with the locals on their own level, hilariously badly. In the dub, she just spits out as many stereotyped gang-slang phrases she can think of; the trivia tags feature notes that in the original version it was an even more eclectic collection of vaguely offensive faux- (and not-so-faux) Americanisms.
  • In Eyeshield 21, Leonard Apollo, the coach of the Nasa Aliens, is definitely an example of the latter type. His players are pretty nice guys, but Apollo is an overbearing blowhard who's bitter about his own failed dream of becoming a pro football player. This is actually a step down from the manga, as there Apollo is actually blatantly racist.
    • He got better. He has softened up to Panther, the one he had despised so much, but also the one who admires him for his hardships and determination, to the point that he is willing to teach his trade in return for becoming a running back. It improves him so much.
    • Ironically enough, Hiruma actually exhibits the most type 2 qualities, despite being ethnically Japanese and having lived in Japan his entire life. He list of type 2 qualities include:
    • Loudness, lack of personal space, rudeness, crudeness, violence, sadism, trigger happy, militant leadership, boisterousness, use of intimidation, a "might-equals-right" (bully) mindset, ruthless ambition, fluency in English, cheerful psychoticness, and, of course, an undying love of football. He's even blonde and pale skinned! Just about the only traits he's missing are being fat and stupid (two things he's the complete opposite of).
  • Episodes 10 and 11 of Genshiken Season 2. Angela is shown as riding roughshod over all cultural sensitivities in Japan, in an almost painful caricature.
  • Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex contains a particularly obnoxious example of type 2 in the infamous episode 10; a major plot point revolves around the "American Empire" sanctioning their forces to commit atrocious war crimes in South America, which might have been marginally forgivable given the series' alternate-future setting (in which supplemental materials reveal that America has undergone a second Civil War), but the depiction of the Japanese-American characters as ugly, condescending, manipulative cowards really has no excuse. Needless to say, some American fans like to ignore that episode.
    • It is worth noting that the "American Empire" is NOT the United States, but one of two break-away nations from the US (the other being the far-left Ameri Soviet Alliance (that's seriously what they're called)). While this is barely touched on in the series (though made explicitly clear in the manga) besides a shot of the US terrirories split into 3 on a map in the background, and brief mentions of the USA itself, it becomes more apparent in the second season, particularly at the end of the final episode, where the three Americas are each mentioned, seperately. Also worth noting that the CIA agents in the aforementioned episode look even more Japanese than the Japanese main characters, and the American Empire is seen working with Japan later in the series. Stacked together as a whole, the entire thing comes off as a very hesitant use of type 2.
  • The You're Under Arrest: No Mercy special had the two Lovely Angels of the show, already with a reputation in their traffic department back in Tokyo for excessive "enthusiasm", go on an exchange program of sorts to Los Angeles, where they are allowed to hunt down stolen car and gun dealers with shotguns. The other Inexplicably Identical Individuals—members of the LAPD, for that matter, see nothing wrong with threatening to shoot a suspect for being "criminal scum".
  • Early '90s show Mad Bull 34 sends a Japanese policeman on exchange to New York's 34th precinct to be buddies with "Sleepy" John Estes, the most violent cop on the force, who cleans up the Big Apple's crime problem with shotguns, grenades, and a wanton disregard for legal procedure.
  • Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro features possibly the pinnacle of type II Eagleland, ironically during a trip to a traditional Japanese Hot Spring. As well as ticking all the Phenotype Stereotype boxes (blond hair, blue eyes, large nose), and having a surprisingly plausible accent (until he has to speak English...), he whistles the "Star-Spangled Banner" to himself, hates Japanese culture, but pretends to love it just to get close to a woman, threatens to sue for the slightest slight, keeps a massive revolver in his pants, kills a woman for refusing to give him "her resources" (her love), thinks that losing his pride is reasonable grounds for self-defense and is obsessed with working out to the point of walking around shirtless, dressed like someone from an L.A. street gang. Oh, and he calls America "a law enforcing Empire" which "raised [him] to have an emotionless heart". The kicker is that the episode ends as An Aesop about how people shouldn't be so narrow minded and intolerant of other people's culture.

In a later chapter that arc's first villain reveals that he used the poor man as the first test subject for the electronic drug, which exaggerates something people like in order to warp them into killers making this an Exploited Trope: he most likely picked the American instead of his other graduate students because he thought people would fall for it, and he was right. This turns that story's moral about xenophobia into a Space Whale Aesop: don't miss important clues because of xenophobic assumptions about Americans or a computer might take over the world.

  • The Marmalade Boy anime has several characters who incarnated diverse variations of Eagleland #2. The one who shows up more often is Michael Grant, who started learning Japanese after watching several Japanese movies, acts like an overactive Genki Boy and is quite fixated on his host sister, Miki. Also, we have Yuu's American friends and schoolmates: a Hot-Blooded semi Jerk Jock (Brian), a blonde Clingy Jealous Girl (Jenny), a sweet and homely Cool Big Sis (Doris) and young man who pretends to be sexually ambiguous to a degree (Bill).
  • The German/Japanese Asuka Langley Soryuu of Neon Genesis Evangelion has American citizenship and lived there for a time, possibly just to hint at her loud showboating personality. On the other hand, at the time the anime begins, she's thirteen, and she has already graduated from college "last year"—which does at least run counter to the Americans-are-idiots cliche. Of course, the only person who ever mentions that Asuka is a college graduate is Asuka herself, and given her personality, that might be best to take with a grain of salt...
    • She also knows phsyics second-nature, being able to answer all Shinji's homework without even being able to read it, and also speaks at least two languages fluently (it can be assumed she also knows English from living in the States). I think her word is pretty good.
  • In the Anime Ping Pong Club the tall, hairy, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, extremely smelly Mitchell Tanabe is..you guessed it. American.
  • Team Rocket's Meowth from the Pokémon anime comes from California, and grew up in Hollywood. He went there as a lonely kitten to find happiness but it was rough there too and he was mistreated by almost everyone from a baseball team to a chef. Meowth had to join a gang and steal food to survive. This is not a Woolseyism and is true even in the original Japanese version. The rich lady's Meowth, Meowzie, who Meowth fell in love with, is humorously named Maddo NYA in that version.
    • Also applied to James's background as his parents are overbearing and insensitive Gone with the Wind-style billionaires. Again not a Woolseyism.
    • While Lt. Surge is a Type 1 in the games, in the anime he is the stereotypical "American bully," taunting children and having his bigger Pokémon beat up on them while he calls them "babies".
    • In the Pokémon Special manga he is even worse: a power-hungry Psycho for Hire that climbed to the top ranks of Team Rocket and got his jollies beating the crap out of a teenage boy with a lightning BFG and an enslaved minor Physical God.
  • 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?
  • Magical Project S has a brief sequence at the White House, where it shows the President as some gullible idiot willing to dump 60 billion dollars into a satellite surveillance system created by a 12 year old Genki Girl Mad Scientist for "military purposes". It then suggests that the security there isn't just incompetent, but also unobservant as said scientist also converted the White House into a rocket launch pad while they were "out on their nightly business".

"Ohhhhhhhh, I'm the president."

  • Principal Kuno from Ranma ½, a truly bizarre character with a penchant for loud shirts and whose catch phrase is "Oh my God!" Not actually American, but a Japanese citizen who spent a few years in the States (specifically Hawaii) and "went native"—though he was already insane before then, he just picked up "Ugly American Tourist" traits by doing so.
  • The American team in the baseball episode of Samurai Champloo is a definite type 2. They are portrayed as blatantly cheating, violent, murderous thugs who consider the Japanese team to be ignorant savages. They also keep going on and on about American superiority. When the game dissolves into a beaning match which ends with Mugen as the last man standing, he then yells "Go back to your own damn country!" The narrator then helpfully adds that the Americans went home in shame, with a profound fear of the Japanese people.
  • Shin Getter Robo Armageddon: After the apocalypse, the remaining nations struggle to survive against immortal aliens. A group of Americans come onto the Japanese base and start trying to kill everyone and destroy Shin Getter. Their reason? They think the Japanese caused the disaster that flooded the surface with Getter radiation, killing about 90% of the population, and drove them underground in truth, the UN over-reacted and launched a nuke at the, at the time, highly volatile Shin Dragon. Gai calls them out on this, asking why the Japanese would drop the bomb on themselves.
    • They have a Heel Face Turn of sorts near the end of the OVA. One of the American pilots basically realizes he was being a jackass, and comments that using getter rays doesn't make someone evil. Later on the American pilots (along with everyone else) show up to defend a space station, so that the Getter Team can go on the offensive.
    • In the original Getter Robo series and the Shin Getter Robo vs Neo Getter Robo OAV, we get the Texas Mack robot unit shaped as a cowboy and its horse, piloted by the siblings Jack and Mary King. The depictions of Jack King vary as well; in the original Getter Robo, he was so Flavor 2 that even the Japanese found it a bit ridiculous and offensive. In Shin Vs. Neo, however, he at first appears to be Flavor 2 (a bit of a jerk, refusing to use Japanese, speaking bluntly, etc.) but quickly shows that he's willing to defend his country and his allies, even at great personal risk, without so much as a half-moment of hesitation.
      • Latter does so speaking absolutely horrid and, at the same time, absolutely hilarious Engrish.
      • The Americans in Getter Robo Go are not the nicest people. They are grateful for Getter's help but won't share parts due Japan's past history of not assisting allies, specifically when Japan needed oil during the Gulf War and not helping. American pilot Schwartz takes the cake and is a total racist that hates everything non-white. He does start to realize he was wrong and his co-pilot was always stopping from picking on the Japanese.
  • Let's not forget "Bandit" Keith Steve Howard from Yu-Gi-Oh!, both an American and a ruthless dirty cheater, who has a Stars and Stripes bandanna. He even pulls a gun on Pegasus when he loses! Of course, Pegasus himself is American... and a flamboyant, childlike billionaire. Or Rebecca Hopkins/Hawkins, American champion, a cute little girl with a teddy bear... whose Catch Phrase is "God damn". Rebecca gets a little better later on, but still. Not to mention the shallow, selfish movie star Jean-Claude Magnum. In America.
    • In the Abridged Series, Yugi states it himself: "So let me get this straight. The only characters on this show who represent America are Jean Claude Magnum, Rebecca Hawkins, Maximilian Pegasus, and Bandit Keith. Is it just me, or is Yu-Gi-Oh the most xenophobic show ever?"
  • Kaiji Kawaguchi's The Silent Service flaunts a very strong Japanese nationalist (and anti-U.S.) message through this flavor; a submarine jointly developed by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force and US Navy (and crewed by JMSDF sailors) goes rogue, declaring itself an independent nation—then proceeds to sink multiple U.S. warships. A flavor-defining moment: the U.S. government draws up plans for a full-scale invasion of Japan ... over a single rogue submarine.
  • The manga version of Bokurano portrays America this way, even though Americans themselves are very rarely shown. Characters usually speak with disgust about the United States, saying that the country is stuck thinking it's the world's sole superpower, and worrying that the U.S. may invade Japan, using the manga's events as a pretext. In fact, the U.S. never actually does anything antagonistic in the manga.
  • While America doesn't make an appearance until one of the final episodes of Speed Grapher, the portrayal is definitely this type. The American President (very clearly George W. Bush in the dub) is among the world leaders discussing dealing with the situation in Japan, and they launch missiles into the middle of Tokyo as a response, and their motives for doing this are completely corrupt. Admittedly, the series also presents all Japanese politicians (and arguably all politicians in general) as corrupt.
  • Heroman, while definitely a poster child for Type 1 at first glance, seems to be headed this way as of recent episodes, with the government actively trying to capture Heroman, as he poses a threat to the country.
  • Azumanga Daioh: When Osaka learns Chiyo plans to study abroad, she seems to think Chiyo will get shot the minute she steps off the plane.

Comic Books

  • Dilly Dreem has a view of Americans as Type 2. 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.
  • 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; virulently prejudiced against "jerries" (and indeed, all non-British people; he claims Germany's fatal mistake in the war was not being Britain), and is unshakably convinced that America is still a British colony (elsewise he would've killed Private Hank ages ago).
  • Garth Ennis' Punisher run portrayed America as a glass half empty type 2, to the point where the military are launching terrorist attacks to justify war.
  • Nuke, a Marvel Comics villain, is a deranged super soldier with an American flag tattooed on his face.


Film

  • Iron Sky: the American President is a Sarah Palin parody.
  • The Best of the Best, where the American Tae Kwon Do team goes to Korea to take on their national team at the sport they invented, is a Flavor 2 film, even though it's certainly the opposite of what the filmmakers intended. Although supposed to have an "Americans triumph over any adversity" message, consider the following:
    • The American team includes a prejudiced, ignorant redneck stereotype who continually insults their hosts' culture. In addition, they have their star Korean-American member as a symbol of assimilation into the greater American culture.
    • The Koreans are shown as professional, sportsmanlike competitors, who train hard without complaint and treat their opponents with dignity and respect. The Americans complain during every minute of their training, consistently dwell on their personal conflicts instead of focusing on the tournament, and are mainly motivated by personal agendas (revenge, proving they're not too old for this shit, or showing up the foreigners).
    • One of the American characters continues to fight injured instead of conceding defeat (in an athletic tournament! It's not a war for survival!), risking serious harm to himself. Dips into Hilarious in Hindsight if you know this character was played by Eric Roberts, who would later be known for full-Flavor 2 roles. Case in point, The Expendables.
    • The Korean-American defeats his opponent, gets revenge for his slain brother, and doesn't deliver the deathblow. In return, his now-crippled Korean opponent shambles over to him, gives him his gold medal, apologizes for (accidentally) killing his brother while acknowledging them both as worthy competitors, and offers to be his new brother.
    • And the filmmakers wanted me to root for the Americans?
    • Considering that the film ends with the two teams embracing each other, one would hardly call the Korean team unintentionally sympathetic. Perceiving the American team as Designated Heroes, on the other hand, is pretty common.
  • The movie based on Terry Pratchett's 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 only really spoke English in like two parts of the movie: during the Ebirah fight and the "Watch it, X Man!" line.
  • Seen in In Bruges with the overweight American tourists, and then lampshaded when Ray picks a fight with one couple over The Vietnam War and the assassination of John Lennon. He feels no remorse until he learns that they're Canadian.
  • In the German film Kein Bund F?rs Leben the Americans (especially the commander) are mostly type 2 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 England's prime minister (played by Hugh Grant, of course) tells him off, it is portrayed as his defining moment as a leader. It should be noted that the President here is played by Billy Bob Thornton, of Sling Blade and Angelina Jolie-marrying fame.
  • All of Lars Von Trier's movies that deal with America (Dogville, Dear Wendy, etc.) depict America as a severe type 2. 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?


Literature

  • A nice prime example of Flavor 2 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 type 2 in their respective second half. The first one deals with early mormon practicioners, 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; 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.
    • Small note on the above, for accuracy's sake: Mormons weren't "sent" to Utah. That's just where they decided to settle, and it was technically part of Mexico at the time IIRC. People just kicked the Mormons out of everywhere they tried to settle (including Nauvoo, a city they pretty much built themselves that was the second-largest city in Illinois at its height). They didn't care WHERE the Mormons went, as long as they went AWAY.
  • In The BBS Jeeves and Wooster series the two defining features of America seem to be trigger-happy cops and security guards and businessmen who are obsessed with whatever industry they are in. Somewhat ironic, considering that Wodehouse spent the last twenty-odd years of his life living on Long Island. (And often used it as a location in his later novels.)
  • 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 pronouce 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. García Marquez's Autumm 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 flavor 2s.


Live-Action TV

  • The "special relationship" between the US and UK is not universally approved-of, something which comes through in depictions of the US government (although generally not its people) modern UK shows. Take the penultimate episode of Series 3 of the new Doctor Who, for example, where the President Elect arrives on UK soil to bullishly demand first contact with aliens take place under UN terms with the US in charge. The Prime Minister acquiesces. Prez sets up the meeting on a flying aircraft carrier, demanding his official seal in clear view during the proceedings and generally behaving like a bit of a dick. Of course, it turns out there's more going on than he realizes, and his hubris is cashed in when the PM reveals himself to be an Evil Genius and Magnificent Bastard, and vaporizes him. Oh, and the Reset Button of the final episode only erased the events immediately after the President's demise.
    • In the same episode there is an example that is closer to the first stereotype. A trio of Buffalo Bills supporting teens watch the President Elect getting zapped live on TV, as they don't speak they are portrayed in Letterman Jackets/a Cheerleader outfit, eating fried chicken and pizza. The fried chicken tub has a star spangled banner on it, this probably meant to simply show that they are American to UK viewers. What, no cowboy hats nor six-shooters?
    • Notably, the episode is presenting the President as a big prat who we want to see shot... while he's right that PM Saxon is a boob who's mismanaging the situation and not following protocol, and the President puts UNIT, a United Nations group, in charge of the operation. Which is a wee bit of a disconnect.
    • The first new series had the first Dalek captured by an American laboratory, populated by rich bastard Van Statten, Simmons, whose job largely consisted of torturing the Dalek, and an idiot security guard who didn't listen to the Doctor's advice. But the American women in that environment seem particularly strong and non-stereotypical, such as Van Statten's right-hand woman who eventually has him mind-wiped and put in some city beginning with "S" and the brave young female trooper who faces down the Dalek on the stairs long enough to buy Rose and Adam enough time to escape. As depictions of Americans in Doctor Who goes, it's actually one of the better ones.
    • During the first Christmas special of the new Doctor Who series, 'The Christmas Invasion', after aliens are clearly involved, one of the characters informs the Prime Minister Harriet Jones[2] "I'm getting demands from Washington, Ma'm. The President's insisting that he take control of the situation." to which she replies, "You can tell the President, and please, use these Exact words: He's not my boss, and he's certainly not turning this into a war."
    • It's subverted a bit with the "Children of Earth" special for Torchwood. The American general who shows up makes many (deserving) accusations against the British (in the context of this universe anyways) during his visit. There's even a bit of a nod towards the tendency towards Type 2 Eagle Land when at the end, the Prime Minister intends to save his career by blaming it all on America.
    • Also pretty well subverted in the first two episodes of Series 6 "The Impossible Astronaut" and "The Day of the Moon", which are set in the US. The American characters are pretty sympathetic, if a bit trigger-happy (many of them are, after all, FBI agents). Even Richard Nixon gets a pretty kind portrayal.
  • Lexx in its Season Four is very much Type Two in its portrayal of the United States. Stupid moralistic rednecks, the prison industrial complex, crazy survivalists, suburban misery behind a facade of perfection, teenage druggies, criminals, heartless porn stars, reality TV... And the evil, crooked, and not-too-intelligent president is armed with nuclear weapons and is a puppet of a pure evil being. Of course, every country comes off badly on Lexx.
  • Top Gear is particularly infamous for going over the top with the second flavor in its portrayal of US. Not only do the presenters call Americans fat, lazy, and stupid with every mention of anything American, but the show proceeds to present mock evidence to all stereotypes. They took this to new heights during the American Challenge special (Series 9, Episode 3), where the presenters went on a cross-country drive; in fact, the US state department retaliated to the bad publicity of the American Challenge episode by revoking their filming visas. Among the highlights of that episode; a lawyer of a "charitable" organization tried to extort money from them. Even the "American Stig," the American version of the racing driver that tests their cars, was wearing stuffed overalls to appear obese.
    • They also purposely and openly trolled Southern locals with stereotypical things Southerners weren't supposed to like painted on their cars, and were chased off by people angered by the Top Gear crew being condescending assholes. Well, they got the reactions they wanted, which made for good filming—but it's hard to say if they enjoyed it.
    • Jeremy Clarkson once flirted with an American audience member by saying "You can't be American. You're not nearly fat enough."
    • Clarkson's comments about Americans are particularly ironic given that if he were American, he'd be the archetypal Type 2.
  • On an episode of What Would You Do, the crew planted two outrageous Type 2 Americans in Paris, just to test out that "snooty French" stereotype. It was pretty painful to watch. Oddly enough, the actual French citizens shown were all very patient and polite, if also mildly annoyed. It was actually the other American tourists who called out the actors, with one woman even scolding them like a mother and reminding them that they were guests in another country and should quit acting like a bunch of jerkasses.
  • A Bit of Fry and Laurie does this occasionally, notably in "Kicking Ass" and "From Here To Just Over There".
  • Kenny Everett had the bombastic General Ripper character of General Cheeseburger (the post-Watershed version was called General Bombthebastards), whose solution to every problem involved rounding up those responsible in a field and bombing the bastards. Also his shoulderpads served as launch pads for ICBMs.
  • In Spooks the Special Relationship between the UK and US leads to facepalm inducing situations that at the very least would be cause for armed conflict if it were occurring in a country which doesn't rollover like a dog on command. The behaviour of almost every American character, barring one, makes it seem that the US has continued the American Revolution into a Cold War.
    • This dialog sums up many seasons of Spooks:

US Government: 'Sup UK, can we just kidnaps this random citizen in Wales without proof of any terrorist connections?
UK Government: Sure, you can even kill a civilian or two and we'll just pin it on a left-wing lobby group for the Opposition.
MI 5: Sir I don't think you should do that.
UK Government: Shut up you public school pissant, WE'LL BE RICH.
MI 5: Shit they just offed the PM's Daughter/UN General Secretary's Wife/The PRC Premier's Son!
CIA: Hey we even framed your own security services for the hit and distributed Stinger missiles and dirty bombs to every anti-Government group in sight, that way you'll be dependant on us to stop the carnage thus furthering our Neo-Conservative views and subjugating your people, also here's Chocolate coin.
UK Government: Shiny Coin Is Shiny!
US Government: Oh and you owe us half your annual budget for that coin.

  • The "Waldorf Salad" episode of Fawlty Towers had an American guest staying at the hotel who wound up bullying Basil into submission. The portrayal isn't ridiculous, but you can get a kick out of hearing the expression "Hot dog!" used in total seriousness (oh, and the actor was Canadian).
  • Continuing from the Top Gear examples above, successor series The Grand Tour has hired NASCAR driver Mike Skinner as their Stig equivalent and referred to as "the American" by the British cast. The character is built on gags about how every car that isn't an American made V8 is "probably communist", the difficulty of turning right, and his general crudeness.

Music

  • Kate Bush, Pull Out the Pin (with comments).
    • It's actually a subversion considering she even says so in an interview about the song.
  • The song "Amerika" by the German band Rammstein basically is all about Type 2. Don't let the beat or cheery-sounding refrain fool you, the lyrics satirize this trope pretty effectively if you know (or, for that matter, are) German.
    • Even if you know no German whatsoever, the imagery in the music video alone will get the point across.
  • "51st State" by British band New Model Army.
  • America By Swedish prog metal band Pain of Salvation. Have anti American sentiments ever been this upbeat?
  • "Asshole" by Denis Leary is an ecstatic ode to Type 2. The video can be seen here. Warning: Extremely NSFW.
  • "America" by Heavens Gate portrays USA as a country trying get rid of the black populace, among other things.
  • "Let's Play USA" by Peter Schilling (best known for "Major Tom")is a nasty Type 2 with a cheery pop beat.
  • The Brazilian show Comédia MTV made a parody of type 2 named ""I'm American", with the singers singing in English (with Portuguese subtitles).
  • American Idiot by Green Day, or at least the title track.
  • "El Norte es una quimera" ("The North is an illusion"), by Venezuelan composer Luis Fragachan. The lyrics are the lament of a person who goes to the USA to make their fortune after hearing the tales of people having success there, and fails so horribly they have to return to their country, lamenting how staying in America too much corrupts people and people who returns from the come with a swollen head. Close inspection of the lyrics suggest that the complains are mere Sour Grapes of a man from a quaint country that got overwhelmed by the modernity, the language barrier, and the inability to adapt to the new places costumes - said song was inspired by a friend of Fragachan that went to New York in the Roaring Twenties at the height of the Prohibition, and because the poor man came from the still very rural, booze-based socializing Venezuela of that same era, he couldn't overcame the Culture Shock and basically returned to embrace Patriotic Fervor and complain of every slight N.Y. inflicted on him. Many people doesn't get the joke and sing the lyrics straight. Choice verse:

Todo el que va a Nueva York [3]
se vuelve tan embustero [4]
que si allá lavaba platos [5]
aquí dice que era platero [6]

Theatre

  • Freddie Trumper, the Jerkass American chess champion in Chess.
  • 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.
  • Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson: A tongue-in-cheek emo rock take on the life of Andrew Jackson. Everyone is obnoxious and jingoistic, and the events of the show are fairly accurate.

Washington crossed the Delaware River, Washington acted like a Rock Star!


Video Games

  • Dead Rising falls neatly into Type 2. The zombie outbreak was accidentally caused by the government trying to create super-cows to feed a voracious America, with the zombies themselves being described by one character as creatures that "[just] eat, and eat, and eat. Growing in number...just like you good red, white and blue Americans" (of course, he isn't much better). One of the survivors is an overweight slob who will refuse to follow you until you feed him, and later puts the entire group in danger if you don't feed him again. One of the boss fights is a family of snipers obsessed with the Second Amendment. A Black Ops team tries to cover up everything.
    • The Redneck Snipers in the sequel might be the best example: They are introduced in a cutscene which shows them sitting around, drinking beer and complaining about the liberals and the "gummint." In-game, they prioritize shooting living humans over zombies and start whooping and bragging about their "American steel" if they manage to kill a character.
  • The America of the Grand Theft Auto series is Flavor 2 to its logical extreme. Many people—including those from the UK (its actual country of origin)—are convinced that Grand Theft Auto is an American game.
    • A great deal of the GTA Radio segments which flesh out the Type 2 elements were written by Rockstar NYC.
    • Both that, however...
  • One of the teams in the video game Rival Schools: United by Fate is three American exchange students; an arrogant bully (Roy), a ditzy cheerleader (Tiffany), and a preacher in training (Boman). Of these three, Roy and Tiffany (especially Roy) exhibit Flavor #2. All three are cast as villains, though, due to a case of Brainwashed and Crazy after getting kidnapped by the villains of the game. By the end, all three become better people by interacting with the more cultured and honorable Japanese students. Roy and Tiffany bring their newfound tolerance back home, while Boman stays in Japan to bridge the difference between the two nations. Roy actually becomes the President of the United States some decades later, with Tiffany as his wife and First Lady.
  • Super Macho Man in Punch-Out!!!! Wii could be considered a deconstruction of the standard All-American Face, as the (American) audience hates his guts, and with good reason. He's a smug smarmy Californian bodybuilder, and enjoys flaunting his wealth (and pecs) over Little Mac. He's also a total Heel who knocks the referee over and showboats like there's no tomorrow.
  • Though you only see him for a minute in Golden Eye Wii, Sky Briggs is an unabashed Flavor 2 Eaglelander—he greets you with a friendly drawl, walks with a swaggering mosey, and confidently boasts that his "boys" are ready to face any threat with their superior firepower.
  • In World of Warcraft Cataclysm, the new Goblin race are basically this, in spite of not even coming from America. A group of greedy industrialists with a 'money makes right' attitude, they exhibit shocking ignorance about the rest of the world, a mercantile ruthlessness that would be shocking if it weren't Played for Laughs, the kind of taste in clothes that you'd expect from Paris Hilton, and an absolute belief that if you weren't born a goblin, you're not as good as they are. They're basically every negative stereotype of America, from trailer trash to Hollywood excess to robber barons, all rolled into one.
  • Ben There, Dan That! features an alternate reality where the UK has been annexed as the 51st American state. Pretty much everything here is some form or other of gentle (or not-so-gentle) Take That to America. There's the portly guy sitting around in a miniscule castle calling himself the king, there's the shut-down fish and chip shop, and just listen to what they think of our beer when they visit the "authentic English pub" (the soulless American pisswater is the only thing the barman will serve. He's such a collossal pussy that he'll demand more ID than any rational person would carry before he'll serve the robust, flavorful, and actually-counts-as-alcoholic British lager).
    • Wow, who knew "robust" was a synonym for "algae"?


Web Comics


Web Original

  • Survival of the Fittest: America as seen in The Program would like to see itself as Type 1, but is very much Type 2. It's basically modern culture Twenty 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.
  • Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw has made his disdain and disgust for America known on more than one occasion in a few of his videos (especially in his reviews of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Medal of Honor: Airborne. 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.
  • 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.
  • In Atop the Fourth Wall, Linkara makes a parody in the review of Captain America (comics) #1

Narrating: Meanwhile, in the peace loving America (then shows Linkara randomly shooting in the air)


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.
  • A Pucca episode has an obnoxious rich American couple 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 Type 2 in their other appearance, polluting the village for no better reason than sheer disregard for its inhabitants and the environment.
    • Ironically the show is voiced by Canadian VO so it's a kind of a Take That by a country frustrated with being mistaken for America.


Other

  • On the opposite end of Moe Anthropomorphism depictions from Japan, there's Meriken from Afganisu-tan web series. Unlike Alfred (America) from APH, Meriken is very much Eagleland #2. She's first shown on the White House lawn, singing that the whole world was made just for her. The 9/11 attacks, where over 3,000 people were killed, are shown as a stray cat (representing Osama bin-Laden) biting Meriken. She goes marauding and rampaging over a helpless, terrified Afganis-tan in response, destroying her home while trying to catch the mischevious cat. Then gives Afghanis-tan a stern warning to take more responsibility for her house so this doesn't happen again.
  • 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 Flavor 2 of this trope. 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."
  • Type 2 is parodied in an article of The Onion "China To Overtake US As World's Biggest Asshole by 2020" suggesting that China's growing economic and military strength will make it the future equivalent to Type 2 America.
  • Visual Novel Phantom of Inferno actually Lampshades this a bit during the Japanese chapter of the game, where a young girl finds out that the two American exchange students in her class are really gun-toting assassins on the run. Later on when she witnesses another pair pulling weapons on each other over a disagreement she wonders aloud if ALL Americans are like this. Somewhat subverted in that Zwei is a native Japanese who had only spent a few years in America at most and Ein is from somewhere in central Asia. The assassin Drei (One of the pair mentioned) is the best example of the trope, a blond, big-breasted Psycho for Hire who engages on several long, obnoxious rants about how corrupt and pathetic the Japanese are. She's contrasted with more sympathetic examples however, and given reasons for her unpleasant personality.
  • 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.
  • There is a hilarious 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 Flavor 2 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."
  • Latin America, or at least some parts of it, is actually the place where the USA is disliked—if not hated—the most, due mainly to its alleged involvement (which is by now Popcultural Osmosis whether it's true or not and let's not argue about that) during the Cold War in political movements against leftist popular governments. Specially the Cuban Revolution and the Presidential Crisis with Salvador Allende in Chile, which a lot of intelectuals blame the CIA for manipulating everything. Most books based on this events will portray Americans as hypocrites claiming words of peace while murdering hundreds and stealing the country's resources, and it's important to remember Fidel Castro and El Che are admired or idolized on a lot of parts of the continent, so the USA fear of communism and specially the Monroe Doctrine are not seen as good things. This is far from universal, tough, but it still is staggering for several Americans how hated they are in countries such as Chile and Guatemala and certain parts of others like Brazil or Mexico.
    • Ironically, Between Latin Americans themselves, both Mexicans and Argentinians are the Spanish-speaking versions of this trope, but unlike Americans, this is normally Played for Laughs. (Although not so much for the Mexicans)
  • On May 5, 1986, The New Republic called the phrase "Worthwhile Canadian Initiative" "possibly the most boring headline ever written". Way to recognize the benefits of your largest trading partner of the time, guys.

Mixed Examples

Anime & Manga

  • America from Axis Powers Hetalia is a more benign blend of both flavors; his geography is terrible, he's loud, pushy, clueless, addicted to cheeseburgers and various sweets, and he's an Attention Whore (he calls himself the "World's Hero") -- but he's also friendly and good natured, to the point of being a literal Friend to All Living Things and a serious Love Freak. Considering some of the other "America-tan" characters to come out of Japan (e.g. Meriken), Axis Powers Hetalia's take on America is actually pretty positive.
    • This type of depiction is pretty much normal for this series. No country escapes being the butt of jokes, but most of the countries are also good at heart. (Except for Russia whose heart sometimes actually falls out of its place. But even he isn't completely and consciously evil.)
  • Partial aversion: the anime series Baccano!! has tons of characters in Mafia-run Chicago/New York City and a runaway train running between the two. Some are silly, some are wimpy, some are batshit insane and the rest of them...
  • Besides the aforementioned Leonard Apollo, Americans were portrayed rather variously here in Eyeshield 21, from nice people like Patrick "Panther" Spencer, Homer Fitzgerald, Leonard Apollo, to people like Donald Oberman.
    • It's also sort of subverted in Billy Horide, the coach of the Seibu Wild Gunmen, who, despite being Japanese as far as anyone can tell, is loud, rude, pushy, loves shooting guns and even runs his offense in a fast, high-powered manner. He's almost sort of a weird Japanese Texas-otaku.
  • Death Note - especially the manga - has some combination of both types 1 and 2, but surprisingly a lot of the former. The FBI are among the first to pursue Kira in the first arc; in the second arc the SPK are established and funded by the US government, and in the manga president David Hoope kills himself when he believes Mello is going to manipulate him into launching a nuclear weapon. On the other hand, Hoope's successor is a panicky coward who cuts off ties with the SPK and announces that the United States will no longer pursue Kira. The English dub (recorded in Canada) even gives him a Bush-like faux-Southern accent.
  • In Full Metal Panic!, the third novel (and thus the final story arc of the original anime) has an American submarine captain who's obsessed with hunting down the mysterious "ghost submarine" (the Tuatha De Danaan) because he's convinced it's part of a Japanese plot, at one point attempting to rouse his men by saying "Remember Pearl Harbor!" However, the rest of the crew is portrayed as level-headed, competent sailors who are frustrated with their skipper's Ahab act and either ignore him, or try to stop him when he tries to go too far.
  • Chibodee Crocket from G Gundam straddles the line between Flavor 1 and Flavor 2. He's brash, boisterous, eager to pick fights with Domon (who he refers to as "Japanese". The dub makes this "Neo-Japan", which greatly mitigates any offensiveness as Domon is the official representative of Neo-Japan), and occasionally makes boasts he can't back up. He's also a Self-Made Man who looks out for the little guy, is fiercely loyal to his friends, treats women very well despite being a total flirt, and is one of the strongest warriors in the world. Initially he only fights to satisfy his own pride, but after several hardships like being infected with the DG cells and being almost abandoned by his crew to learn to truly love fighting. And his favorite song is "America the Beautiful" (though this was only in the dub, while the original Japanese version used a different song entirely).
    • His mobile suit deserves mention, too. If Gundam Maxter's design is any indication, the Japanese believe that all Americans are surfing, football-playing boxer cowboys. And it'd be terrible to disappoint them. In canon, you get the impression Chibodee drew up the design himself and just combined a bunch of things he thinks are cool.
  • Duo Maxwell from Gundam Wing isn't from America proper, but rather a space colony that belongs to America. Either way, he can be seen as a combination of both types, being boisterous, flirtatious, and a bit eager to reap first and ask questions later, but is also a genuinely nice and friendly guy who's dedicated to his friends and the cause of bringing peace. Being American doesn't really influence his character apart from being the Token White in the Five-Token Band; a lot of his more outgoing traits come simply because he's The Lancer to Heero, who is very much The Stoic. That said, Duo is insanely popular, being the most popular character among Western viewers, and a close second in Japan (behind, of course, Heero).
  • The depiction of Americans in the Gravitation manga is...odd. The country is represented in early volumes by a semi-realistic New York criminal underground and the gun-toting, very, very Texan (although good-hearted) K; this and some miscellaneous executives are all that made it to the anime. In later volumes, however, they actually go to New York, where we meet K's family and the even crazier Rage, who flies a giant robotic panda through cities and has a tendency to shoot people with a (non-lethal) bazooka. Notably, the escapades of the American characters get at least two bodyguards killed (one of Ryuichi's shot by Rage's and one of Judy's thrown out an airplane window by K) with no fanfare whatsoever. What takes the cake, however, has to be Yoshiaki's comment that she doesn't object to Yuki killing her brother, nor would most Americans...because gang rape is a capital crime in the US.
  • Hajime no Ippo explicitly has both flavors in the serious with Takamura's major opponents - In Hajime no Ippo, Type 2 is exemplified by Bryan Hawk, an exceptionally violent and crude brute who takes every opportunity to proclaim the superiority of his skills over the "weaker" Japanese. Type 1 (heck, it's in his NAME) is embodied by David Eagle, who is charismatic and honorable. However, this is played with when the Japanese crowd during his match with Takamura note that his behavior in the ring is more typical of a samurai warrior.
  • The anime series Konjiki no Gash Bell (Zatch Bell in the dub) contains a team of superheroes called the Majestic Twelve, who are portrayed as amazingly incompetent. The only female member is named Big Boing (Lady Susan in the dub) and her superpowers consist of having huge breasts, smelling like lavender (in the English dub) and commenting every moment with the word "Yeah!" But Apollo and Jeed are the American characters that we see most, and both are definite type 1s.
  • Lucky Star has Patricia Martin who is ostensibly an American gaijin otaku. She may represent America a bit better than most, because she speaks fluent Japanese, having learned the entirety of the language from watching anime... However, she's also depicted as being a bit air headed and somewhat undereducated in true Japanese culture outside of Animeland. Patty's quite clearly modelled on the stereotypical Japanophile, so this isn't that far from Truth in Television...
    • Patti is somewhat an Affectionate Parody of Western Otaku as her characterization isn't mean spirited in any way and she's portrayed for the most part as a harmless eccentric. She doesn't do anything stereotypically American such as threaten to sue or pack heat or any of the things more commonly associated with Eagle Land, though her physical appearence is a Phenotype Stereotype (blue eyes, big boobs, blonde).
  • Anthony from Doki Doki School Hours is like a male version of Patricia. At one point he shows everyone a photo of his 14 year old kid sister - an large-busted (perhaps implausibly so for her age) blonde cheerleader.
  • In Mahoromatic, American meddling with the remains of a giant alien crab mech causes it to go wild and tear the bathing suits off of young teenage girls on the beach. Hmmm. Could be a mixed message in there.
  • A case could be made that Kumogakure in Naruto is the America of the Narutoverse, particularly a mix of Type 2 and Type 1. It has the most racially diverse population of the ninja villages, the strongest military, as well as the strongest economy. In contrast, Konohagakure could be seen like Japan, having the highest population but average military and above average economy (though this may change if we see what its stats were before Pain's attack).
    • Konoha was loosely based on Kishimoto's hometown, which is right next to an American military base. Hence, while the cultural attitudes of Konoha are clearly Japanese, most of the main characters hold decidedly American attitudes toward combat, such as never leaving a man behind.
  • The Prince of Tennis features the American arc, where a team of prodigy American players gathered by a money-hungry tycoon and coach (Richard Baker) come to Japan to play against a team formed by the best Japanese junior high players. Among the stereotypes found are:
    • a cheerful red-neck and ex-cowboy who acts happy very happy-go-lucky (Billy Cassidy),
    • an angry German immigrant who is disenchanted after the loss of his American dream (Arnold Igashov),
    • two ultra-pretty and super close brothers raised in the Bronx and rescued from their abusive household (Tom and Terry Griffy),
    • a Chinese American obsessed with perfection, taking it after an equally perfectionist family(Michael Lee),
    • a huge bully specialized in lots of sports but seriously lacking sportsmanship (Bobby Marx), and
    • the son of one of Nanjiroh's old rivals, who acts very violent and angsty because of his own convoluted backstory (Kevin Smith).
    • Hell, Ryoma himself could qualified as well. He was raised in America, which could explain his incredibly arrogant, condecending, better-than-you actitude and the total lack of respect he shows towards his upperclassmen, with Tesuka being the sole exception.
  • The Read or Die OAV has Drake, a mixed example of Type 1 and Type 2, to contrast with the pathetic American president. As an American, he is terse, antisocial and sometimes downright rude. However he is brave and loyal to a fault, is moved to tears by the murder of one of his clients, and he cares deeply for his family.
  • In the third Slam Dunk OAV, the half-American half-Japanese Michael Okita is the ace of a new high school basketball team, and is said to have been scouted by the NBA itself. He's ruthless and efficient in the courts, but turns into a cheerful and laid-back flirt outside (just watch him shamelessly flirt with Ayako and make Miyagi go ballistic). And he's a blue-eyed blond on top.
  • The historical manga about post-war girls' baseball, Tetsuwan Girl, plays this both ways with the type one being the matronly woman's coach who is the wife of a Negro League player and the type two being Mr. Banks, Connie and the rest of the American team. The Harley motorcycles and cowboy outfits almost seemed to take too long to show up. Did we mention the added layer of racism not only on the Japanese players, but the black people in the series? Yeah.
  • Zettai Karen Children has the thinly veiled nation of Comerica taking the place of America. The Comericans (mostly ESPer team The Liberty Bells) fall somewhere between the two types of Eaglelanders. They are brash and outspoken, but more than willing to help out BABEL.
  • Jackie Gudelhian from Future GPX Cyber Formula. He's a very cheerful guy, doesn't take things seriously, he often wears a cowboy hat when he's off the race track and his hobby is horse riding. Also, his car in the TV series has stars on them and he wears the Stars and Stripes trunks in EP 5 of Double-One.
  • Japan Inc, which is about economics.
  • A Certain Magical Index and its spinoff A Certain Scientific Railgun are somewhat ambiguous in their view of America; the majority of the plot tends to occur in Japan, England and the continents in between the two. While the Americans are occasionally referenced as the "World Police," it's not made clear whether this is positive or negative in context until the Railgun SS Liberal Arts City, which presents America as being obsessed with their status as the World Police to the point they're ready to go to some pretty atrocious lengths to gain power comparable to Academy City. The majority of the civilians in the short story are also portrayed as none too bright, thinking that very real threats are nothing more than performances. This is further muddled by the fact that the story takes place in a "city" that is essentially a movie studio theme park (think MGM) Turned Up to Eleven that is ultimately revealed to have been explicitly created for the purpose of allowing the American forces to carry out their battles with a magical cabal and acquire their power without the populace realizing it. A mixed bag overall.
  • In Freezing, we are introduced to "the Immortal" Roxanne Elipton, ranked as the strongest 3rd year Pandora in America. She is shown to be supportive and respectful of others, yet still has an outgoing attitude. She also squishes Satellizer's massive boobs to see if they're real.
  • Terryman started out briefly as a Type 2 example, being a Choujin who only did good deeds for money. As the focus shifted from superheroes to pro-wrestling, however, he quickly fell into Type 1. Most American Choujin, as well as America itself during Kinnikuman's American tour, do not fall into any specific flavor of Eagleland, however.

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 our original superheroes on their ear, basically making them even more jingoistic, or just jerkasses, for shock value or to go Darker and Edgier. A handful of heroes still hold out as the fair-minded type one idealists, and ironically their scarcity makes them the more remarkable ones. Garth Ennis has a recurring interest in America, often playing off Type 1 (the national mythology of America and what the characters strive for) against Type 2 (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 Type 2 parts of America while simultaneously loving the place.
  • One of the recurring themes of Captain America comics is contrasting Cap's Type 1 idealism with what can often be a Type 2 reality.
    • 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 Type 2 stereotype and began to hate her.
    • Ultimate Captain America is quite a bit less idealistic — he's a mixture of type 1 and type 2.
    • 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?" For the record, that line was written by Mark Millar, a Scotsman. The fact that the French as cowardly is a fairly recent stereotype that Human Popsicle Cap wouldn't be aware of isn't addressed. (Mainstream Cap, probably written in response to the above, fondly remembers working with the French resistance, proving that French citizens are brave and strong, but the French government basically rolled over and spread its legs.)
  • The above quote is parodied in Nextwave, where Elsa Bloodstone, fighting a Captain America-imitation while wearing a European Union shirt, refuses to 'lay there and get used to being the victim'. "Victim? Do you think this letter on my chest stands for America?" (Type 2, obviously, but the entire book takes Refuge in Audacity and is Played for Laughs.)

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.
  • The protagonist of Forbidden Kingdom has aspects of both Flavor 1 and Flavor 2. 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.
  • Team America has the eponymous Team America, who leave a path of destruction wherever they go. Though they mean well, their fights with terrorists usually cause more damage than the terrorists themselves. They admit to being dicks, but that they're dicks who are trying to save lives. The "dicks fuck assholes" speech is a pretty good summary of their characterization in the movie.
  • Amusingly, Persia as depicted in the Prince of Persia 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.
  • In Les triplettes de 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. Possibly subverted, as Belleville may just be another city in France.


Literature

  • Many popular British authors, especially pre-1965 or so (among them PG 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 stylised gangland slang...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 it as mixed, presenting flavours as best and worst sides of the same trait, which can be defined 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.
  • The Bronze Age characters in S.M. Stirling's Nantucket series refer to the time-displaced Americans as "The Eagle People." Type 1 is represented by the Republic, Type 2 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 brandys in world history.


Live-Action TV

  • Despite the previous seasons leaning more towards Flavor 2, as of Series 6 (along with Torchwood: Miracle Day) Doctor Who has tended towards a more Badass, Crazy Awesome depiction of Americans—a bit trigger happy, a bit boisterous and overconfident, but not an overtly negative portrayal (though it is clear they're still leaning on stereotypes for some characters).
    • The majority of the Americans in "The Impossible Astronaut" and "Day of the Moon." Aside from being a little gun-happy (which is justified in the majority of them are Secret Service Agents) it's one of the better portrayals of America in recent Doctor Who seasons. According to the producers, America appears to be a place where everyone is a jovial, if slightly thick and dim-witted, patriot, and random spurts of melodramatic processional music accompany the President everywhere.
    • The US President in the Doctor Who episode "Last of the Time Lords" is a subversion of Flavor 2; he acts like one and will say so himself, but at heart he was a Flavor 1, albeit misguided.
  • Steven Moffat does seem to be trying to take a step back from Russel T. Davies' Flavor 2 stereotype into more of a hybrid Flavor 3 on Doctor Who, but on Sherlock, he didn't have quite so much luck. He decided to switch the New Jersey native Irene Adler to British, but since that gave us Lara Pulver as a badass dominatrix, there weren't many complaints about that. However, this had the unfortunate side effect of making the only American characters in the series were the operatives (CIA I believe). The only one who had any substantial characterization screamed Flavor 2, threatening to kill Watson to make Sherlock open a safe and beating up Mrs. Hudson (whose age isn't given, but her actress is in her mid-70s) to make her reveal the location of a piece of evidence. No one really cried when he "fell" out the window (multiple times.)


Tabletop Games

  • New Horizon has Xanadu, a mostly Flavor 1 stereotype that happens to be quite racist. Of course, this is a a faction on an alien colony in the future instead of America proper but...
  • Andoran from the Pathfinder RPG.


Video Games

  • From developer SNK we have Terry Bogard who tends to be a bit of a mix. On one the one hand he's boisterous, proud and wears stereotypical American clothes. On the other hand, he's largely self-sufficient, at least partially self-taught, and is not only a good guy, but is considered one of the most important characters in the games. In the anime, he's the main character and basically shown to be the most powerful martial artist alive, who earns the admiration of his allies and the respect of his enemies. He also defeats Ares, the God of War, in a one-on-one fight.
  • Paul Phoenix from Tekken is more of a mix. While he is goofy, loud, and arrogant he is generally a good guy, and is indeed and dangerous fighter, and one of the few non Mishima characters to beat both a Mishima and a Boss character (though he still lost the tournament somehow).
  • Shadow Hearts: From the New World mostly takes place in the gangster-era States. Frank is a clear parody of Flavor 1 and Mao is...well...Mao—however, for the most part the shady goings-on, the humanity of those caught in the middle, and the historical context of America generally being a place that people wanted to immigrate to are all presented honestly if lightheartedly.
  • BioShock Infinite. The floating city of Columbia is completely festooned with American flags, as a symbol of American superiority, for good and bad. It was originally created as a showcase of American ingenuity for the World's Fair, but then the city went crazy nativist and opened fire on China before disappearing into the clouds. One of the many pieces of propaganda in the city perfectly encapsulates the mentality present: a mural depicting one of the Founding Fathers standing on a rock, holding the Liberty Bell in his outstretched hand...and the Ten Commandments on his other arm...while surrounding by a surly, grasping mob of some of the most ugly racial and ethnic caricatures you've ever seen.
  • Street Fighter IV runs the gamut of the flavor spectrum with its American characters:
    • First there's Rufus, a fat, obnoxious and dim-witted American who spends the game as the Unknown Rival of Ken, wishing to prove himself as the greatest fighter of the US. As much of a Flavor 2 Eaglelander as he appears to be, he's also got himself an incredibly hot girlfriend, his speedy fighting style in spite of his weight is complimented by many characters, he's without a doubt one of the funniest, if not the funniest, character in the game, and judging by some of his winquotes, he's rich and lives a damn good life. Combined with all his quirks, he's actually become a fan favorite.
    • Then there's Balrog, who's an idiotic boxer from Las Vegas who seemed to get less sadistic and a lot dumber as the series went on. Still, as a villain, he's depicted as being a serious threat to anyone he fights, and is often one of the higher-ranked characters, tier-wise, in every Street Fighter game he's been in.
    • Ken arguably straddles the line between Types 1 and 2. While he is arrogant and something of a showboater, he's a fairly decent guy and Ryu's best friend.
    • Guile is Type 1 all day long, being a strong and patriotic soldier, a family man, one of the strongest characters in canon, and the chief rival character to M. Bison, the series' main antagonist. He was even featured as one of the main characters in the animated movie. Not to mentioned he hands Ryu AND Ken their asses in Street Fighter II V. Oh, and he just happens to be among the top-ranked characters in Super Street Fighter IV, and was outright broken in early versions of Street Fighter II.
  • In the Metal Gear series, American society is broken beyond repair due to being ruled covertly by the Philosophers and the Patriots. Therefore, any actions America undergoes as a nation are bad for everyone, or (in the rare case they're good) had the intention of being bad for everyone (like the Navy's actions at the end of Metal Gear Solid 4—while they ended up stopping Liquid, their actual intention was to preserve the Government's ability to control soldiers). However, on an individual level, the majority of the Americans are well-intentioned—even the Patriots. Special note—the final boss of Metal Gear Solid 2 is the ex-president of the US. However, the current President of the US genuinely takes responsibility for his selfish and power-seeking actions, and heroically agrees to die to save his country from his mistake (on the other hand, it is also heavily implied that the "power-seeking actions" were actually spawned and manipulated by the Patriots so they could trick him into participating in the S3 plan).
    • And though the former president ultimately resorts to terrorist actions with Arsenal Gear, his goal was to restore American freedom by releasing the Patriots' grip on society, which happens anyway at the end of MGS4. Come to think of it, every hero or (human) Well-Intentioned Extremist villain through the series seems to have an unwavering love of American ideals.
  • Jake Marshall from Ace Attorney. When you first meet him, he seems like the stereotypical cowboy who has a southern drawl, and constantly talks about how he's a cowboy, which is lampshaded by other characters. Then you find out that he's been spending the last two years trying to find out the truth behind who killed his brother. He was demoted two years ago for helping with the investigation so that he wouldn't be in a position to properly investigate.
  • Killer7 contains examples of both types. Going into detail would take a while.
  • From the same twisted mind, the No More Heroes games - that is, games made by a Japanese man obsessed with American pop culture about an American man obsessed with Japanese pop culture - make for interesting examples, insofar as they are as explicitly concerned with America and its popular culture as any Japanese game since the MOTHER series.
  • Vanquish uses both. The story opens up with the United States under sudden attack by the forces of the Order of the Russian Star using a captured American space colony, and sending the Marines into space to recapture it. However, as the plot goes on, it becomes apparent that the militant regime that is the Order of the Russian Star was installed by the current US President to give them a "bad guy" they could use to justify revitalizing the arms industry against, and that the Russians were attacking first because they knew war was inevitable.
  • In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the CIA sets up an undercover agent to infiltrate Makarov's rogue Ultranationalist splinter faction that eventually participates in a terrorist attack in an airport, and then summarily executed by the knowing Makarov to set up a Russian invasion of America. To make it worse, the whole thing, along with the associated civilian casualties, then turns out to be a set-up by Lt. Gen. Shepherd of the US Army to restore the American patriotism, and various very unpleasant measures including killing allied special ops operatives were done to keep the secret. However, throughout both games, the US grunts are shown to be courageous, moral, disciplined, dedicated and professional soldiers who often happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. And having seen the catastrophe that broke Shepherd in the first game, you can't help but sympathize for his intentions a little.
  • Team Fortress 2: the Engineer is Type 1, the Scout and Soldier are Type 2.
    • Also, the aesthetic design of the game is, according to Valve, inspired by artists such as J. C. Leyendecker, Dean Cornwell and Norman Rockwell, all designed to recall Type 1. The fact that everything (no seriously, EVERYTHING) is either a desert, a badly-hidden spy base, or both makes shift just a little towards Type 2.


Web Comics


Western Animation

  • Both flavors of this 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?!


Real Life

  • America is made up of humans. Humans Are Flawed.
  • Most of the older generation in countries like Belgium and others where the Nazis conquered them and the Americans came in, kicked the Nazis out, and then LEFT without taking any land for themselves, get quite emotional about America, stating that for the first time, soldiers from another country came into theirs, fought for it as if it was their own, and asked for nothing in return. Hardcore Flavor 1...which is slowly being replaced by Flavor 2 as the generation that remembers those events is dying off, replaced by a generation more familiar with America of the Vietnam era and later.
  • Speaking of the Cold War: many countries that fell under Allied/American occupation after World War II and throughout the Cold War are now some of the best places in the world. Two nations that had formerly been militaristic empires, (West) Germany and Japan, became some of the best places to live, with the third and fourth largest economies respectively. It's questionable how much America really had to do this, but it is interesting to compare them to Soviet backed or occupied countries such as North Korea, Cuba, and East Germany, as well as their earlier histories.
  • A survey found that Americans are a mixed bag in other countries, roughly akin to the "split the difference" view mentioned in the introduction to this trope. Respondents found Americans to be loud and fussy—but they are also the most likely to try a new language, and are generous tippers. The worst tourists are apparently the French, who are seen as really rude and stingy; they only earned good marks in cleanliness and elegance.
  • In a survey, the U.S. was only about the middle in being proud of your own country. The two countries made up nearly entirely of people who think their country rules? Australia and Canada. The Japanese got dead last, not even reaching 60%.
  • In some countries where America is not very well respected, it's not uncommon for American tourists to claim to be from Canada instead (possibly even adopting a pathetic imitation of a Canadian accent); including actually doing research and creating a fictional home in Canada.
    • Or more commonly not doing the research.
    • Which means Canada is supplanting America in the "belligerent tourist" stereotype more and more - whether the two phenomena are related, though...
  • While we're on the subject of tourism. During the 2010 soccer in South Africa, Americans were the largest single group of tourists, and as a result their overall image has improved significantly (both as tourists, and just in general). Not only for being (unexpectedly) relatively good at soccer, but also for being generally mild-mannered and well-behaved. But hey, guys, I think you should know that since you left, people have been expecting way better tips! You realize, this means war.
  • Though it has partially been explored previously, it is worth mentioning to non-American readers just how tipping is viewed in American culture. To the average American citizen, the idea of NOT tipping one's server is nearly inconceivable. (So much so that, now, many restaurants will actually work the gratuity into the bill itself, although in most cases that's more because the popularity of credit cards means that people carry a lot less cash with them.) Withholding a tip, or "stiffing", your waiter/waitress is reserved only for the worst of the worst cases, and even a lackluster performance by the staff will still garner a moderate gratuity. As a result of this, American's perceive leaving a low tip or no tip at all generally rude or disrespectful. This has had a negative side effect, however, in that American wait-staff typically dread serving European tourists (who may not know that without a tip, said waiter/waitress is not properly compensated for their time and effort, regardless of quality of service) who are perceived as stingy.
    • That said, if after tips are added, and the employee's pay is less than minimum wage, the employer is required to compensate them the difference to bring their pay up to minimum. However, most people who take tippable service industry jobs do so with the understanding that their average pay after tips will be somewhere above the minimum (depending on how consistent their tipping is). It is still not much though, so a lot of their budget will depend on how much tipping they get. Because of this, tipping is considered a huge source of Nice to the Waiter in America.
    • Quite a few waitstaff actually hate European tourists because they believe that Europeans are hiding behind "cultural differences" to avoid tipping. Certainly, you'd think they'd hear about it often enough that it'd occur to them.
    • Within America, tipping is a major bone of contention; the discussion that ensues in Reservoir Dogs when Mr. Pink reveals that he doesn't tip is pretty much spot on. Do not bring up tipping with your American friends unless you're prepared to go to the wire, because it is a discussion which has caused heroes to rise, empires to fall, and friendships to be tested.
  • There has been a recent surge in popularity of British television in America, started by Doctor Who, but carried on by Merlin, Sherlock, Downton Abbey, Being Human, etc. The stars of the series frequently visit the States to give interviews and have actually attended a few premieres. When this happens, someone will often ask if there's a difference between US and UK audiences, and one answer that almost without fail pops up is that American audiences are much, much louder. While being loud during a movie would be seen as incredibly annoying, more than a few of them (Matt Smith, for example) have said that they enjoy it in an odd way, since it gives them an instant feedback to see what works, what doesn't, what was funny, and what fell flat. Add another to the "split the difference" column.
  • It should be noted that the United States is, by far, the largest donor of foreign aid to developing nations. However, this is only because the United States is really, really, rich. If you go by donations per capita rather than donations overall, than the United States is only number nineteen, with Sweden being number one. Then again, this does not take into account NGO or private donations, which like most G20 nations the US has quite a lot of.
  • The National Rifle Association appears to be going out of its way to promote Flavor 2 in the late-2010s, promoting "second amendment rights" during a referendum in Ireland and after a mass shooting in New Zealand. (The second amendment to Ireland's constitution corrected some translation errors from English to Irish, and New Zealand is similar to the United Kingdom in having an uncodified constitution.)
  • The good news is that the traditional image of Americans as drunk teens doing drunk teen things goes away. The bad news (for Americans and everyone else alike) is that by 2017 comparison of Washington DC with "a kindergarten on LSD" made more sense, and the new image is the animated gif of Trigglypuff[7], because that's what the loudest Vocal Minority looks and sounds like, consistently for the last decade or so.
  1. ↑ (as the U.S. was pulling out of Vietnam while facing economic hardship and intense internal and external criticism)
  2. ↑ Yes, we know who you are.
  3. ↑ Every one who goes to New York
  4. ↑ becomes such a liar
  5. ↑ that if there he was a dishwasher
  6. ↑ here he says he was a silversmith
  7. ↑ or maybe "TrigglyProf", but not in her "Lobsta Girl" persona yet — for one, the infamous foul-mouthed furry NASA intern was removed
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