The return of the ugly (and stupid) American

i don't ordinarily post on silliness or voyeurism (unless it concerns our elected officials, of course), but i couldn't pass this one by...

A naked American tourist raised eyebrows when he went for a walk through a German city and told police he thought this was acceptable behavior in Germany.

"We have been having unusually hot weather here lately but, all the same, we can't have this," a spokesman for police in the southern city of Nuremberg said Tuesday. "The man said he thought walking around naked was tolerated in Germany."

Many Germans enjoy nude sunbathing which is allowed in public parks. The 41-year-old was carrying his clothes in a bag when police stopped him Monday evening after complaints from pedestrians.

the fact that i would even be familiar with the term "ugly american" is a dead giveaway to my advancing age... it was widely used in the 60s and even into the 70s as an expression of derision... in my travels, it invariably comes to mind as i watch the antics of some of my fellow countrymen interacting with foreign cultures... fortunately, it's nowhere near the problem it used to be, and, in fact, japanese tourists seem to be the present-day heirs to the behavior it describes...

Ugly American is an epithet used to refer to perceptions of arrogant, demeaning, unthoughtful behaviors of Americans abroad. The term originated as the title of a 1958 book by authors William Lederer and Eugene Burdick, reprinted in 1999, The Ugly American. The film adaptation of the novel came out in 1963, directed by George Englund and starring Marlon Brando. Englund was nominated for a Golden Globe award as director of the film.

obviously, the gentleman (and i use the term loosely) never bothered to find out where and when nudism would be appropriate in germany, and the fact that he would consider it ok on a city street suggests either profound ignorance or flasher tendencies - or both...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet