The ugly American
The Ugly American (original American title: The Ugly American ) is a political novel by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer published in the United States in 1958 . In 1963 it was made into a film with Marlon Brando . The novel became a bestseller in the USA and is still on the backlist of WW Norton & Company to this day . The book is considered to be a key novel , which in a fictional scenario depicts the experiences of Americans in Southeast Asia ( Vietnam ) in general and several real people in particular.
The book
The plot of the novel takes place in a fictional Southeast Asian state called Sarkhan, which is strongly reminiscent of Burma or Thailand , but is said to allude to Vietnam. The book alludes to several real people, with most of the names changed. The novel depicts the Americans' struggle against communism in Vietnam - later referred to as the battle for hearts and minds - but which they lost because of their arrogance and their lack of understanding of local culture. Its title is ambiguous - it refers to both the physically unattractive hero Homer Atkins and the ugly behavior of American expatriates .
In the novel, a Burmese journalist says: “For certain reasons, these [American] people I meet in my country are different from those I met in the United States. They seem to go through a mysterious change as soon as they travel to a foreign country. You isolate yourself socially. You live ostentatiously. They get loud and cocky. "
The book title's “Ugly American” initially refers to the outwardly unattractive engineer Atkins, who lives with the locals, who learns to understand their needs and helps with useful projects such as the development of a simple, bicycle-operated water pump. The novel argues that the communists are successful because of their tactical approach to Atkins.
According to an article published in Newsweek in May 1959 , Otto Hunerwadel, a technician from the International Cooperative Agency at the time , was the real role model for the “ugly American”. He lived with his wife Helen in Burma from 1949 until his death in 1952, where they lived in the villages, taught agricultural methods and helped set up small canning factories.
The model for Colonel Hillandale, another figure of the book, which seems US Air Force - Lieutenant General and CIA -Staff Edward Lansdale was to be an expert on the insurgency .
After the book gained a wide readership in the USA, the term “Ugly American” was increasingly used there as a synonym for the “loud and cocky” visitors to foreign countries, as opposed to the “ordinary-looking people who, like Homer Atkins, are not shy from getting your hands dirty ”, as the book itself says.
According to British documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis , “ John Kennedy was captivated by the book The Ugly American. In 1960, he and five other opinion leaders jointly funded a major ad in the New York Times that showed they had sent a copy of the novel to every US Senator because its message was so important. "
The film adaptation
The novel was filmed in 1963 with Marlon Brando in the role of US Ambassador Harrison Carter MacWhite (script: Stewart Stern , producer and director: George Englund ). The film was shot mainly in Hollywood with Thai scenes. Parts of the film were shot in Bangkok , Thailand, including Chulalongkorn University .
Kukrit Pramoj , a Thai politician and scientist, supported the production as a cultural advisor and later also played the role of Sarkhan's Prime Minister Kwen Sai. Later, in 1975, he actually became the 13th Prime Minister of Thailand .
output
- William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick: The Ugly American . WW Norton, New York 1999, ISBN 0-393-31867-2 (EA Norton, New York 1958).
- German: The ugly American . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1971, ISBN 3-499-10845-3 (EA Nannen Verlag, Hamburg 1959; from the American by Elisabeth and Hans Herlin ).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Robert L. Clifford and Helen B. Hunerwadel: Burma Beginnings: Fulbright and Point Four , in: Richard T. Arndt and David Lee Rubin (Eds.): The Fulbright Difference: 1948–1992 , Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick (NJ) 1996 (paperback edition), p. 25, ISBN 1-56000-861-X
- ^ Adam Curtis, How To Kill A Rational Peasant. America's Dangerous Love Affair with Counterinsurgency ( Memento of the original from June 19, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , British Broadcasting Corporation website , posted June 16, 2012 (accessed December 18, 2012)
