Full disclosure here: I love old, sappy American movies. And whether I was in Canada, the Netherlands, Portugal or India, I drank in popular American culture through them. Through them, I formed my image of the American abroad. But now, that image is changing.

In Casablanca (1942), American Rick Blaine (played by Humprey Bogart) runs a popular music bar called Rick’s Café Américain in a small town in Morocco, a waystation for World War II refugees. He plays a quintessential American: straight-talking and wise-cracking. His best friend is a black musician. Rick is trusted by all, friend and foe. He fights on the side of the weak: He ran guns to Ethiopia to help in their fight against their colonial master Italy, and he fought with the loyalists against fascist Francisco Franco in Spain. In other words, he’s the guy you want by your side when things get rough.

In It Started in Naples (1950), Sofia Loren sings the famous song “Tu vuò fà l’americano” — Neapolitan for, “You want to play the American.” Indeed, we all did. Not only because the Americans had baseball, whiskey & soda, and rock & roll, but because they seemed prosperous, carefree, equal-opportunity and unburdened by commitment, economics, tradition or history. In this film, Clark Gable plays the americano — a businessman and World War II veteran who is as straight-talking and wise-cracking as Bogart’s Blaine. He’s got a heart of gold, too, and therefore takes his orphaned nephew and the nephew’s aunt under his wing. Of course, it helps that the aunt looks like Sofia Loren.

In An American in Paris (1951), Gene Kelly sings and dances his way into Leslie Caron’s heart. Learning: All American men are terrific dancers. In Roman Holiday (1953), a smooth-talking American journalist played by Gregory Peck does right by European princess Audrey Hepburn, proving that the handsome americano also respects boundaries and plays by the rules. 

But over the course of time and particularly with the turn of the century, the ‘American’ has evolved in our popular imagination — from a straight-shooting, fun-loving guy always fervently on the side of the under-dog — to someone more complicated.

The song “Americano,” sung by Lady Gaga in the movie Puss in Boots (2011) should have served as foreshadowing. But we were too busy dancing to the snappy beat to hear the words, “living on the edge of the law.”

In The American (2020), George Clooney plays a skilled assassin who escapes from his old life and hides in a small town in the Italian mountains. He is a morally conflicted americano who has done some terrible things but is now trying to start a new, more normal life. Ok, so he’s super handsome, but still vaguely unsettling.

The lush thriller The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), filmed almost entirely in Italy, is a gripping story with an amazing cast of characters. However, the Americans in this story are either rich, confident and uncaring, or poor, awkward and twisted, with both transgressing the bounds of morality. The kind of americani you want to avoid.

And now, things have evolved so much on the geopolitical stage that we’re outright rejecting the americano.

A common menu item in coffee shops the world over is the “americano” — a big cup with a shot of espresso and the rest filled with hot water. The concept is said to have begun in WWII when US soldiers like Gable’s character were in Italy and preferred something more like their home brew than the local espresso. Recently, several coffee shops in Canada have renamed their americano coffee “canadiano.” The movement began with the Kicking Horse Café in the mountain village of Invermere, British Columbia. And now, given US President Donald Trump’s imposition of trade tariffs and continuing threats to annex Canada, it has spread across the country. 

Some people may argue that this act is meaningless, for two reasons: names don’t matter and the product is the same. But, in this case, neither rings true. Shakespeare may have agreed with the first reason, saying “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” — but then, he lived before the era of the nation-state. Today, our world is divided into nations and the associated nationalistic feelings run deep. A Canadian does not want to be called an American. Calling a coffee by a different name may be a small, subtle and somewhat humorous act of resistance, but one that much of the general public can join in on, at little cost and with much gusto. Furthermore, this resistance movement by Canadians may inspire Greenlanders, Danish, Panamanians, Chinese and indeed the many others of the world who have been tariffed or threatened by Trump.

Secondly, the product has indeed fundamentally changed. The americano is no longer the sought-after moral and generous hero, but instead seems amoral, vindictive, self-serving, acquisitive… and probably can’t dance. Tu vuò fà l’americano? No thanks.

In Spectre (2015), Madelaine Swann’s father, just before he dies, tells James Bond to find “l’Américain.” So, Bond begins to search for this mysterious American who can provide him with essential intelligence.

Only much later in the story does he discover that it’s just a hotel.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.