Annelies Breedveld explains at VSOTD.com, "Paul Verhoeven went to America to shoot films because in Holland nobody shared his grand vision and they all thought he was way too arrogant and self-assured. 'Who does he think he is …' It’s a bit like the famous crab story: if one climbs out of the bucket, the others try to pull it back."
Some countries use the crab metaphor, other countries call it the "tall poppy syndrome"—the tallest flower gets whacked.
But almost all countries I've visited outside the States, from Denmark to Canada to Ireland to China to Australia—Britain and France being the only two exceptions I can think of—have pronounced cultural mores that mute everybody's trumpets, an ethic that says, "You're not so special."
As I told Breedveld: Maybe America wouldn't look so gratuitously arrogant if other peoples would stop being so pathologically self-effacing.