- Scott Fitzgerald - Mark Twain - Herman Melville - John Steinbeck - Wall Whitman - E. Allan Poe - Ginsbert - Bukowski - Charlie Chaplin - Miles Davis - Bob Dylan - (countless others)
Depends on where/what you choose to look. I understand that the average American is not all that knowledgeable but neither is the average European, Australian, Japanese or Nigerian...
Which is not to deny that his silent movie career isn't American culture; just that Chaplin's relationship with America was complicated.
I believe that he shaped part of the US and World's culture with movies like "The dictator"[1].
Is that what he will be known as from now on? :)
On a more serious note, it's interesting to reread his poem _America_, which was certainly written more as an aspiration than a description at the time. However, this election makes you wonder whether the aspiration is even there anymore (from either side, if we're being honest).
| Centre of equal daughters, equal sons, | All, all alike endear’d, grown, ungrown, young or old, | Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich, | Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love, | A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother, | Chair’d in the adamant of Time.