Killer Chic: Hollywood's Sick Love Affair with Che Guevara

Giselle Bundchen wears him on her bikini. Johnny Depp wears him around his neck. And Benicio del Toro becomes him in Steven Soderbergh's by-all-accounts-fawning four-hour biopic, Che, now in limited release.

Del Toro, who took home best actor honors at Cannes earlier this year, is already earning Oscar whispers for his performance. But "Che" is only the latest sign of Hollywood's infatuation with Guevara, Castro, and other dictatorial goons (recently, Sean Penn had a cover story in The Nation lamenting unfair media coverage of the tyrannical Cuban and Venezuelan regimes).

"Killer Chic" tours the hellholes of totalitarianism through the eyes of Paquito D'Rivera, who left Cuba for artistic freedom and ended up becoming a Grammy Award-winning jazz player, and Kai Chen, a former member of the Chinese national basketball team whose relatives were hauled off under Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution. "Killer Chic" is a fascinating and troubling foray into Hollywood's shallow--and callow--appropriation of murderous thugs.

Go to http://reason.tv/video/show/622.html for more information and related materials.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• che
• guevara
• benicio
• del
• toro
• steven
• soderbergh
• cuba
• castro
• mao
• reason.tv
• Paquito
• D'Rivera
• nick
• gillespie
• cannes
• academy
• awards
• hollywood
• communism

[wraithfire79]

Funny how great men like Gandhi and Martin Luther King are over-looked or not acknowledged as great revolutionaries by achieving their "fight" against social injustice through non-violence. Instead praise this scum-bag, yup makes sense, especially to liberals who are supposed to be anti-war and anti-violent.

"An eye for an eye make the whole word go blind" -Ghandi-

[9971explorer]

I like watching these marxists protesting. And they have the nerve to call the tea parties racist and violent.

[ZombiBuddy]

Anyone think it's sad that an anti-capitalist is being honored with consumerism?

[Elmgren76]

@alizamzam11 Well, Che was a ruthless mass murderer so was Usama Bin Laden. If you express love for people like Che you should really read up on the history of his crimes.

[slop101]

Well, if you have to choose one, better for Che's image to be popularized rather than his message, no?

[alizamzam11]

I don't know why people like you , so imperfect , living in an outrageous imperfect society , look for perfection in a man ! Che was not flawless , but he changed the world , even after his death . Thanks to CIA , his legacy lives on .

[alizamzam11]

@Elmgren76 stick to the point . Don't bring up irrelevant names

[thagr8waldo]

@wraithfire79 Gandhi was not a pacifist and Che was not a communist.

[Toshirozawa]

lol the bias and false information in the video is just too much....

[H1TMANactual]

@wraithfire79 Did you know Gandhi was also racist?

[Avengedstar1]

@wraithfire79 You could not be more wrong. People idolize Ghandi and Martin Luther King much more then they do Che Gevara. But you know, you can't have non-violent protests in a tyrannic state. Well you can, but then you magically disappear.

[Elmgren76]

@alizamzam11 Would you say the same thing about Usama Bin Laden?