About book Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant (2005)
I wanted to like this book. I saw it while browing the stacks at the library and was excited to see it. Critical looks at Castro aren't all that common. In fact, as the author points out, Castro is the subject of contstant fawning by many in Hollywood, the media, and government. I've never understood that. Sure, he's a communist, but he's hardly a progressive. I mean, the same folks who labeled Sarah Palin a book-burning tyrant praise a real tyrant who censors an entire country. They rant about the evil Pinochet, yet he was small-fry compared to the 15,000 to 17,000 people Fidel tortured and executed.Seven years ago, I wrote a column about the fascination with Castro. I didn't get the appeal. And still don't. So I was hoping this book could shed some light on that. Unfortunately, it doesn't do that. It does do a fine job of documenting Castro's tyranny. That's the main strength of the book. And it lists several quotes from many people expressing their love for Castro. But it never even tries to explain why these folks love Castro. But worse than that, it's written in a snarky, Ann Coulter-like tone that makes the author look like an angry kook. Angry kooks aren't the most reliable sources for unbiased, factual information. The author should have toned down the not-funny sarcasm and let the facts do the trash-talking for him.
This is a raucous, slam-bang, fact-filled romp through evil. Fontova lines up fact after fact, footnoting and documenting the brutalities and horrors of Cuba. He shows the firing squads, the mass graves, the torture and the lies. I was shocked to find that 1 out of every 19 Cubans has been imprisoned for political crimes. The spectacle of rich white liberals waxing orgasmic over the torture of poor brown people is sickening. I had no idea that condemned political prisoners have their blood drained and sold before they are shot. Kind of like China's organ harvests. This book is just shocking. I wasn't really prepared for the extent of the Kennedys betrayal of their anti-Castro allies. JFK and his staff encouraging and arming the freedom fighters and then abandoning them to die. I knew about JFK's cowardly surrender during the Cuban Missile Crisis but never thought of it from the perspective of the betrayed Cubans. How often can you read about the willful idiocy of the CIA and the State Department, who preferred to make policy according to fashion and not principle. How can a book that is so much fun make you so mad?
Do You like book Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant (2005)?
I was a little disappointed with Humberto Fontova's critical look at Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. It mostly gets the job done but much of it goes over various Hollywood actors and directors fawning over the dictator, further a lot of the material he writes about he already mentioned in the previous book about Che Guevara (Exposing the Real Che Guevara) which was outstanding, expertly sourced masterpiece ripping the left to shreds. This book is on the short side, I felt it was written for people who do not know much or anything of Fidel...I would highly recommend it for novices who want to know about the crazy bearded kook that's been running Cuba all these years, but for me nothing new.
—Carl Martinez
