COMMENTARY | Jane Fonda, an actress of some talent and a woman whose political leanings have sometimes inspired disgust, has opined that one of her great regrets in life has been the fact that she did not get to sleep with Che Guevara.
Fonda, who counts among her former husbands Roger Vadim, Tom Hayden, and Ted Turner, seems to be a case of a silly girl who is attracted to bad boys. Vadim, by all accounts, pressured her into having threesomes. Hayden treated her like dirt and as a piggy bank for his left-wing causes. Turner, the founder of CNN, was a weird combination of a right-wing media mogul and an environmental hysteric. But one has to ask: Che Guevara?
Mind, there is a certain romantic mystique among the history-deprived about Che, the handsome, charismatic revolutionary. There are those T-shirts that show his visage. Films such as “The Motorcycle Diaries” romanticize his early life. Indeed, the director of the latest “Planet of the Apes” movie says that his ape revolutionary was based on Che.
A physician and pseudo intellectual, Guevara was a partner with Fidel and Raul Castro in overthrowing the Batista regime in Cuba, whereupon he was placed in charge of executing political prisoners. The firing squads seem to have executed several hundred people, allegedly officials of the former regime, but in actuality anyone who would be thought of as a threat to the revolution. According to Humberto Fontova, a Cuban refugee and an author of a book about Guevara, the revolutionary seemed to positively relish the slaughter he was in charge of. Among the people executed were writers, poets, and filmmakers, according to Fontova.
Fontova also suggests that Fidel Castro sent Guevara to South America not so much for the stated purpose of fomenting rebellion but as a means of getting rid of an ally who had become increasingly unstable. He even suggests Castro leaked news of the whereabouts of Che to the CIA, which led to his capture and eventual execution in Bolivia.
The difference between Guevara and, say, Osama bin Laden is that Che was somewhat less successful as a terrorist. However, one cannot imagine even Jane Fonda sighing that her great regret was not sleeping with bin Laden. There are some things that even the Hollywood left cannot imagine wanting to do.
Source: Rebel without a bra: Jane Fonda said her biggest regret was not sleeping with Che Guevara… but that was to please her husband, Patricia Bosworth, Daily Mail, September 5, 2011
‘Rise of the Apes’ Director: Film’s Hero Inspired by Che Guevara, Humberto Fontova, Big Hollywood, August 17, 2011
Che Guevara: Mass Murderer and Coward, Jamie Glazov, Front Page Magazine, June 13, 2007