Kevin Costner and the hypocrisy of Hollywood millionaires who praise the Cuban dictatorship

There is a class of millionaire actors who have built their fortunes thanks to freedom, democracy, and capitalism, yet, in a display of boundless hypocrisy, allow themselves to defend dictatorial regimes that oppress their people. From the comfort of their mansions in Los Angeles or Madrid, surrounded by luxuries that only the system they so vehemently criticize has allowed them to achieve, they dare to romanticize governments that persecute, censor, and impoverish their citizens.

Kevin Costner is neither the first nor will he be the last to engage in the propaganda game of the Cuban dictatorship, like so many other figures who are comfortably settled in democracies that allow them to express their opinions without consequences. Other names from Hollywood and the intellectual elite have done the same.

Sean Penn traveled to Cuba and interviewed Raúl Castro in a public relations operation, while Michael Moore glorified the Cuban healthcare system in his documentary 'Sicko', overlooking its real shortcomings. Oliver Stone has praised the Castro regime on multiple occasions, whitewashing its history of repression. Naomi Campbell visited the island and was photographed with Fidel Castro's son, while Danny Glover has been an outspoken supporter of the Cuban government. More recently, the Cuban Ana de Armas, who has always avoided criticizing the regime, has entered into a romantic relationship with Miguel Díaz-Canel's stepson, which has raised even more questions about her stance regarding the Cuban government.

Kevin Costner recently visited the island, met with dictator Miguel Diaz-Canel, and returned home without spending a single day waiting in line for bread, without enduring a 12-hour blackout, and without fearing a visit from State Security. For him and his peers, the revolution is an exotic subject, just another accessory in their collection of experiences to brag about in interviews and on social media.

The most disgusting aspect of this stance is that many of these millionaires take advantage of the democracy that has allowed them to express themselves freely and amass fortunes, while supporting regimes that deny those same rights to their citizens. None of them would be willing to live under the rules of the governments they defend. None would trade their residence in Beverly Hills for an apartment in a building site in Havana. None would exchange their multi-million-dollar bank accounts for a ration book. Nor would they donate them to the "revolutionary cause."

The double standards of these "defenders of the people" are an insult to those who truly suffer the consequences of these dictatorships. While they play at being armchair revolutionaries, the Cuban people confront scarcity, repression, and fear, while thousands risk their lives at sea, fleeing the supposed utopia they so praise.

What is most insulting is that the vast majority of these individuals barely have the slightest understanding of the Cuban reality. They repeat the same canned phrases about "free education" and "public health" without pausing to consider the quality of those services or the lives they have cost. They prefer to ignore the police brutality, political prisoners, the lack of free elections, and the state's absolute control over the lives of its citizens.

If they truly believe in the virtues of these regimes, they should lead by example. They should give up their millions, move to Cuba, live like an ordinary citizen under the conditions they themselves justify, try to criticize the government in a local media outlet, and attempt to exercise the same freedoms they enjoy in the West. Only then could they speak with any authority on the matter. But they won’t do it. Because they know that in those countries, they wouldn’t last a week living as an ordinary citizen. Their support for dictatorships is not a genuine conviction but an opportunistic strategy that risks none of their own comfort and privileges.

The true defenders of justice cannot turn a blind eye to oppression, regardless of the ideology of those who impose it. Freedom is not exclusive to the privileged of Hollywood, it is a right for everyone, and any attempt to justify its denial should be condemned with equal strength, no matter how famous the person who does so may be.