So the United States hasn’t quite lifted its trade embargo with Cuba, but there’s already a controversial American export invading the country: The Kardashians.
The first family of reality TV is touring the formerly off-limits communist country, apparently filming an episode of their E! show Keeping Up With the Kardashians. Khloe Kardashian has been posting holiday pictures to Instagram of herself, her sisters and some pals. Basically, it’s the usual social-media fare of pouty-lipped selfies and glam poses, only with Havana, not LA, as the backdrop (and cigars in place of cocktails).
The visit isn’t going over well with at least one critic. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen on Wednesday tweeted her displeasure. “How much of the #Cuban ppl’s reality will be in this ‘reality’ show?” she wondered, accompanying the tweet with a perfectly timed gif of Star Wars character Han Solo rolling his eyes. (It was May 4, or Star Wars Day, as in “May the fourth be with you.”)
Ros-Lehtinen is a Cuban-American who is a longtime critic of both the Castro regime and the US efforts to normalise relations with Cuba. Her district includes a large number of Cuban exiles.
She went even further in a statement to People magazine: “The Cuban people don’t experience the glamorous Havana that is featured on social media.” Her dig at the visiting celebs: “Haven’t the Cuban people suffered enough?”
