There's Something About Mao

At Dictators of the World, we'd like to think that fashion and celebrity reporting are pitiful trifles reserved for the women's magazines. Inevitably, the worlds of celebrity, fashion and tyranny are bound to collide sooner or later, and that appears to have finally happened last Friday in Peru. Hollywood actress Cameron Diaz took her apparently fashionable bag emblazoned with a red star and a Chinese phrase (seen at left) with her to the ruins of Macchu Picchu. No biggie, right?

What Miss Diaz didn't know is that her bag is emblazoned with a red star as well as Mao Zedong's political slogan "Serve the people!", which also happened to be one of the rallying cries of Peru's own bloodthirsty homegrown Maoist rebel group, Sendero Luminoso ("Shining Path"). Oopsie! Miss Diaz was suitably embarrassed about her faux pas to issue an extremely Hollywood celebrity style apology:

"I'm sorry for any people's pain and suffering and it was certainly never my intention to reopen what I now know is a painful wound in this country's history"

Apparently, she went on to praise the "beauty" and "warmth" of the Peruvian people, perhaps forgetting that the "Peruvian people" also includes the aforementioned Maoist rebels who caused so much misery in Peru. At any rate, I touched on the phenomenon of Communist chic back in December, and as I said back then, Che Guevara t-shirts and Mao Zedong bags should only be the beginning. Where the hell are my Josef Stalin throw pillows and Kim Il-Sung placemats?