Hollywood actors can do almost anything—unless they are short on cash. A few weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal featured an essay by the actress Julia Stiles, on her 2009 trip to Cuba. She traveled to the island with a humanitarian aid group, then spent some time doing touristy things in Havana, and suddenly found herself broke and (gasp) unable to use her credit card.
Here’s the lede: “With three days left to go in my trip, I was walking around Havana flat broke.” This could be the beginning of a good story. But what follows is a generic, unremarkable account of a visit to Cuba by a person who clearly didn’t know much about the place before she arrived. The experience of being (briefly) broke in Havana caused her to think hard about poverty, communism, Cuba’s shabby telecommunications infrastructure, and the goodness of humanity. In the end, she borrowed some money from her sister and got herself back to the US without any trouble. Oh, and while she was there, she got nominated for a Golden Globe.
