They’re not too hot on the Che image being used to sell vodka or cell phones, either, the AP reports. No word on their feelings about this.

Related on World Hum:
* Che Guevara: Revolutionary, Icon, ‘the Guy Who Intented Those Mojitos’?
* Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Che’: ‘Almost Unreleasable in its Current Form’
* Che and the Image Seen ‘Round the World

Uh, something like that. In Sunday’s Los Angeles Times, Ben Ehrenreich reflects on Che as pop icon, Steven Soderbergh’s Che and “Chevolution,” an intriguing new documentary about the famed Alberto Korda photo. 

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That seems to be the consensus of those who saw the biopic at the Cannes Film Festival. While Benicio Del Toro (pictured) won the best actor award for his performance of the rebel who launched a million T-shirts, critics say Soderbergh’s highly anticipated biopic, which runs no less than four and a half hours, isn’t likely to find its way into theaters soon. The film was made in two parts, the first covering the revolution in Cuba, the second focusing on Guevara’s ill-fated adventures in Bolivia. It’s “almost unreleasable in its current form in any country in the world,” critic John Powers said yesterday on NPR’s Fresh Air. 

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Forty years ago today, Che Guevara was killed by CIA-backed Bolivian soldiers, and the anniversary has prompted gatherings around the Latin world—Bolivian President Evo Morales, fresh off a visit to The Daily Show, choppered in for an event near the site where Che was killed. Predictably, media outlets have published a slew of stories about the man, the myth, the travelers on the “Che Trail” and the iconic image.

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How many ways can writers exploit the life and legend of Che Guevara? How many different verbs can be paired with “Che” to produce a pithy title? We’ve seen Chasing Che. Then came Loving Che. Now comes a new thriller to add to the Che library: Killing Che. Written by screenwriter Chuck Pfarrer, who drew on his own Navy SEAL experience as well as Jorge Castañeda’s Che biography, Compañero, the novel follows CIA operative Paul Hoyle on his 1967 quest to hunt down the beret-wearing revolutionary in Bolivia. 

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No, not the image of Che wearing a Bart Simpson T-shirt, although it’s clearly an image that should be seen around the world. First, there was the original Alberto Korda photo of the bearded, beret-clad revolutionary looking totally revolutionary-chic. A new AP story recounts that photo’s journey from Korda’s camera to the world-at-large. It notes, among other things, the ensuing ironies (capitalists are capitalizing on the commie’s image!); the pets (meet Che, an elegant Doberman pinscher in Oakland, California); Che detractors (hey, they say, the guy was a murderer); and the spoofs, including this New Yorker cartoon by Matthew Diffee. 

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There’s no denying the romantic appeal of the image of Che Guevara. He is, at least as many like to think of him, a vagabonding traveler, a revolutionary, a tough biker and a swashbuckling philosopher, all rolled up into one Latin superhero. Thanks to the iconic Alberto Korda photo of him, he also looks cool on a T-shirt. All that helps explain, I think, why Lonely Planet placed a portion of that image on some banners across its Web site, and slipped advertisements for its guidebooks into DVD cases with the film “The Motorcycle Diaries.” The young, idealistic Che depicted in that film is one thing. (I loved the movie.) But something tells me Lonely Planet won’t be rushing to sponsor the new stage play, School of the Americas, written by “The “Motorcycle Diaries” screenwriter José Rivera. The Che depicted here is not the warm, fuzzy young traveler eager to play soccer with shunned lepers.

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Today’s Los Angeles Times features a fascinating front page story about efforts in Bolivia and beyond to transform Che Guevara historical sites into major tourist attractions. The article also touches on Che-related commercial absurdity beyond Latin America, noting: “The Republica Trading Co. collection—available at retail outlets such as Bloomingdale’s and Fred Segal—includes a $98 Che cashmere sweater. When Johnny Depp posed for the cover of GQ magazine last year, he wore a Che medallion.” Ugh.

I imagine I’m not the only travel addict who was eager to see “The Motorcycle Diaries,” the new film about Che Guevara’s youthful journey through South America. After all, it’s a road film, and done right, road films stoke wanderlust. So does “The Motorcycle Diaries” deliver? I’d say so, having seen the movie last night. 

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The new Che Guevara-related film “The Motorcycle Diaries” opens this week in U.S. theaters. Marking the occasion in today’s Los Angeles Times, New Yorker writer and Che biographer John Lee Anderson offers a thoughtful reflection on the ubiquitous Che image. Che, he writes, “lives on as a youthful recrimination of the Icarus myth, which is at once a moral tale and a lamentation about the eternal tragedy of the fleeting nature of youth and its doomed idealism.”