Word: leguizamo
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...seven sketches in Mambo Mouth (Leguizamo makes the transition from one to another by frenetically changing costumes behind a backlit scrim while loudspeakers pump out a salsa beat) grew from improvisations that Leguizamo based on his family and friends and on images culled from TV and films. "I drew on everything that was around me and put it together," he says. "I can only write something that touches me and amuses me, that I feel something about...
...material is a little too close to home for many Hispanics, who charge that Mambo Mouth perpetuates negative, sexist stereotypes. A female columnist in the Village Voice accused Leguizamo of promoting "refried machismo" and "woman bashing." The actor rejects the charge. "To some Latin people, we're not allowed to mock ourselves," he says. "I'm supposed to be doing the Bill Cosby-Brady Bunch syndrome." Leguizamo acknowledges, however, that his unflinching portrayals of Latin lowlifes, louts and losers can trigger a painful catharsis. "Latin culture is very subliminal. There's still a lot of self-hate. It's underneath...
...Leguizamo is, in fact, part of a wave of young minority comedians who use laughter to lampoon ethnic and other stereotypes, often at the risk of offending fellow minorities. Damon and Keenen Ivory Wayans have widened the parameters of black humor on their TV show In Living Color, enacting such caricatures as dogmatic homeboys, bums and effeminate book reviewers. Stand-up comedian Tamayo Otsuki revs up her act by portraying the Japanese as greedy moneybags who discipline their children by evoking memories of the atom bomb. ) Such humor, argues Leguizamo, is an "exorcism" rooted in the liberating power of self...
...sketch called "Crossover King," for example, Leguizamo satirizes Hispanics' desire to be accepted into the mainstream by playing a Latin who transforms himself into a pseudo-samurai businessman. Eyes squinting behind thick spectacles, Leguizamo lectures members of an imaginary Hispanic audience on how they too "can be Latino-free" if they just work hard enough at being Japanese. "Our computer graphics project that after only six years in the crossover program, Tito could become Toshino," he explains, "the quiet, well-dressed, manicured, well-groomed, somewhat anal-retentive overachiever who is ready to enter the job market at the drop...
Born in Bogota and raised in a working-class section of Queens, N.Y., Leguizamo discovered early that his talents could buy him protection from the streetwise youths who ruled the neighborhood. "They used to let me hang out with them because I would make them laugh," he recalls. After studying drama at New York University, Leguizamo landed some supporting roles on TV's Miami Vice and soon moved on to movies. In Hollywood he has alternated between playing mama's boys (Casualties of War, Hangin' with the Homeboys) and baby- faced killers (Die Hard II, Regarding Henry...