Legendary Latino star of stage and screen John Leguizamo gets to educate a new bunch of idiots now that his Tony Award-nominated one-man show is on Netflix. In Latin History for Morons — which saw sold-out runs at the prestigious Public Theater in New York City and at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Berkeley, Calif. — the unconventional performer attempts to teach his son about the many great (but unsung) Latinx historical figures in what he calls “the age of Pitbull.”
Many know Leguizamo from his unique and versatile film roles — like Latina drag queen Chi-Chi Rodriguez in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, or physically disabled French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in Moulin Rouge — but his electric one-man stage shows are how this incredible talent got his start.
Frustrated by the roles offered to him in Hollywood, which often involved playing Latino thugs or drug dealers, Leguizamo turned to the stage early in his career, where he blasted stereotypes through a myriad of male and female Latinx characters — all played by him. While early efforts like Mambo Mouth and Spic-o-Rama garnered Leguizamo attention (and led to TV specials), it was the groundbreaking, gut-wrenchingly honest autobiographical Freak in 1998 that set his career on fire. In 2018, Leguizamo received a special Tony Award for his body of work as a playwright and solo artist.
Now he’s back where he seems most at home: the stage, specifically the one at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, N.J., where HBO filmed another of Leguizamo’s one man-shows, Ghetto Klown, in 2011. Here, Leguizamo films the Netflix special, Latin History for Morons, in which he asks, “But yo, what happened in the 3,000 years between our great indigenous civilizations—and us. How did we become so God damned nonexistent? [Because] if you don’t see yourself represented outside of yourself, you feel fucking invisible.”
From ancient Mayans to Montezuma to Menudo, Leguizamo entertainingly attempts to cover it all —channeling real-life heroes like Frida Kahlo and Poncho Villa and lesser known Latinx cowboys, Civil War fighters, and Hollywood actors. In the process, he also uncovers unexpected and provocative truths around the relationship between the Latin and Western worlds. But as he unveils the parade of injustices that the Latinx people have endured under brutal rulers stretching through time from the Incans to Trump, some viewers may wish Leguizamo wasn’t always so quick with a joke. We’d like to see Latin History’s caring dad show a little (justifiable) frustration, too.
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