Honest Review: Pimps, Hos, Playa Hatas, and All the Rest of My Hollywood Friends by John Leguizamo

Rating:

Review:

Celebrity memoirs are a guilty pleasure. They usually offer zero substance or insight into someone’s mind outside of their need for attention and gratification. John Leguizamo’s Pimps, Hos, Playa Hatas, and All the Rest of My Hollywood Friends was no different. Although, I won’t lie; the $2.99 price tag* for the Kindle edition influenced my decision to purchase (and read) the book. I may have gone my entire life without reading it otherwise.

And maybe it would have been better had I not read it. Not that it was a terrible book; it did have several hilarious moments and the writing oozes with John Leguizamo’s wit and humor. You can almost hear his voice as you read each chapter. And it was a joy to read something not written by a white shock rocker, a white porn star, or a white actor**. He does give you some insight in his early life, and that of his parents. A lot of which feels familiar, like something playing out of my own childhood or the family of a close friend.

What grates me, however, is the language used throughout the book. While I kept reminding myself the book was first published in 2006, it still doesn’t excuse his usage of the n-word and the portmanteau he created with it using the slur spic. While I do pardon him for using spic (afterall, we get to use the slurs used against us as we see fit), it’s unnerving how he feels comfortable using one of the most vile words imaginable. And the way he spun his usage (as he spun Lenny Bruce’s and, in part, Richard Pryor’s, but do we really have to argue the difference between the two comedians?) “as a way to drain if of its negative force…and making it harmless, like defusing a bomb” is downright baffling considering the history of anti-blackness in the Latinx community—but that’s a topic worthy of its own post.

It’s not just n-word either; there are moments in the book rife with transphobic and homophobic, anti-semitic, and misogynistic terminologies and caricatures. It’s just an unfriendly reminder how bigoted the early years of the millennia was (and, in many ways, still is). It makes it hard to truly enjoy the book, as the moment he reaches a serious point, where he’s focusing on something major in his life, he suckerpunches you in the face with something unsettling and tee-heeing it a way as being just a comedian. It makes it hard to even suggest the book even though the good parts outweigh the ugly.

Give it a chance, or don’t. At this point, it doesn’t matter. Just don’t pay full price for it. Until next time, keep on huntin’.