Watching "Norbit": When you're the only one in the movie theater who isn't laughing
PopcornReel.com Movie
Review: "Norbit"
By Omar P.L. Moore/February 9, 2007
Poster: Dreamworks Pictures
The filmmakers of "Norbit" and its movie poster have the
audacity to ask, "have you ever made a really big mistake?"
"Norbit" is awful -- and awfully offensive.
Racially offensive.
And to those who will stumble by chance upon this review, read it, and say, "lighten up, and relax", the response will be: this reviewer will relax when these types of relentless and excessively negative depictions and denigrations of blacks on film cease, and will relax when people stop ignoring the fact that films like "Norbit" belong to a very long and not so distant legacy of racist depictions of blacks in their most basest, most stereotypical form in Hollywood. That Eddie Murphy partakes in this makes it no less racist, either.
No one is suggesting that films that poke fun at blacks (or anyone else) shouldn't be made. There's a difference between such films as "Blazing Saddles" and this, a mean-spirited assault of a film, which should be shunned. The problem is, that when you're the only one in the movie theater who is not laughing . . .
There are three rules that one should observe when watching a film like this:
1. When a film has a Wayans brother in it (with the exception of Keenan Ivory Wayans) skip it at all costs.
2. When a film has Cuba Gooding, Jr. in it (who has been in jus three half-decent films since his Oscar win ten years ago), say arrivederci.
3. When a film has fat jokes that are the entire basis of its "laughs", then you know that the film has nothing to offer.
"Norbit" is about a nerdy man (played by soon to be Oscar-winner -- not for this, thankfully -- Eddie Murphy) who has had a rough life. Orphaned as a baby and dumped off at Mr. Wong's (Murphy) orphanage, he starts anew and is later befriended by and married to Rasputia (Murphy), a woman of grotesquely behemoth proportions. She makes life a living hell for Norbit, who has his eye on his childhood sweet heart Kate (Thandie Newton). And the rest of the story involves a scheme to turn the orphanage into a topless club that involves several ridiculous and pointless set-ups and flagrantly bombastic racial stereotypes of black men in particular. There are stereotypes of women and people of other races that this reviewer couldn't care for either. There are other things in "Norbit" which are as degrading and pathetic as anything in Mr. Murphy's "Harlem Nights" (a forerunner of this kind of self-hating tripe.) Murphy directed that 1989 film, which starred the late comedians Richard Pryor and Redd Foxx. "Borat" did the stereotyping bit in a much better more thought-provoking way, while maintaining its sense of humor, its controversy and its edge. "Norbit" does none of the above, and is a senseless exercise.
Stereotypes -- Blackface returns to cinema, in the disgusting, decrepit,
degrading "Norbit", courtesy of Eddie Murphy (and Eddie Murphy.)
(Photo: Dreamworks Pictures)
Eddie Murphy has said that he has always loved playing many different characters
in one film, and he should be commended for doing it well. (But he's done
it before -- and better -- in "Coming To America" and "The Nutty Professor".)
However, none of these characters has a shred of real humanity to them -- they
are cardboard caricature cutouts of the worst racial stereotypes. Watching
"Norbit" I got the feeling that some of those who were laughing at what they saw
on the big screen were doing so and giving vent to their own prejudices, the
kinds that they can find comfort in while sitting anonymously in a darkened
movie theater. (Having said that, people of all races were howling with
laughter. Except me.)
Though "Norbit" will make its $100 million by bringing audiences to their knees
in apoplectic hilarity, Brian Robbins' film, which was written by Mr. Murphy and
his brother Charles, is a depressing event -- because it harkens back to a sad
and not-so distant era and legacy in America that involved Mantan Moreland,
Stepin' Fetchit and others, including such actors as Judy Garland, Fred Astaire,
Joan Crawford, Al Jolson and numerous others -- that
brought out the worst in Hollywood. Films like "Grand Hotel" (1932)
and "Holiday Inn" (1942) and many, many others contained negative and blatantly
racist depictions of and references to blacks and displays of actual blackface
(white actors wearing dark face makeup to pretend to be black; and black actors
doing the same) was frequent and the norm. Mantan Moreland and
Stepin Fetchit were black performers who worked in Hollywood at a time when they
didn't have a choice. Eddie Murphy does. Could it be that "Norbit",
released on February 9, 2007, is 1937 all over again, where blackface is
concerned?
(Remember the Whoopi Goldberg-Ted Danson blackface fiasco in 1993 at a Friars'
Club roast in New York City?)
If you read the review written by Norbit's cousin, you may have found it painful
to read. If you found it funny -- it wasn't meant to be.
Within the pain of the review, Norbit's cousin dispenses a piece of advice: read
Donald Bogle's book "Toms, Coons, Mammies and Bucks" and Nelson George's
Blackface, or watch Spike Lee's 2000 film "Bamboozled", which most American film
critics (including Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper) did not care for.
"Bamboozled" is a stunning education into the era of blackface in American film
and television. (Ironically the film starred Damon Wayans.) There
are also documentaries such as Melvin Van Peebles' and Mark Daniels' "Classified
X" (1998), which document this painful legacy.
And for a very long, unfunny hour and 40 minutes, "Norbit" brings it all back.
"Norbit" is rated PG-13 (patently-gross) by the Motion
Picture Association of America. Can I get my time back? The film
opens across North America today and is released by Dreamworks Pictures.
Read the special guest review by Norbit's
cousin
Copyright The Popcorn Reel. PopcornReel.com. 2007. All Rights Reserved.