2008 Woodie Awards
Blaxploitation for the '00s
Fat-suit-wearing Oscar nominee Eddie Murphy insults in Norbit
Harry Vaughn
Issue date: 2/8/07 Section: Arts and Entertainment
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Remember Soul Plane? You know, the "comedy" that portrayed black people as incompetent fools who drank, smoked and screwed on board what was apparently modeled as a black person's plane?
If you're in the mood to indulge yourself in two hours of blatant racism and embarrassment, head to the theatre for Norbit, an equally hateful and humorless statement about black culture in America, just in time for Black History Month.
It is one thing to create risqué comedy that pokes fun at issues of political correctness and stereotypes, but when a film is as relentlessly sub par in its humor as Norbit is, satire quickly turns into sluggish cruelty.
Norbit is not a comedy: it is a terrible and undignified calamity. It makes The Nutty Professor look positively Oscar worthy.
Most of its taunting is aimed at the obese villain named Rasputia, a cackling monster played by Eddie Murphy who is referred to as an Escalade in a wedding dress, a buttermilk cow and a banana-eating gorilla. Her favorite pastimes include sucking jelly out of donuts, farting on innocent bystanders and using her large breasts to honk her car horn. Oh, her massive mammaries also act as airbags when she runs over her neighbor's dog.
By the end of Norbit, Rasputia's obesity is the brunt of more than 70 jokes, each one less funny than the last. She breaks a Moon Bounce. She smothers her husband in bed. She floods the house when she gets into her bath. Get it? Because she's fat.
Murphy, who plays three different characters including the title one, fails to animate any of his roles with a trace of believability.
Mr. Wong, for instance, is a paper-thin sketch of a Chinese man who mixes up his Rs with Ls, and yearns to own a dry-cleaning business of his own. Get it? He's Asian.
And then there's Norbit, a skinny and useless fool who can hardly form sentences on his own. When he's not being chased around by his wife, Rasputia, Norbit spends his time pursuing his childhood sweetheart, Kate (Thandie Newton, in an all-time career low).
If you're in the mood to indulge yourself in two hours of blatant racism and embarrassment, head to the theatre for Norbit, an equally hateful and humorless statement about black culture in America, just in time for Black History Month.
It is one thing to create risqué comedy that pokes fun at issues of political correctness and stereotypes, but when a film is as relentlessly sub par in its humor as Norbit is, satire quickly turns into sluggish cruelty.
Norbit is not a comedy: it is a terrible and undignified calamity. It makes The Nutty Professor look positively Oscar worthy.
Most of its taunting is aimed at the obese villain named Rasputia, a cackling monster played by Eddie Murphy who is referred to as an Escalade in a wedding dress, a buttermilk cow and a banana-eating gorilla. Her favorite pastimes include sucking jelly out of donuts, farting on innocent bystanders and using her large breasts to honk her car horn. Oh, her massive mammaries also act as airbags when she runs over her neighbor's dog.
By the end of Norbit, Rasputia's obesity is the brunt of more than 70 jokes, each one less funny than the last. She breaks a Moon Bounce. She smothers her husband in bed. She floods the house when she gets into her bath. Get it? Because she's fat.
Murphy, who plays three different characters including the title one, fails to animate any of his roles with a trace of believability.
Mr. Wong, for instance, is a paper-thin sketch of a Chinese man who mixes up his Rs with Ls, and yearns to own a dry-cleaning business of his own. Get it? He's Asian.
And then there's Norbit, a skinny and useless fool who can hardly form sentences on his own. When he's not being chased around by his wife, Rasputia, Norbit spends his time pursuing his childhood sweetheart, Kate (Thandie Newton, in an all-time career low).
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