Somebody take Eddie Murphy’s latex away

Maybe I’ll have to watch the movie, but I didn’t get the impression that the ample woman portrayed by Mister Murphy(boo hiss on behalf of Scary Spice, btw) was that great of a person to begin with. Large or small, she didn’t seem terribly pleasant.

But that’s my point. Of course she’s unpleasant – she’s overweight! And that’s the stereotype I keep seeing in films – slim people are nice and deserving, and overweight people are nasty and deserve to lose.

Please though, consider some of the other points mentioned in my previous post.

I’m not ignoring your points, but they don’t negate the stereotyping, though. On this site, we critique a LOT of movies and shows that are quite good in some ways, but which still use stereotypes or bad gender representation. If you don’t want to read the critiques, don’t.

The same story could have been told with two women of similar weights, and maybe then it would have been great.

Secondly- the reason (second to the fat jokes) that Rasputia is refered to as monsterous is because she is one of the meanest people I have ever seen in a movie, and little of that has to do with the fact that she is overweight.

It has everything to do with her weight, in the sense that there’s a powerful stereotype in Hollywood that overweight people have nasty personalities. She could have been a slim woman who was unpleasant. And of course, the two women’s weights could have been reversed, but that would never happen because it doesn’t fit the stereotype.

Mr. Murphy is making an overdue comeback and after dreamgirls, it is too bad the next film had to be so lesser. We all know that Eddie will always have the same sense of humor he always has had, and no matter how out of place this may sound, You know the brand, and if you don’t like it, don’t buy the product. i.e. Don’t see the movie.

As SBG said, this sort of comment is against our guidelines. This is a film criticism site. If you don’t want to read the criticism, don’t read our site.

* also- I am fully old enough to comprehend this website. Thanks not for your assumption.

You don’t comprehend the point of the site, and your first comment accused me of something I didn’t say. What would you prefer I assume?

Let’s just hope that next summer we don’t have Eddie Murphy team up with Martin Lawrence for the cross-over “The Klumps Eat at Big Momma’s House.”

*palmface* Nooooooooo!!!!!

There’s some very good stuff there which is worth linking to, because they cover the issue of race, which I didn’t attempt to speak on:

From Seeing Black:

Perhaps the sensible thing is to ignore “Norbit,”…. But as a Hollywood production with a big promotion budget, “Norbit” is hard to ignore.

Our forced exposure to this film and its ideas does not begin if and when we decide to see it. Rather, the story of Norbit begins at the mall, inside our cars, on the bus or as we walk down the street….

….This is what “Norbit” is about— the capture and captivity of a gentle and good-hearted Black man named Norbit by a morbidly obese, mean and nasty Black woman named Rasputia….

….Norbit is tasteless and filled with tired racial and woman-hating humor. The fact that Rasputia is fat is not so much the joke as the fact that she is a fat (and Black) woman. (emphasis by Betacandy) She is made into a monster and a beast—referred to as “a guerilla” and referenced by a piece of poultry fashioned to look like a naked Black butt (like the one hinted at in the movie poster). Her depiction is of course in contrast to the saint-like rendering of Norbit’s childhood sweetheart, played by bi-racial, light-skinned actress Thandie Newton.

….Murphy’s rotund character Sherman Klump in both “The Nutty Professor and “The Klumps” was notable for his kindness and for the fact that, despite his size, he was loved by two hotties, played by Janet Jackson and Jada Pinkett.

The fat Black woman or even the average-sized Black woman’s body, has become such a standard joke in recent movies, TV shows and commercials that we are asked by the White filmmakers of “Norbit,” as well as the film’s apologists, to accept it. This exploitation has been going on for a long time. Even Hattie McDaniel, the first Black actress to win an Academy Award, in 1939 for “Gone with the Wind, was forbidden by her mammy-centric studio contract to lose weight. Jennifer Hudson, an Oscar nominee this year for “Dreamgirls,” was forced to gain weight to play her part.

There’s more good stuff if you follow the link.

The act of stereotyping is really an act of selectively representing reality – emphasizing and even distorting some aspects of reality while ignoring others. Dominant classes use this technique to blow out of proportion every wrong committed by the subjected classes – from simple human frailties to real crimes, and even to acts designated as wrong only for the subjected classes. Meanwhile, the wrongs of the dominant class are downplayed or even effectively erased.

This is at the heart of inequality.