Norbit - The Assasination of Humor ?

I have always found quite a few of multiple Oscar awards winner, Eddie Murphy’s movies to be quite funny but bizarre. The most recognizable Eddie Murphy movies would have to be The Nutty Professor parts I and II. The Nutty Professor series became a huge hit after its debut through the latter half of the 90s.Eddie Murphy plays a fat professor in both of the movies. Although one can manage a good laugh from both the movies, certain aspects of each of the two movies certainly did their part in re-defining the word “Bizarre”.

According to Wikipedia the free Encyclopedia:

“Bizarre is a word which means strange, weird, or completely out of the usual or expected.”

Eddie Murphy can be seen multiple characters in the Nutty Professor Series.Some scenes from these movies push the word ‘Bizarre’ to its limits. For example, half-way through Nutty professor one, there is a scene in which the Professor’s(Sherman’s) family has dinner together. Although I found the scene to be funny, what was bizarre about it was the fact that Eddie Murphy played 5 of the characters on the table out of 6. It is quite tough to put what I really mean, into words.

So I reckon that you would be better off in experiencing the Bizarre-ness of the scene for yourself.

(courtesy of You Tube)

As Mark Twain said, “Each and everything has its limits”.

The movie ‘Norbit’ seems to have pushed the combination of Bizarre-ness and Humor beyond its limits and this has resulted in the assassination of Humor that the writers expected this movie to reflect.

Norbit was released in the first-quarter of 2007. Although the movie received overly negative reviews from the critics, it opened as #1 in the box-office and went on to gross over $30 million in its opening weekend (Reference).

Plot:

The storyline of this movie revolves around Eddie Murphy (Norbit), who is seen playing multiple roles again (wow). After being abandoned as a baby, by his birth parents, Norbit was raised in an orphan home run by a racist and blatant Asian man called Mr.Wong (played by Eddie Murphy). Norbit has a rough childhood. After being picked on throughout his childhood, Norbit is befriended by Rasputia, an obese girl(also played by Murphy). Rasputia puts stop to Norbit being picked on by other kids by ‘taking care’ of them.

As time progresses, Norbit ends up marrying Rasputia although he doesn’t love her. He is forced to work at a construction company that is run by Rasputia’s bully-like brothers. He is not at all happy with his current life. However, Norbit is given another shot at happiness when his childhood sweet-heart Kate (played by Thandie Newton and not Eddie Murphy….phew, for a change!) returns to buy the orphanage from Mr.Wong. Apparently, Norbit isn’t over Kate just yet!. Ensuing is a series of events in which Norbit tries to get something going with Kate and goes up against Rasputia’s three brothers and Kate’s fiancé, who want to turn the orphanage into a strip club.

Conclusive Analysis:

Although this movie debuted at number one in its opening weekend and grossed over $90 million in total, it received negative reviews from the audience due to the fact that it could not live up to the hype had been created during the pre-release events. Eddie Murphy was seen in the Movie ‘Dreamgirls’ right before the release of Norbit. The fact that Dreamgirls was a hit might have contributed to the hype generated by norbit as well (since both of the movies had the same leading actor). Plus, it was an ‘Eddie Murphy’ Movie..so it was kinda pre-destined that hype and audience would come running automatically.

I saw this movie on a long flight about 3 months ago. Since I had a lot of time on my hands, I started to think what this movie was really about and what kind of stuff the writers tried to incorporate into the script in order to try and make the movie funny, even though their attempt resulted in faliure.

The tagline of this film was “Have you ever made a big mistake ?”. Ironically, I think that this title applies to the makers of this movie as well. There are scenes within the movie that would lead one to the conclusion that the very existence of this movie is nothing but a scratch in the name of humor. I think that the primary joke of this movie is on its characters. For example, Rasputia is obese. She is impatient, mean and hard to control. She can’t fit in her car, her breasts honk the horn of her car. She jumps in one of those air-filled castles at the carnival and kids fly out if it. In short, this part of the relies on the low level fact that if you’re fat then you’re also a horrible bitch(Rasputia).

If you enjoy low level humor like this, then you are bound to enjoy this movie. However, I Refuse to laugh on a fat woman who breaks a bed while having sex, even though the scene is intended to be funny. The movie also makes fun of Asian people (Mr. Wong) be potraying them as people who indulge into domestic violence with children( in some of the opening scenes where Mr.Wong handles the kid-norbit).

I was drawn to the conclusion that the face of humor is indeed, changing. In the Nutty Professor series, although we laugh at the body make-up of the various characters and mock them along with their way of talking, at the same time we know that they are good people inside. This movie fails to do so and I think that this is the main shortcoming of the movie.

I don’t know what else to say about this movie. I got a few laughs out of it, but in the end it was just a plain horrid piece of crap.

I don’t know why this always happens in the end.

This leads me back to the same question that I have been trying to examine in my last three posts.

Any “Comedy” movie that I see today, although I might find it to be funny(so may you), some questions pop up in my head relating to the way in which the movie tries to achieve humor.

What kind of Humor lies in mocking the physical attributes of a person?

What kind of humor does the mocking the way people talk hold?

What meaning does the word “Humor” reflect in today’s society?

On a more broader note, Why do we need to use mockery as a tool of humor?

Whatever happened to the light hearted comedy that everyone could enjoy?

Is this the new face of Comedy, or is it the path leading towards its assassination?

As usual,

The question my friend, is for you to answer.

highAgain out.