Norbit Movie Review

It's Black History Month and what better movie to come out just in time than Norbit? It starred Eddie Murphy, a relatively successful African-American as a talented....everybody! Aside from his Norbit character, he dressed up as a fat lady (Mrs. Norbit) and an old Asian man. But isn't America sick of the fat lady cliches yet or is it just me? While I enjoyed the movie, there were several occurrences that just seemed repetitive. Just to name a few:

-Fat lady empties the water out of the pool after charging off the water slide. The director couldn't forget to put an innocent child looking up in horror while this whale of a woman came plopping into the pool.

-Fat lady runs through a picnic table. Of course, she chased her husband Norbit down the neighborhood block. The director also couldn't forget to place a picnic table conveniently in the way of the fat lady. How unfortunate Norbit had missed it.

-Comparing the fat lady to a skinny, attractive female. Granted there are big, beautiful women out there but if you placed her next to a thin beautiful woman in a skin-tight dress, it only made the BBW look at her up and down as if she were Miss Thang!

-The fat turkey leg at the dinner table. This took place at the beginning of the movie where a young Norbit and Mrs. Norbit were at the dinner table with the future Mrs. Norbit's brothers. They were each given turkey parts and poor thin Norbit got the turkey butt. Tasteless humor right there.

Now, I'm a big Eddie Murphy fan. I enjoyed his skits on Saturday Night Live and movies ranging from Coming to America to The Nutty Professor. Portraying different characters in the same movie is what he does best and he's phenomenal at his talent. However, this has started a new cult of African-American talents, such as Martin Lawrence (Big Momma's House) and Tyler Perry (Madea), who have abused this trend. Not only did they abuse it but their negative connotations of obese Black women remain to be seen in contemporary cinema.

It's hard to say who's to blame. Could it be fat Black comedians such as Monique? Or could it be society's view of the fat Black woman as domineering which further leads Black comedians to view this as an easy target to poke fun of? Either way, the humor was funny at one point but now it's getting old. It's time for new material.