Eddie Murphy's Law: An Immobile Object Can Never Keep Up

With Saturday Night Live’s 40^th anniversary still fresh on my mind and the reflections from key players and non-key critics circulating on-line, my thoughts have been hovering around Eddie Murphy. People in the comedy business and long term fans alike (i.e. those who saw him in his heyday) still speak supportively of his work and inimitable talent, and essentially treat him as if he…you know…matters. But it's safe to say that if you look at his overall career as opposed to the highs of three decades ago, Murphy doesn't have that great of a batting average.

That leaves me with what I think is a fair question: How much shit can a comedian churn out and still be considered one of the greats?

Of course it's a question without an answer, and if you live at a monastery and need something to meditate on, feel free to use it as an exercise; I promise not to sue. What makes a comedian 'great' is an ambiguity, even moreso than what qualifies their work as shit. I don't personally consider Murphy as a comedic great because I feel he has nothing to teach me (or really anyone for that matter) about comedy, a statement I CAN make about Groucho, the Pythons, Mel Brooks, and time will tell but comedians like Colbert, Fey, Poehler and Stewart may very well join those ranks. Be that as it may, Eddie Murphy is clearly one of SNL's A-listers. But he's only one of quite a collection of A-listers the show has produced. So a more answerable question is, why is Murphy singled out despite his horrid track record?

Well let's look at it. Saturday Night Live has always been Lorne Michaels's show, except for the five year stint where the show belonged to Eddie Murphy (and some dude behind the scenes who thought he could be Lorne Michaels). Not-Lorne Michaels-dude intentionally structured the show around Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo, and later just Murphy as his movie career began to take off.

Herein lies the first major problem in Murphy's career development. He came in at the age of 19 and had success, and was treated like someone with success. It's easy for a performer of understandable talent to assume that the amount of success they are achieving is due solely to their talent, and not (as seasoned veterans know) due to the unexplainable impact the audience has.

Audiences are fickle bastards. Sometimes we like things that are good. Sometimes we like things that are popular. Sometimes we like things that are blue, or has dinosaurs, or an ABBA song on the soundtrack. We're fickle. And we sure as hell don't have any consistency. Andrew Dice Clay's own fan base were the same ones lined up to stone him when the wind changed.

So back to Murphy. When you look at his early work on SNL and on the screen, his general demeanor is one of that side glance out to the audience giving us a "can you believe this?" look regarding the situation he was in. He acted like he was above the situation, and he made us feel like we were also above the situation, and that was why we loved him. At that time.

But then the unfortunate happened. He grew up. We grew up. Comedy grew up, despite Sandler's best efforts. I recently re-watched Coming to America, which is one of the titles that always seems to come up on Eddie's must-see list. The story is still good. Murphy is still funny. But you know what else? The pacing is slow. The ha-ha moments are spread out. In other words, it's not as funny as people remember it.

I don't think Eddie Murphy has lost any of his charm, but I do think that his charm simply hasn't been marketable since The Nutty Professor. I enjoyed him in The Haunted Mansion even if the movie wasn't that great. I liked him in Tower Heist, again, even if the movie wasn't that great. But his presence in a movie doesn't automatically make me want to give it a shot. In fact, after Meet Dave, A Thousand Words, and The Bankruptcy of Pluto Nash it's safe to say most audiences treat his casting as a deterrent.

I'm speculating. Maybe his early success went to his head and he never considered that he might need to evolve his brand to stay relevant. I don't believe he has ever been a team player; if he'd been on SNL opposite the Blues Brothers and Baba Wawa his star would not have risen. He can't give us a smug I'm-above-this glance anymore because we know (possibly better than he does) that he is not above comedy's bar in the modern era.

So, Mr. Murphy, what could you do at this point to make us stop using you as a punchline? Here are some ideas. One, take a pay cut and do an indie film or two that are out of your comfort zone. Two, find some friends other than Brett Ratner. Three, Don't Act Like A Diva. I don't know who you are as a person, I only know how you present yourself. If you don't get an Oscar, suck it up and stay at the party like everybody else. When they ask you to host, do it. Give us your best. Give us interviews. Tell us what went wrong with Vampire in Brooklyn and why you thought it was a good idea in the first place. Apologize for the AIDS joke in Raw (there was never a time when that was funny). And for God's sake don't whip out some bullshit defense of Bill Cosby when SNL's writers offer you the biggest potential laugh of the 40th anniversary special.


You can't convince us you're above anything when you're drowning.


This blog is a response to Norm Macdonald's SNL 40th Anniversary twitter posts here: http://gothamist.com/2015/02/18/norm_macdonald_snl_tweets.php

So where the hell have I been?

Ah, technology and our newfound dependence on it.

Last October my laptop's screen stopped working. I was advised to try an external monitor, which I did, and nothing. I'm quite certain that the past few years of nanowrimos are preserved in an unobtainable time capsule on the hard drive for some future technician to discover and discard as he or she sees fit. Sadly I've been unable to afford a suitable replacement until my tax return came in (there is no chance of me writing on an iPad). But according to amazon my Chromebook will be arriving tomorrow, and if it lives up to the hype I should be back on my blog posting regularly.

Just to kind of get back into the basic flow of things, I thought I might share a few of the assignments I've been submitting to my Humor Writing class, since it's pretty much the only writing I've been doing for the past four months.

For this first one I was assigned to write a humorous story based on something from my own life.

I used to be a character performer at Disney World, and when I first got measured for my height range I managed to slouch just enough to get down into Eeyore height (a character that was much more my speed than the pressure-to-always-be-bouncing Tigger height range).

 

The expression on Eeyore's face was pleasant, but perpetually melancholic. As such I got to witness, and presumably be responsible for, the early stages of empathy development among many of the three to four year old children who visited the parks. "Eeyore, what's wrong?" they would ask me. "Why are you so sad?" Of course we weren't allowed to speak in costume, so I had to resort to basic gestures to answer their queries; and I found the easiest way out of the conversation was to point to Tigger and let the children fill in the gaps.

 

So one day a little girl was being noticeably affected by her concern over Eeyore's emotional well-being, and I mean she tried HARD to be there for me; petting my fuzzy nose and insisting that everything would be okay. She may have even slipped me a card with the number for the suicide hotline on it.

 

When she finally asked me directly what had happened I pointed, on cue, to my coworker in the Tigger costume. The girl's eyes followed my paw, but she didn't seem to understand what I was telling her. So I knelt down on her level like I was letting her in on a secret and pointed again to Tigger. A few seconds later her eyes widened with a sudden awareness. "Ohhh," she said in pure seriousness and walked away silently.

 

Ten minutes later I was in the break room relaying the encounter to my coworkers and wishing out loud how I would love to have known what scenario her four year old brain had pieced together. Our character greeter (who had witnessed the exchange) was kind enough to fill in the details. The girl thought Tigger had broken up with me.

This second one was an exercise in greeting card writing.

Humorous Valentine:

 

P1: Roses are Red. Violets are Blue.

P3: For once could you just take my word for it?

 

Humorous Birthday:

 

P1: Do you know what's nice about getting older?

P3: Rats. I was hoping you'd think of something.

 

Humorous Seasonal:

 

P1: Hoping you have the unpressured option of an amiable, culturally inclusive, religiously unbiased, non-politically charged, vague timeframe which happens to coincide with holiday season.

P3: What? Now you're offended because I made you READ?

And this last one was the hardest for me, because I was asked to 'roast' someone in at least 250 words. I understand the rationale behind roasts, maybe even the little bit of value the brand of comedy has, but the bottom line is it's just not me. I chose Peter Jackson as my target because I certainly do respect him as a director, but I don't actually have any real feelings for or against him (which I guess made it possible to personally disconnect myself from the humor style).

It's with great pleasure to introduce to you Academy Award demanding visionary director Peter Jackson.

 

For those of you whose whimsical memories of the Muppets wasn't maimed by Meet the Feebles, Peter Jackson grew into his career as a director the way most young camera owners who can't hold down a job do, by confusing artistry with on-screen vomit. Since then he's gone on to make one of the most critically tolerated films to ever waste the talents of Stanley Tucci.

 

But of course we will always know him as this generation's George Lucas, for completely redefining a film genre with a nearly flawless epic trilogy and then ****ing it up with a horrible prequel trilogy. Although to be fair it does take less time to get through the three Hobbit films than the ending of Return of the King, so the balance has a logic.

 

We also have Mr. Jackson to thank for the accomplished career of Mr. Andy Serkis, whoever the hell that is, as well as keeping the dolly grips from Xena: Warrior Princess employed. In fact New Zealand is the only thing dissuading Hollywood from an exodus to Shreveport, Louisiana right now and I for one am forever in Mr. Jackson's debt for keeping those baked, vegan, silicone-addicts on the Waterworld side of the San Andreas Fault line where they belong.

 

But most importantly, Mr. Jackson serves as a reminder to any young film maker that- no matter how talented you are, how many awards you've won, or how many billions of dollars your films take in, Steven Moffat is never going to let you get your carrot chomping paws on Doctor Who.

 

Peter Jackson!