With Saturday Night Live’s 40th 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
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
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