When you come off that show and get into the movie business, it’s like you’re moving into slow motion for a couple of years. That show’s like Harvard for the comic actor. “I bet you could figure out the combined grosses of people who came off Saturday Night Live in the movies - me, Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell, Mike Myers, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd. Let’s dive into Eddie’s IMDb page and figure out what happened to his career, why it happened, when things turned … and why we have so much trouble remembering it quite the right way. He even consented to a few interviews this time around, including a candid one in Rolling Stone that should have resonated more than it did. The consensus seems to be, “Fairly entertaining movie, but more importantly, Eddie is Eddie again.” You know, the Eddie we loved (and in my case, revered), not the dude from the kids’ movies. At age 50, Eddie Murphy is making a comeback of sorts by co-starring in Ben Stiller’s new action comedy, Tower Heist. He just kept cranking out those kids’ movies. He claimed to be giving her a ride (the “Good Samaritan” defense), few believed him, and we never really heard from Eddie again. 1 He swerved the other way publicly, taking seemingly safe roles and barely interacting with the media: partly to protect his privacy, and partly because of an embarrassing incident in 1997, when Eddie’s car was pulled over in the wee hours, in a relatively seedy part of Hollywood, with a transvestite prostitute in the passenger’s seat … and Eddie driving. Even an occasional Saturday Night Live hosting gig - something he could have ripped off in his sleep - would have done the trick, but Eddie hasn’t returned to 30 Rock since he left. It’s much more interesting to say he sucks, or that he isn’t nearly as good as he once was.Įddie could have shaped that discussion by giving more interviews, making a viral video or three, grabbing meaty supporting parts in indie movies, returning to stand-up clubs, or doing anything else to shed that “hasn’t been funny in 15 years” rap. You’re not exactly going out on a limb by praising Eddie Murphy. Ask anyone under 35 what they think of Eddie and they’ll probably say, “Hasn’t been funny for 15 years.” Ask anyone from 35 to 50 what they think and they’ll say either, “One of the funniest ever” or “Loved that guy, wish he stopped making so many shitty movies.” We don’t argue about Eddie, we don’t celebrate him, we don’t really do anything. Over the last 30 years, Eddie enjoyed too much success and made too much money his career became governed by a higher degree of difficulty, almost like we collectively started squeezing his strike zone in 1989 and never stopped. We came to think of him as Eddie and Eddie only. Eventually, he transcended race the way Ali and Jordan did, and Will Smith does right now. His color mattered, but not as much as it could have. Eddie? He was just funnier than everyone else. Richard Pryor pushed racial boundaries while barely containing his seething anger about them. Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby broke ground for African-Americans in their respective fields and paved the way for everyone who followed. Muhammad Ali did the same and became part of the Vietnam movement. Bill Russell, Jackie Robinson and Oscar Robertson overcame the worst kind of prejudice imaginable. We don’t consider Eddie Murphy as a pioneer because he never overcame anything. “T here’s this little box that African-American actors have to work in, in the first place, and I was able to rise above that box.”
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