Eddie Murphy is reprising his one-man-as-many-characters act in a new movie called Norbit, due in theatres in 2007. In it, Murphy plays a dorky, meek Black man adopted as a child by an old Asian man and, in adulthood, who is dominated by a fat black woman stereotype. The catch? Murphy plays Norbit, Norbit's girlfriend, and the Asian man who adopts him. As the Asian man, not only does Murphy wear yellow-tinted skin, but plays up the old Asian male stereotype, complete with poor Chinglish accent. (view trailer)
So, I know Murphy playing a cast of characters is classic Eddie Murphy, but in this case, I'm not excited to see Murphy play two stereotypes (Asian male and overweight Black female) on-screen with the express purpose of mocking them both. I know it's been awhile since we saw sex icon, pleather-jumpsuit Murphy whom the girls were throwing their underwear at, but this is hardly to get your name back into the limelight. Let's save the yellowface for kitschy has-been cult favourites like David Carradine and Christopher Walken, please?
(Hat-tip to Mac)
Also in Yellowface favourites? David Carradine (the very definition of modern yellowface) has been seen on a commercial I've been meaning to blog about for sometime. In a commercial for Yellowbook.com, Carradine plays a Chinese monk who correlates enlightenment with the Yellowbook.com website, and does some stereotypical Chinese Buddhist monk trash while he's at it.
God, there are some times I just want to climb up to the tallest building I can find and scream at the top of my lungs: THIS MAN IS NOT CHINESE!! Bad enough Yellowbook.com (Yellow? Get it?) is promoting such trashy, cliched interpretations of Chinese religion and heritage, but they couldn't even find a single, bonafide, Chinese person to show in their commercial as they did it.
