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Third Year Complementary Studies [Media]
D] Eddie Murphy- Ghetto glitz or serious cultural surveillance? ... If it is a black comedian such as Eddie Murphy, he is going to accentuate his own blackness by maintaining his ‘street talk’, by wearing flamboyant clothes, and by sticking to his first hand black perspective. It could be identified as ‘ghetto glitz’ but does that do it justice. ... Or is it a modern black man making serious cultural surveillances in a funny, realistic manner?
Ghetto glitz is not a phenomenon that opposes serious cultural surveillance, it IS a serious cultural surveillance.
Eddie Murphy is by White standards very much a black man. Murphy by Black standards is very much a black man too. ... There are no apologies on Murphy’s part for his use of what is considered ‘black talk’, ‘black style’ or a ‘black attitude’. Taking his comedy stand-up/movie Raw (1987) as an example, Murphy not only shows off with great control and finesse how a plain talking black man’s view of society as a whole can be funny, but he shows off with equally great professionalism how confused and contradictory society has become in its quest to become perfectly civilised. Murphy is by anyone’s standards a serious, professional and intelligent comedian and actor. ... For Eddie Murphy it is not just a job to tell a couple of jokes that will make the white guys and the black guys laugh together, it is a job to tell a couple of jokes that get the white and black guys to think and then laugh and then think again, together. ...
Returning to Murphy’s similarity with Robeson, it is important to understand that these men regardless of colour and background are two businessmen. ... Both serious at what they worked at which in this case is entertaining. ... Without the likes of Robeson it would be very difficult indeed to become such a huge star in the media as Murphy has done. In the opening scenes for Raw the notion of ‘cross-over’ is stressed by the inclusion of all kinds of nationalities naming their favourite Murphy movies to the camera. ... Undoubtedly Eddie Murphy has a lot to thank such a man for. ... The intention is not to compare Robeson’s achievements with Murphy’s rather to highlight the point that without people like Robeson, Murphy would be having a much more difficult time in his career. ...
So how come Murphy can get away with it so easy? The answer is in the first half of Raw where Murphy begins his stage performance by acknowledging his black peers. ... By not roasting the white stars of the time Murphy refrains from alienating the white audience, but by roasting the generally recognised eccentric black stars the black audience feel justified in laughing also. ... Murphy does not insult Jackson by implying that he is a ‘sissy’ because of his soft speaking voice, instead he gives Jackson a high-pitched Ghetto-style voice, a contrasting voice, that does the same trick but in a round-about way. This also serves Murphy himself by showing HE, though a star and talking about stars, can still connect with the common black man in the Bronx or Harlem. ... This is the crux of Murphy’s serious cultural surveillance, it is as the title says a ‘raw’ view of society told through a distinctly Negro perspective. ... The third sphere in which Murphy resides.
Before the film Raw even begins to showcase Murphy’s stand up abilities in the flesh so to speak, there is the introductory scene of the ‘young Eddie’ in 1967 ‘entertaining’ his family at home. ...
So with the joke that is told by ‘young Eddie’ in front of all his typically black family in his quiet suburban home Murphy has not just decided to show that he was just as rude and funny when he was a boy, but that this joke and the way he tells it, or rather how well it is constructed, is a serious cultural surveillance at the time.
Approximate Word count = 3192
Approximate Pages = 12.8
(250 words per page double spaced)
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