As a black comic, Eddie Murphy has the cultural green light to traffic in black stereotypes, but Norbit is rife with so many that it makes you wish his creative license could be revoked. Norbit (Murphy) is a nerd who is married to a boorish Big Momma type (Murphy again). They live in a small slice of Americana which appears to be mostly populated by white folks. In fact, the only black characters we really meet are Norbit, his wife, her three gang-banging brothers and a pair of pimps. I guess you can’t accuse Murphy of turning Uncle Tom. Rather than assimilate these characters into the lily-white setting, he’s “preserved” black culture – or at least an ugly version of it.
