In 2007, audiences laughed. In retrospect, the laughter curdles. Rasputia is not a character; she is a caricature weaponized for easy jokes. The film’s humor relies on the shock of seeing a slim, handsome Eddie Murphy “trapped” in this body, performing a minstrel show of femininity and size. The infamous bathtub scene, where a naked Rasputia crushes a flotation device and sends a tidal wave of water through the house, is technically impressive physical comedy. But it’s impossible to separate the craft from the cruelty. The film takes a vulnerable demographic—plus-size Black women—and turns them into a punchline for 100 minutes.
Norbit did not kill Eddie Murphy’s career, but it mortally wounded his reputation as a leading man. For years, the film was cited as the reason Murphy lost the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Dreamgirls (2006). The narrative went: Oscar voters saw Norbit —which opened just weeks before the Academy Awards—and recoiled. Whether true or urban legend, it crystallized the film’s legacy as a “vote repeller.” Norbit -2007-
The film’s best joke is its most self-aware: during the climactic wedding sequence, Rasputia tears through a fake wall like the Kool-Aid Man, screaming, “Oh yeah!” It’s absurd, stupid, and perfectly executed. But these moments are oases in a desert of mean-spiritedness. The romantic subplot with Thandie Newton’s Kate is the film’s weakest element—Newton, a genuinely elegant actress, looks lost, delivering lines like “I’ll always be your Boo-Boo Kitty” with a desperate professionalism. There is zero chemistry between her and Murphy’s Norbit, making the film’s emotional core feel like an obligation. In 2007, audiences laughed
The story is a bizarre, hyperactive spin on the classic “ugly duckling” and “childhood sweethearts” tropes. Orphaned as a baby, Norbit Albert Rice is left at the steps of the Golden Wonton Restaurant & Orphanage, run by the kindly, elderly Mr. Wong (Eddie Murphy in his first of three roles). There, he meets Kate (Thandie Newton), a sweet, pigtailed girl who promises to be his friend forever. The film’s humor relies on the shock of
The humor of Norbit is the humor of a slapstick cartoon. People are hit with shovels, thrown through walls, and humiliated in elaborate set pieces. A running gag involves Rasputia’s brothers working as “pimps” in a failed waterbed store. There’s a scene where Norbit is forced to sing a love song to Rasputia in a crowded restaurant, only to be smashed in the face with a dessert tray.
More significantly, Norbit became a shorthand for cinematic offensiveness. In the years since, as conversations around body shaming, racial representation, and gendered stereotypes have evolved, the film has aged like milk left on a radiator. It is frequently cited in think pieces about “the last truly un-PC comedy.” It marks the end of an era where a major studio would hand $60 million to a star to play multiple offensive stereotypes, all in the service of a flimsy romantic plot.