“Being Eddie” was cute, and I’ll explain why I label it as just “cute.” “Being Eddie” is a documentary for what I like to call “the new babies.” They are the kids who have no idea what “Delirious” or “Raw” was or is to the culture at that time and beyond. This is for the kids who only know Eddie Murphy as Donkey from “Shrek” or the dad from “Haunted Mansion.”
Personally, I am a Black woman who watched “Life,” “Raw,” “Delirious,” “Coming to America,” “Boomerang,” and more when I knew I wasn’t supposed to. These are not children’s movies and yet, there I was sneaking to watch them on cable. This doc told me nothing, but it was nice for what it was. Here’s what would have made the documentary that much more exciting to me.
Eddie Murphy is a lowkey man. Nothing drastic has really happened in his life besides his divorce, his bad movies, and his beloved brother, Charlie Murphy, dying. I want to clearly state that what I’m about to say is not owed to me as a person or viewer. I am simply saying it would have been nice to have in the documentary.
Losing a brother and ending a decades-long marriage has to shift you as a person…and I didn’t hear anything about that. I didn’t need details or anything like that, but I wanted to know who was Eddie before he got divorce and who is he now. What did Charlie leave Eddie and his brother with when he left this Earth? If he were to get back on stage, how will these things inform us of this new Eddie Murphy? Maybe because I watched the Pee-Wee Herman doc and I got so much out of it I was hoping I could get the same here and I didn’t. Not a disappointment. Just an oversight from my perspective. He also mentioned that his divorce was what he was pulling from in his performance in “Dreamgirls.” Tell us more about that. Again, I don’t need details, but what emotions was he going through that reflected on screen? I know he said he didn’t care about not winning, but if he thinks about it, did it make it worse that he was going through something during this performance and didn’t win for it? He also talked a lot about his children. All these kids movies he’s done, and I want to know what compelled him to make the switch. Was is conscious or did he get an offer and was like, “Sure. I’ll try that.” Another thing that was missing for me was his exit from “SNL.” What did it feel like to walk away from his “college,” so to speak? We saw what it meant to him to come back, and with his comedy best friends, but what was it like in the 80’s when he had to step away to be Eddie?
I do not know if this was intentional, but there were a lot of shots of Eddie’s house which made me feel really poor. LOL. I just kept looking at the aerial shots and being like, “What have I been doing with my life?” Ignoring that this man was famous well before I was born, and that is why he can afford to live like this. But there was just a lot about this house and it didn’t really go with anything in the doc. It seemed more like the documentarians were like, “This is a nice mansion. We want to film it ALL.”
I want to end this post in a way I know you will not be expecting but it needed to be said. There came a point in the documentary where they mentioned one of my favorite movies, “Vampire in Brooklyn.” SHAME ON Y’ALL FOR SAYING THIS WAS ONE OF HIS WORSE FILMS! That movie is and always will be a CLASSIC! Norbit, too. It was just that, at the time, we didn’t understand the funny. You can’t compare everything where Eddie is dressed up as someone else to “Coming to America” and “The Nutty Professor.” Cut it out, y’all! Give those movies their props.
Anywho, did you watch? Did you learn something you didn’t know about Eddie? I learned that he changed his laugh because people kept making fun of it, and I’m here to tell you. I didn’t even know you could do that.
