The Charlie Sheen Netflix documentary was exceedingly boring, given the subject matter. More of an attempt to retcon Sheen’s endless turmoil than a fair shake at contending with a complicated man’s even more complicated life. So when the trailer for Netflix’s new Eddie Murphy documentary begins with a supercut of Murphy’s greatest hits, it already reveals itself to be underselling the story of the most important and consequential comedian of the 20th century.
“He had that appointment with destiny,” Dave Chappelle says.
“He changed the way we view comedy,” Jamie Foxx says.
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“He had the number one movie, comedy special and pop song,” Pete Davidson says.
“He’s like a miracle,” Jerry Seinfeld says.
But while the trailer hints at all of Eddie Murphy’s accomplishments — the other part of it seems to show a peek behind the curtain of right now: a man sitting around his super-mansion watching episodes of Ridiculousness.
Absent is all of the real meat of Murphy’s long and precedent setting career. The trailer hints that there will be at least some look at all that he accomplished as a Black comedian who repeatedly had the honor and burden of being “first” or “best” in many, many spaces. But in the two-minute trailer we don’t get a hint that Murphy and his peers will discuss the full breadth of what that reality was like.
We also get a peek into his family — the man has nine children — but I don’t get a sense that we will hear about what being a father for a man as famous as he is is really like. The same goes for the many intricacies of his life: his time as a party boy and the time he was pulled over with a trans sex worker, Atisone Seiuli in 1997. (Notably, only Seiuli had to serve any time in jail.) Nor does it seem like we will get much on Murphy’s tense relationship with Bill Cosby or his feud with fellow Saturday Night Live alum David Spade. Not to mention, the feud with Tom Petty?
Even without diving into the personal relationships, there’s a dearth of information that likely won’t get the deep dive real Murphy fans want: What happened during the period of making so many flops? What was it like to lose the Oscar he was nominated for in Dreamgirls? Does the greatness that Murphy has achieved align with the vision of the kind of star he thought he would become? Would he ever try for an Oscar again?
Without a doubt, Becoming Eddie will touch on a few of these topics. But with multiple clips from Pete Davidson in the documentary, I worry we will end up with another Netflix project that tells the story of a name, not a man.
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