Life's Hoppin' Bob and Django Unchained's Stephen: Understanding the Uncle Tom complex

Have you ever heardd someone ask why Black people can't "unite" like other cultures, or why there is so much violence within the Black community (I will not digress to observe that there is inner-racial violence in any criminal element, such as Italian on Italian or Japanese on Japanese, except to say that the Black community does not hold a patent on the phenomenon).

Hoppin' Bob from Life, and Stephen from Django Unchained, bring to life characters who, on the face of it, seem particularly reprehensible but, on closer examination, are very understandable and, perhaps even, sadly sympathetic.

Well, almost.

Life, prison and the new slavery

I’m a big fan of Eddie Murphy’s acting chops. Even in movies that most people hate (Norbit is a great example) he demonstrates remarkable character-acting. This post is not about Murphy specifically, so I’ll refrain from attempting to further explore the nagging question of why he has not been able (or willing) to do what other 80s comedians (Tom Hanks, Michael Keaton to name two off the top of my head) have – be taken seriously doing drama while still being able to dabble in comedy periodically.

This post is about the 1999 movie Life, perhaps Eddie Murphy’s greatest. He’s had many great movies (Coming to America pops to mind on many levels), but Life is yet at another level still.