Coming to America

Movie, 1988, R

Premise - A rich, African prince who has never needed to lift a finger in his life, rejects the idea of an arranged marriage. The one thing he wants to do for himself is find a bride he truly loves, and he goes to America to find her. However, blending in with American culture comes with its challenges.

 

Review - My dad said something profound to me right before we re-watched this film (as I hadn't seen it in probably a decade). He said it was the only film he could think of, until Black Panther, that portrayed Africa in a prosperous, optimistic, and desirable light. As a kid, I suppose I never gave it any second thought. But watching this as an adult - it's striking. Prince Akeem is coming to America not to get a taste of the American dream, but kinda to get a taste of American shit. His home country of Zamunda is wealthy, glamorous, dreamlike - he's surrounded by diamonds and gold and wild animals. When he comes to Queens, New York, the comparison is to make New York look like the trash that it is. He comes to America to experience what it is like to be poor, instead of the typical African (non-slave) narrative in reverse.

Thereby, I do call this Black cinema. It's very popularized Black cinema enjoyed by a White audience alike, but the story is written, produced, and acted in by Black actor Eddie Murphy, with an all-Black cast (minus like, one Jewish character who is actually Eddie Murphy in prosthetics?). The film explores a hell of a lot of Black culture, including Black barbershops, Black hair-care, Black music, and Black church. And so I suppose only now, as an adult, do I realize how striking it is that the film has such a widespread White audience and was produced back in the '80's. I don't know how many films we have like that now.

I did watch this film a lot as a kid - and by kid, I mean like, 4 years old. My parents were weirdly unrestrictive about R-rated films, so I was kind of raised on this one on a repeated basis. As a young child it gave me my impression of New York. And so, many of the jokes stuck with me. And others were fresh, after such a long period without a rewatch.

 

My impression for the most part is that the film held up as entertaining and fantastic story-writing. I think the "rich person/royalty goes into normal culture in disguise" trope doesn't get old very easily. Double-life stories are among my favorites in the world - especially in dramatic reveal or fallout scenes.

 

A few things that don't hold up are the objectification of women (though, to be fair, objectification of women is a large theme of the film that Akeem is largely trying to undo in finding a wife who has actual intellect, but many of the "other" [non-main character] women suffer from objectification), transphobic jokes (in the bar), and then... something I'm trying to wrap my head around... is the disguised characters played by the two main actors? I can't call it Blackface of course, because they are Black actors themselves. But still, they played caricatures in heavy prosthetic. It was odd to me. And I don't know how I feel about Eddie Murphy role playing as a White Jewish man.

Beginning and middle were flawlessly written. Ending was a bit rushed. Laughed out loud a lot (91/100)

 

Quote - "When you think of garbage, think of Akeem!"

 

What to watch for - This is peak Eddie Murphy, his performance as Akeem is just golden.

 

If you liked this film, I'd recommend Crazy Rich Asians!

 

Directed by John Landis

Distributed by Paramount Pictures