Eddie Murphy's Plus-Size Offense

She is wearing a hot pink nightie fringed by tiny hot pink feathers. Her big, brown legs are polished and wrap around the man lying beneath her. Her makeup is perfect. She turns toward the camera and seemingly growls.

The man lying beneath her, Eddie Murphy, seems to struggle under her weight with a horrified look. The two of them lie on the word "Norbit," crushing the movie title, making it sag like a well-worn mattress.

Above them, the ad asks: "Have you ever made a really big mistake?"

The poster is supposed to invite laughs. But for a number of women, black and otherwise, it's not funny.

In recent years, Hollywood has begun to make some changes in its portrayal and acceptance of black beauty. So you wonder why at this point does it release a film that stereotypes and makes fun of big black women? You wonder who is laughing.

Murphy co-wrote the story and screenplay for "Norbit," about a meek nerd, played by Murphy. Norbit is chased by his obsessed, jealous and overbearing wife, Rasputia, also played by Murphy (in a fat suit). The movie, No. 1 at the box office when it opened two weekends ago, drew harsh reviews from film critics and a series of protests from women and men who found it to be misogynistic and an outrageous characterization of large black women.

Geneva Mays, a real estate agent who lives in Suitland, says she is offended by the movie trailers that show the character Rasputia flying though her bedroom and landing on Norbit, crushing the bed in the fall. "I think it's demeaning to women," Mays said. "I think it's demeaning to women in general because we are all the same. We are just different colors. Women are women, regardless."

Thandisizwe Chimurenga, a community activist, said the movie shows how society feels about large black women. "I'm a big woman myself," she said. The irony, she said, "is there are a lot of men who do like large women. I've been pursued by all kinds of men." She added: "The billboards to me look cute. I was, like, 'Go ahead, girl, do your thing."

Sitting two rows from the back of the theater at Laurel Cinema 6, Tamara Taylor, a certified medical technician who lives in Baltimore, laughed at some scenes in "Norbit." She had come for herself to see the movie to understand it better. Afterward, Taylor decided it wasn't the character's size that made her ugly.

"Rasputia, I think she was funny as far as being jealous, but she was abusive. That made her ugly," Taylor said. "At first, I thought he was intimidated by her size, but he was really intimidated by her ways, her mouth. . . . I think Norbit liked the other girl because she was soft and frail. I think he loved Kate," played by Thandie Newton, "not because she was small, but she was peaceful."

Some found that the juxtaposition of the two women conjures old questions about skin color and beauty (Kate being lighter skinned than Rasputia), about the light and dark images that haunt so many races and the fairy tales that imply the more fair the complexion, the more beautiful the woman.

"I find it vaguely irritating how Eddie Murphy is given free [rein] to depict the cliched, overbearing, domineering black woman without any complaints," wrote a blogger on Salon.com. "Hell, I'm white, and even I'm offended by this depiction. Where's the outrage at this inside the black community. Am I the only one who finds a mammy-esque element in Rasputia?"