There is a moment when Lavelle Junson (Jermaine Fowler) tries to ease the pain of watching Coming 2 America (and yes, it is actually stylized in that way) with a meta moment of apologetic dialogue. It takes place when he’s already long been back in Zamunda (which is actually the Tyler Perry Studio sound stages in Atlanta, intermixed with Rick Ross’ mansion). Having struck up a rapport we’re supposed to believe in with his “barber” a.k.a. royal groomer, Mirembe (Nomzamo Mbatha), the two start talking about American movies. Mirembe maintains, “American cinema is the best.” Lavelle counters, “The best? That is like the most blasphemous thing I’ve ever heard. What do we have besides superhero shit, remakes and sequels to old movies that nobody asked for?” And so, with this one line of self-flagellation, delivered about an hour into the trainwreck, we’re supposed to forgive Eddie Murphy for doing this. Mirembe concludes, “This is true about sequels. If something is good…” They both chime in together to say, “Why ruin it?” Apparently because every A-list Black actor and musician agreed to be part of the project.
This doesn’t just include the return of James Earl Jones, but the addition of up-and-coming and longtime A-listers, to boot. Namely Leslie Jones, KiKi Taylor, Teyana Taylor and, of all people, Morgan Freeman. Then there are the OGs of the music industry who also make an appearance at the same time as Freeman: En Vogue, Salt-n-Pepa and even Gladys Knight. Gladys goddamn Knight was willing to appear in this movie. All of this star-packed power, of course, would have been much worthier of the first Coming to America, and yet, it is precisely because the second is so terrible that it is so reliant on these types of distractions.
What’s more, for a movie called Coming 2 America, the sequel prefers to stay primarily in “Zamunda,” only bothering to take the story back to Queens for a quick pick-up of Lavelle and the one-night stand that helped create him, Mary Junson (Jones). And here, we must ask, why isn’t their last name simply Johnson? As the “camp” (a euphemism for “really terrible” in this case, and something that would definitely not be studied by gays at a later date as something to emulate) “hijinks” are meant to escalate, Murphy briefly visits upon the old neighborhood by way of walking into the My-T-Sharp barber shop again. Whereupon Murphy and Hall recreate the same characters that seemed “brilliant” in 1988, but now can’t be hidden as extremely stale–especially in the current climate. One that Clarence (Murphy) touches on as Akeem and Semmi are about to walk in by saying, “In this political climate, a black man can’t be takin’ no ass-whippin’ from a white man. Would’ve caused a riot.” He sounds more like a member of the right-leaning realm than the left in this moment, with others in the shop soon lamenting even more obviously on “cancel culture.”
More acknowledgements of time passing come when “politically incorrect” is used to describe one of Clarence’s customers calling Akeem and Semmi “hungry babies with the flies on them” after other nicknames like “Kunta Kinte and Ebola” are bandied. Akeem changes the subject with the remark, “Neighborhood seems to be thriving.” Clarence says, “Oh, that’s that gentrification. When the colored man had this neighborhood, it didn’t have shit. When the white man move in, they got their coffeehouses and their dog parks, and now my brownstone on Foch Boulevard is worth ten million.” Here we have not only the tired old “joke” (which has been going strong since at least 2005 in NY) about gentrification consisting of coffee shops for white people, but also the bleak contrast of the New York of the present against the one of the past. The latter’s iteration wouldn’t have bothered (needed to bother, rather) with this form of a pandering concession to how much the city’s “changed” (as if that hasn’t been going on since the mayorship of Dave Dinkins–though Ed Koch was putting plenty of irons in the fire in the 80s as well). In any case, gone are the days of when a cab driver could query, “Are you sure you guys wanna go to Queens? A coupla rich fellas like you should be in Manhattan.” Or demand upon pulling up to a building, “This shitty enough for ya?” after Akeem requests the “most common part” of Queens (some debate still occurs on whether or not the area is supposed to be Long Island City or Jackson Heights, but either way, it was actually shot in Williamsburg–go figure).
Other uncomfortable sources for “modernized laughs” at the barber shop arrive when Clarence tells Akeem, “I got one granddaughter that used to be my grandson. They can turn your penis into a vagina now.” Morris (Hall) adds, “I bet they could fix them long, slappy titties y’all got in Africa.” Saul (Murphy) chimes in, “You can’t even squeeze a tit nowadays. It’ll get you fired.” Murphy as Akeem thus has his in to play the “always woke” hero by saying, “I’m so sorry you can no longer indiscriminately touch a woman’s body at your every whim.” Clarence “quips,” “Oh it’s okay, I got it in while I was young.” So here, the real truth Murphy can’t speak is said through the “oh he’s just an inappropriate and offensive old man” mouth of Clarence.
Directed by Craig Brewer (who previously worked with Murphy on Dolemite Is My Name, as well as acclaimed 00s movies Hustle & Flow and Black Snake Moan), Coming 2 America is all Murphy’s brand. And in so many respects, Murphy’s comedic stylings–not just with the array of guises but with the humor that rests on the laurels of being as loud and over the top as possible–would pave the way for Tyler Perry. It’s therefore no wonder his sound stages would end up providing some of the backdrops for this sequel. That Hall also appeared in drag in the first movie (for a series of “speed dates” Semmi and Akeem went on), and does it again here via the same flashback, proves that there is still a bizarre need for Black men to emasculate themselves in addition to tokenizing Black women in terms of representation. That Spike Lee once venomously called Perry’s Madea character an example of “coonery buffoonery” also speaks to just how played out (to use a polite term) this type of “comedy” is. And yet Murphy is still peddling it in Coming 2 America in a manner that’s even more noticeable than it was in its predecessor (mainly because Coming to America belonged in its place and time).
And, naturally, the Coming to America “Easter eggs” are referenced whenever possible–from the Soul Glo ad in the barbershop to Akeem wearing the same touristic getup he initially donned upon arriving to NYC back in the 80s and telling Semmi they needed to start dressing like “New Yorkers.” Upon finding his son scalping tickets outside of Madison Square Garden, Akeem approaches him with that shit-eating grin of his and informs him of his identity–hence, Lavelle’s identity. They subsequently go back to Lavelle’s apartment where his mother and Uncle Reem (Tracy Morgan) are waiting with other friends and family members to celebrate his birthday. It’s here that the elephant in the room (no pun intended) about Zamunda being something of a precursor to Wakanda is addressed by Uncle Reem with, “Zamunda, Wakanda, Connecticut, I don’t know where you from. But I’ve been a force in this boy’s life since he was born.” As such, Reem is reluctant to see Lavelle go until Semmi drops a suitcase filled with cash and gold on the floor, prompting everyone in the room to have a change of heart. And so, after this brief blip spent in “America,” the goings-on once again take place primarily in Zamunda.
Even before that “trip” to America that amounted to all of five minutes, we’re mostly in Zamunda where a flashback to the 80s on the night in question that produced Akeem’s heir leads Semmi to admit, “Remember how you were looking for the perfect woman? I, too, was looking for…the perfect vagina. Any vagina.” The continued crass depiction indicates this is still what Murphy and Hall’s “comedic” timing together believes a woman to be good for despite their (and the all-male trio of screenwriters’) best attempts to bring the humor into the present. We’re also supposed to believe that New York kush in the 80s was potent enough to make Akeem unaware of being banged. This, too, opens up a recent can of worms propelled by Bridgerton, when Simon (Regé-Jean Page) is raped by his own wife, Daphne (Phoebe Dynevor), so she can prove a point about how he was lying to her the whole time regarding how sex works with his “pulling out” gambit. And while some might think this is just payback for all the years women have been violated, there is something very wrong with the idea that people believe rape–regardless of which gender is suffering from it–can be wielded “for laughs.” And it’s pretty major that Akeem’s illegitimate son is a product of Mary having her way with him while he’s not of sound mind and body.
A more classic trope in terms of offensively portrayed harassment in “rom-coms” (if Coming to America can really be billed as such) is found in the original film. In something that can now be viewed as part of the stalking canon (à la Love Actually), Akeem learns that Lisa (Shari Headley) works at the McDowell’s on 8507 Queens Boulevard and decides to go on over and get himself a job there. Again, stalking. Under the pretense of just knowing in his gut that Lisa is his true love and making her fall for a false version of himself.
Semmi, roped in to getting a job with the prince at McDowell’s, cannot fathom why Akeem must torture both of them in this way. He begs Akeem to tell Lisa he’s rich so they can leave the “godforsaken place” that is New York specifically and America in general. And maybe that’s part of why the sequel is so determined to keep the story in Zamunda. They already learned long ago that America is pretty goddamn ghetto for a “First World” country.
Other “varietals” of jokes that remain pointedly absent are the homophobic ones that were able to eke by so easily in the 80s. Like when Akeem is spotted by a fellow Zamundan who recognizes him and wants his picture taken together at a Madison Square Garden basketball game. When Lisa asks, “Who was that?” Akeem says, “Just a man I met in a restroom,” a response that prompts Lisa and her then boyfriend, Darryl (Eriq La Salle), to give him a strange look suggesting maybe Akeem is more experimental than they thought. Obviously, the homophobic implication wouldn’t land today, not that it really did then.
One aspect that does actually manage to hold up better in the present is Eddie Murphy in retaliative “whiteface.” John Landis was the one who suggested, back in the day, that Murphy put on “whiteface” to become a Jewish man (Saul) as a bit of “light” vengeance for Jewish comedians of the 1910s and 20s always putting on blackface (Al Jolson definitely comes to mind). The blackface allusion comes full-circle when Lavelle makes fun of the privileged white spawn he’s being interviewed by at the company started by Randolph and Mortimer Duke (yes, the Trading Places dudes). While they might make a less prominent cameo than they did in Coming to America, a flash to their portrait is enough to let their patriarchal presence be felt (like that moment Akeem gives them “pocket change” in their homeless state in the first movie).
The new “Mr. Duke” a.k.a. Calvin (Colin Jost) is “with it” enough to know that Black people are a “hot commodity” in the corporate world, so he semi (not Semmi) tries to be nice by saying, “Oh my god, please, my father is Mr. Duke. And my, uh, grandfather and great uncle who founded Duke & Duke”–obviously, this is where the oil portrait cameo comes in. Going back to Murphy’s next level version of whiteface, the prejudice of the interview finally incites Lavelle to say fuck it and leave, but not without calling Calvin out for being handed his position and just about everything else. He then concludes his tell-off with, “I just can’t wait for them to find blackface photos of you from the office party.” Calvin sputters, “I was Will Smith’s Aladdin, okay? There was blueface over the black…”
But it isn’t just race Coming 2 America wants to cursorily tackle. Even though the entire movie is centered on a father-son relationship, the narrative would also like to fancy itself a feminist declaration. After all, Akeem now has three daughters, Princess Meeka Joffer (KiKi Layne), Princess Omma Joffer (Bella Murphy) and Princess Tinashe Joffer (Akiley Love). It is his eldest who has been training her entire life for the role of “king” (kind of like Queen Elizabeth II), yet Akeem, like his father, has fallen into the trap of upholding “tradition” for no good reason. As Jaffe Joffer (James Earl Jones) once asserted of Akeem’s desired union with Lisa after she rejects him, “They still could not marry [even if she said yes]. It is against tradition.” Akeem’s mother, Queen Aoleon (Madge Sinclair, RIP), then denounces her husband with the retort, “Well it is a stupid tradition.” Jaffe shrugs, “Who am I to change it?” She points out, “I thought you were the king.”
Akeem, in his own youth, was once naive enough to believe in how “evolved” he was by saying such things as, “I want a woman who’s going to arouse my intellect as well as my loins.” Deciding America must be the place for that, Semmi asks him where they should go: New York or Los Angeles? Because, yes, that is what the U.S. is comprised of to most people. After flipping a coin to choose New York, Akeem inquires, “Where in New York can one find a woman with taste, elegance and culture? A woman suitable for a king?” They both agree at once, “Queens.” A real hilarious remark to anyone living there in 1988 (since the borough wasn’t exactly as “couth” as it is now). How on the nose indeed. But how else would anyone end up in Queens without this mode of logic?
By the same token, it’s just as unlikely that any born and bred Queensian would ever leave their nexus unless given a sweet offer like Lavelle’s to become the crown prince of another country. And by the end, Zamunda has been “transformed” into Queens anyway, what with Fresh Peaches and Sugar Cube–from the first round of dates Akeem and Semmi go on–reappearing as well. Along with Randy Watson (Murphy) of Sexual Chocolate from the Black Awareness Week rally Akeem first saw Lisa at (that also, for no apparent reason, served as a beauty pageant where sexual predator Reverend Brown [Hall] was permitted to pontificate, and does the same again in the sequel for some misguided reason).
The entire notion we’re half-heartedly sold throughout Coming 2 America is supposed to be that it’s “progressive.” Insomuch as it serves as some sort of foil for Western society’s own attitudes toward women needing to change. The fact that Eddie Murphy felt obliged to be the one to make this “statement” as a means to render Coming 2 America “relevant” automatically detracts from any such “message.” Even so, Murphy seems to want us to believe that with Akeem making “progress” in Zamunda by “allowing” women to finally rule (but only if there is no interested male heir, illegitimate or not), Murphy himself is somehow speaking on all the strides made (and to be made) in America.
They lay on the matriarchy theme real thick toward the end with a heart-to-heart between Akeem and his father-in-law, Cleo (John Amos). Cleo, who now manages a McDowell’s in Zamunda (though his other daughter, Patrice [Allison Dean], is nowhere to be found), tells Akeem, “I’m sure your father would understand what you’re going through… What do you think your mother would say now? I always thought that she was the wisest of all the Joffers.” How “poignant.” To throw the mother a bone for her underrated sagacity.
So yes, Akeem suddenly sees the light when thinking about what his mother would advise and how he’s become regressive during his tenure as prince, and now, king of Zamunda. That living in America for that brief time was arguably the most idealistic and open he had ever been. Upon further consideration, maybe it’s all too right that the second time around, a movie called Coming 2 America has no glamor (unless one counts En Vogue and Salt-n-Pepa showing up to a funeral), no intelligent dialogue, no cachet and offers absolutely no allure regarding the nature of this country. That’s just where the United States is at in this epoch–filled with “feminists” or not.
