The seven biggest pop culture icons in history, according to Eddie Murphy: “They’re just this other shit”
As big as he was at the apex of his career, and there were few bigger, Eddie Murphy wouldn’t dream of including himself as one of the most iconic figures that pop culture has ever seen.
For a while, he was right in the mix, with his evolution from the stand-up circuit to Saturday Night Live and then onto silver-screen superstardom making him more than just a movie star; he was a household name across the world, and a pioneer who kicked down several doors so others could walk through.
These days, you couldn’t really call him a pop culture icon. Technically, he is in a residual sense, in that there weren’t many people who defined the 1980s entertainment industry more than he did, but it’s been a long time since the actor and comedian was part of the conversation in the current moment.
It takes someone truly transcendent to break through and take their place in the history books as a timeless icon, someone who remains as well-known, popular, and ubiquitous years, if not decades, after their death as they did when they were one of the world’s most scrutinised public figures.
As far as Murphy is concerned, there are only seven names that fit the bill. “Michael, Elvis, The Beatles, Bruce Lee, Muhammad Ali, Bob Marley, and Marilyn Monroe, they had some shit that was different from everybody,” he informed Rolling Stone. “They’re just this other shit.”
Since he’d previously called Michael Jackson “the most talented musician who ever lived” and anointed Elvis Presley as “the greatest entertainer who ever lived,” it goes without saying that Murphy has always been a huge fan, and you simply can’t talk about cultural legends in the music industry without mentioning The Beatles, with those three arguably forming the Holy Trinity of all-time indelible icons.
Bruce Lee remains martial arts cinema’s definitive presence, the same can be said of Muhammad Ali and boxing, and Monroe endures as Hollywood’s ultimate pin-up and sex symbol, with Marley in a league of his own as the cross-cultural figurehead who brought reggae to the mainstream, so you can’t say that Murphy is wrong.
“You could take Bruce Lee and put him around 1,000 other Asian people, and your eye goes right to Bruce Lee,” he added. “Muhammad Ali, a sea of Black folks, your eye goes right to him. Whatever that ‘It’ factor is, they have more of it than anybody,” and it would take a brave soul to try and disagree.
Even if you don’t think that Murphy’s magnificent seven are the be-all and end-all of pop culture icons, you’d have to think long and hard about who can genuinely be called worthy of replacing them in the lineup.
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