Film critics are saying that Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nominee Eddie Murphy may have sunk his chances of gaining Oscar gold when he reloaded The Klumps for 2007 and released the slapstick comedy “Norbit.”

An article in Thurday’s Los Angeles Times by Times reporters Greg Braxton and Robert W. Welkos brings up the frustration of black activists who are protesting the film’s depiction of black women.

Some sects of the black community are tired of seeing flicks of black men dressing up as an unsophisticated, overweight black women-particularly during Black History Month.

“Every time I pass that billboard, it makes me sick,” said one veteran Oscar consultant, who declined to be identified and is not involved in a rival campaign. “I think his performance in ‘Dreamgirls’ is so fabulous” and deserves to win the Academy Award. But, he added, Murphy’s latest comedy offering “doesn’t help.”

“For Eddie to follow what he did with ‘Dreamgirls’ with this just doesn’t make sense,” said Robert M. Entman, author of “The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America.” “There’s no excuse for him to lend his prestige to something like this…. There has to be a point where African American stars of his stature have to take some responsibility for their actions and just say no.”

Stacey Snider is the co-chairwoman of DreamWorks, the company that produced “Norbit:”

“People can separate the performance in ‘Dreamgirls’ for the career-defining role that it was…. They accept this movie for the comedy that it is…. I think people are wise enough and savvy enough to understand the spirit that was intended. They know not to read too much into it.”