I chose this picture because it looks like Tyler Perry is deeply inhaling his own farts, obviously

If you’re unfamiliar with our feature “Metaphor Time, With Tyler Perry,” it’s where we focus a spotlight on just what household object or mundane life event Tyler Perry is using as a metaphor for proper Christian livin’ this week. In the past, he’s used a story about digging wells on his palatial estate as a way to tell people to “keep diggin,” and turbulence on his private jet as an allegory for flying above the clouds of temptation in your Jesus-fueled jetplane. Your particular “jetplane” could be a bike, a bus, a bad relationship, a Hyundai or an Iron Lung, depending, because that’s how metaphors work. I mean, you guys get it.

This week’s Tyler Perry metaphor? Golf carts. You know, the kind you use to get around the multi-million studio lot with your name on the front gate.

We have some golf carts at the studio. We use them to run around the campus, getting actors from here to there and so on. But the thing that bothers me the most about them is that when you put them into reverse a beeping alarm goes off. And it doesn’t stop until you go forward. It is so annoying to be in the middle of a shot, when I need it very quiet, to hear that beeping noise. I wanted the facilities guys to disconnect the reverse alarm but I was told that they couldn’t because it is a safety measure. The alarm is there to let people know that you’re about to go backwards.

I want to make fun of him here, but I can’t, because I too hate the reverse alarm. Why would you need a reverse alarm on an 800-pound golf cart but not a 5,000-pound car? It makes no sense. They should be banned, along with loud motorcycles, car alarms, and Danny Masterson.

I walked back to my office thinking about this and this thought popped into my head: wouldn’t it be great if we as humans had an annoying alarm that made a loud continuous beep when we are about to go into reverse?

Oh, I see what you did there, you scamp. Speaking of which, I was watching some shows on DVR the other day and I was thinking to myself, “Hey, you know what else could use a stop button? WOMEN’S MOUTHS! BOOM!” (*air golf swing*)

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This statement has a lot of caveats, but we’ll ignore them for now because it’s a fun story: this weekend, a film adaptation of the great American novel earned more than $50 million on the same weekend a Tyler Perry-produced romantic comedy earned less than $5 million. So this is what pleasant surprise feels like. Huh. Neat.

1) Iron Man 3, BV $72,472,000 Total: $284,893,000
2) The Great Gatsby, WB $51,115,000
3) Pain and Gain, Paramount. $5,000,000 Total: $41,608,000
4) Tyler Perry Presents Peeples, LGF $4,850,000
5) 42, WB $4,650,000 -Total: $84,732,000
6) Oblivion, Universal $3,864,000 Total: $81,655,000
7) The Croods, Fox $3,600,000 Total: $173,215,000
8) The Big Wedding, Lionsgate, $2,500,000 Total: $18,288,000
9) Mud, Roadside Attractions, $2,343,000 Total: $8,363,000
10) Oz The Great and Powerful, BV $802,000 Total: $229,985,000 [Indiewire]

I’d like to think the general populace was just too smart for a movie that once was called “Meet the Peeples,” which sounds like a fake Tyler Perry movie name generated by computer, and that sat on the shelf for a few years before it was released and generally looked pretty horrible, but let’s be honest, none of those things have ever slowed Tyler Perry down before. More than likely, his cultish fan base just didn’t realize or recognize it as a “Tyler Perry movie,” since he didn’t really do much to it creatively beyond stick his name on it. Peeples reportedly cost around $15 million, and almost certainly won’t make that back. It’d be nice if this slowed Tyler Perry down at all, or forced him to try to make better movies, but shit rolls downhill, so most likely it’ll probably just hurt the talented people who agreed to be in it, like Craig Robinson and David Alan Grier and Kerry Washington. Hopefully it won’t hurt much, because Craig Robinson is awesome. He nodded “sup” to me once at the Hollywood Improv. Cool story, huh.

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“Clear your mind… and then name how many movies have already done this.”

Opening Everywhere: Peeples, The Great Gatsby

Opening Somewhere, Maybe: Aftershock

Opening Probably Nowhere: Assault on Wall Street

FilmDrunk Suggests: Head down to your local library and check out some old Choose Your Own Adventure books. And then read them while you listen to Jay-Z and the Black Eyed Peas.

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If you guys were hoping I’d stop being obsessed with the minutiae of Tyler Perry, you may have to skip this post. I continue to be fascinated with the cult of Tyler Perry, where even the most mundane detail of his day can become a metaphor for how you should always dig deeper and fly higher and let Jesus be your jet fuel. He’s like this incredible new version of Deepak Chopra who makes Lifetime movies and teaches you to be more judgmental. The above picture came from his Twitter this morning, along with the message:

Over my stove in LA. Surround yourself with things that remind you to never give up.

I can’t wait until he fires his private chef for not making him poached lobster cakes in the shape of a heart and spins it into a story about how you have to get rid of people in your life who keep you from following your heart. Let the Lord be your drawn butter, my child.

[hat tip: Sam Strange]

As we’ve been over on a few occasions, say what you will about Tyler Perry’s movies (let’s leave it at “they’re not good“), the intense connection he has with his fans is either inspiring or terrifying, I’m not sure which. It’s definitely fascinating. When Tyler Perry makes a new movie or even puts out a YouTube video, his fans treat it like it was made by a family member. And in turn, Tyler Perry keeps them updated about all the things going on in his life and the thoughts that go through his head, which he takes great pains to spin into life advice. It seems to be a fulfilling relationship for both parties, so no judgment there. But that doesn’t mean we can’t still make fun of it, because let’s be honest, this sh*t is hilarious.

Last time out, it was a story about drilling for groundwater on his property that led Reverend Tyler Perry (of the First Ecumenical Church of Tyler Perry based on Tyler Perry’s bible starring Tyler Perry) to sign off his email, “DDDDIIGGGGGG! People DIG!!!” This time around, the story is about turbulence on his private plane. Curious how he’s going to spin this one? Just stand back and let the master go to work:

Now on to why I’m writing. It’s about 6am here. Really quiet. The kind of quiet where even a still small voice can sound like a scream. I was sitting here thinking about the first time I took a flight on a small private jet. Many of you know that I’m an aviation buff. I love planes and flying. That’s crazy, seeing as how my passion for it started out as a way to get over my fears. And my first flight was my scariest.
[...]
After about ten minuets of being bounced around I asked the pilots why it was so rough. They told me that it would get better as soon as they were allowed to climb higher. I asked who was holding us at that altitude and they said Air Traffic Control. There were a lot of planes in the area and for our own safety we had to stay at that altitude.

I imagine “minuets” was a typo, and that he meant “minutes,” but I also wouldn’t be surprised if they do classical French dances on these crazy planes where passengers can just get up and ask the pilots questions and start making demands. I asked a stewardess on a Delta flight for extra peanuts once and she pulled a knife on me.

I sat down, bouncing around some more, white knuckled and all, until the flight attendant told me that we had just been cleared to climb higher. I felt the plane pitch up and the thrust of those powerful jet engines kick in. We bounced around some more. It seemed to have gotten worse. Visibility through my window was non-existent. I was about to ask them to land and let me off the plane. But then we broke through the clouds. There was the sun and the air was so smooth that it didn’t even feel like we were moving.

Oh man, I can sense it. This metaphor is just about to break through the cloud cover…
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