Main Cast: Dirk Shafer, Vivian Paxton, Michael Ornstein, Claudette Sutherland
Release Year: 1995
Country: US
Run Time: 87 minutes
MPAA Rating: NR
Plot
This film is a unique combination of documentary, drama and comedy, and uses real people as well as professional actors to chronicle the experiences of Dirk Shafer who in 1992, was voted Playgirl magazine's man of the year. For the athletic, blond and extremely photogenic Shafer this fame was a double-edged sword. On one hand, he really needed the money; on the other, he had just come out of the closet. Still he went for the gusto and spent much of the year touring about and getting interviewed on talk shows. Only a few close friends and family members knew that he was a homosexual; to everyone else he was the epitome of heterosexual masculinity. This naturally, created problems with Mike, the man Shafer wanted to get involved with. Included are filmclips from actual talk-show appearances, and interviews with family and friends, not all of whom were tickled to discover that he was gay. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Cast
Dirk Shafer - Himself
Vivian Paxton - Herself
Michael Ornstein - Mike Miller
Claudette Sutherland - Tammy Shafer
Calvin Bartlett - Ken Shafer; Dennis Bailey - Howie Diadone; Beth Broderick - Kelly Bound; Rhonda Dotson - Lady La Flame; Fabio - Himself; Phyllis Franklin - Dr. Marsha Demarky; Lu Leonard - Dee Dee Sweatman; Felix Montano - Jimmy Morgan; Mindy Sterling - Cindee; Cynthia Szigeti - Betty Levy; Michael Mueller - ACT OUT #1; Bill Brochtrup - Pledge Cartwright; Mary Stein - Angela Lucassey; Paul D. Fow - Rex Chandler; Fort Atkinson - Buck Hallren; Merri Biechler - Leslie Dameron; Dawn Christie - Woman Exercising; Thom Collins - Himself; Patricia Domiano - Ballroom Dancer; Joe Fusco - Act Out Stage Manager; Kevin Randy - Act Out Guy; Deidra Shafer - Herself; Charles Sloane - Ed; Brett Sylver - Act Out Guy
Credit
Michael Mueller - Costume Designer, Dirk Shafer - Director, Ken Solomon - Editor, Peitor Angell - Composer (Music Score), Giovanni Di Simone - Musical Direction/Supervision, Peitor Angell - Songwriter, Vivian Paxton - Makeup, Michael Mueller - Production Designer, Stephen Timberlake - Cinematographer, Dirk Shafer - Screenwriter
Man of the Year (1995) is a mockumentary written, directed by, and starring Dirk Shafer. The film is a fictionalized account of Shafer's reign as Playgirl magazine's 1992 "Man of the Year" and his struggle with reconciling his public persona as a sex symbol to women with his identity as a gay man. Shafer combines mock interviews (both with some of the actual people involved and with actors standing in for the actual people) with archive footage from Shafer's appearances on talk shows like Donahue, The Maury Povich Show and The Jerry Springer Show (along with an early appearance on Dance Fever) and recreations of events like his Playgirl photoshoots, his "fantasy date" with a Playgirl reader and the death of his friend Pledge Cartwright (Bill Brochtrup) of an AIDS-related illness to relate the story.
Variety gave Man of the Year a generally favorable review, calling the film "pleasant to watch and intermittently clever."[1] However, it notes that Shafer's writing is "uneven" and that the film's "structure is a bit repetitive."[1]The New Yorker largely concurred, noting that Shafer "keep[s] condescension at bay with some nice comic spins"[2] but finding the use of the death of Shafer's friend as Shafer's catalyst for coming out to be self-serving. The San Francisco Chronicle was far harsher, deriding the film as a "vanity" production and complaining "There's no shape to Man of the Year, no forward movement. Man of the Year doesn't even have the benefit of being hip."[3] The New York Times, however, found the film "gently satirical"[4] with the use of real clips from Shafer's various talk show appearances creating a "tone of vertiginous loopiness."[4] The Times also saw the metaphor in Shafer's experience to the pressure that society put on gay people to pretend to be straight.
DVD release
Man of the Year was released on Region 1 DVD on February 23, 1999.
