Man of the Year

Man of the Year is a 1995 mockumentary film written, directed by and starring Dirk Shafer. It 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 with archive footage from Shafer's appearances on talk shows like Donahue, The Maury Povich Show and The Jerry Springer Show and recreations of events like his Playgirl photoshoots, his "fantasy date" with a Playgirl reader and the death of his friend Pledge Cartwright of an AIDS-related illness to relate the story.