Mr Gay Canada Darren Bruce

Looking for Mr Gay
Scott Dagostino explores what it takes to be crowned Mr Gay and why it could matter to the rest of us.

“The hubris of thinking we’re going to pick one guy to represent all gay people is absurd,” admits Don Spradlin. He is nevertheless organizer of the fifth annual International Mr Gay Competition (IMG) in which hunky gay guys from over a dozen countries will gather — this year in Manila — to vie for the uber-gay title. How does one seriously go about choosing the world’s finest gay man?

DON’T BE A BEAUTY QUEEN

“The beauty pageant model is very tired and dangerous,” says Spradlin. “We tend to say our contest follows a reality-show model. We look for men who are great spokesmen.”

“They don’t like to call it a pageant,” says Vancouver’s Mr Gay Canada 2008, Darren Bruce. “It sounds kind of queeny, you know? They call it a competition.”

Bruce, while seemingly smart and obviously handsome, came in fifth at the first ever Mr Gay World Competition (MGW) this year.

That’s right, there are at least two competing international competitions: Spradlin’s IMG and the new MGW.

The MGW top honour went to Ireland’s Max Krzyzanowski, who says the weeklong modelling, public speaking and athletic competition involved “a punishing schedule.” Bruce and Krzyzanowski say they learned that, even during the quiet moments the models were watched and graded by judges. Despite the lack of sleep, “there was a certain sense of shared adventure to it all,” Krzyzanowski says. But ultimately there would be only one winner.

PLEASE, NO CATFIGHTS

How there came to be two competing competitions is a dramatic story for another time but many people have mixed feelings about the competition between competitions.

Spradlin says he is surprised MGW even made it off the ground. Good luck to them, he shrugs. “Some claim they’ll make money at this but it has never been a sustainable business. That’s why we run it as a non-profit organization.”

The backbiting is unfortunate, sighs Krzyzanowski, because “it’s a distraction from what this competition can actually accomplish.”

BE REGULAR, FREAKISHLY REGULAR

Spradlin says he created IMG to confront what he calls the gay stereotype. “We all know what the gay stereotype is, even if we debate about it,” he says. He was tired of media focusing too much on what he calls the most colourful depictions of gay men. Spradlin says drag queens and leathermen take society’s gender biases and blow them up to their limits. It’s an “in-your-face” style that Spradlin calls “extreme activism.” By contrast, he says, IMG is like “a regular guy association, creating digestible images of gay people the straight media will find attractive.” He points to last year’s Iraninan delegate who he calls a walking, talking antidote to Iran’s entrenched homophobia. “Part of the reason I was chosen is that I don’t represent a specific stereotype,” says Krzyzanowski.

He earned the crown for not seeming too gay, or for seeming respectably gay.

SWISH UPON A STAR

Joel Derfner, the wonderfully witty New York-based author of Gay Haiku, frowns at all this. “It doesn’t sound like a Mr Gay pageant,” he says. “It sounds like a Mr Anti-Gay-Stereotype pageant.” To him, Spradlin’s “regular guy” mantra “sounds a little creepy, actually.” Derfner says a lack of “more nuanced” depictions of gay people in the media is annoying but says “stereotypes are there for a reason.”

While Spradlin insists those stereotypes are used by the straight mainstream “to reduce us, to create an ‘other,’” Derfner calls them tools gay people can use to “find individual meaning.” He says stereotypes also help straight people to learn to understand gay people.

Derfner started thinking, he says, about stereotypically gay activities like brunching, theatre-going, knitting and gay sex. He realized that “almost all of them, I was already doing. I really am a big gay stereotype.” He channelled this realization into his Elton Johnendorsed memoir, Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever and What Ended Up Happening Instead. His wacky-but-wise book suggests that “stereotypically” gay activities are merely creative ones that everyone, gay and straight, should enjoy and celebrate. “Okay, maybe go-go dancing isn’t so creative,” he adds laughing.

Krzyzanowski says he understands Derfner’s point but says growing up seeing nothing but role models like Boy George in the media didn’t help him. Gay pageants, he argues, offer “a diversity of role models” for questioning teens. He takes the contests seriously, even if others have reservations, and says helping even one lost gay teen seems worth the competitive theatrics.

PAY IT FORWARD

This supposed evolution of gay beauty pageants — sorry, competitions — echoes that of similar next-generation straight-girl square-offs. What was once about gorgeous chicks in bikinis was eventually recognized as sexist. So it became gorgeous brainy chicks in bikinis.No wait, gorgeous brainy talented chicks in bikinis. Okay, gorgeous brainy talented charity spokespeople in bikinis. One desperately waits for a gay competition contestant to have a Miss Teen USA South Carolina moment, declaring that Drag- Americans should be sending dresses to South Africa and Eye-raq.

Sadly however, Bruce seems to be a genuinely nice guy who cares about others. He defends MGW for having “opened my eyes to what’s going on for gay people in the world.” Since the competition, he says he’s become an AIDS activist. Kryzanowski says he is fighting against antigay legislation in Ireland. “It gives you access to community activists and to interesting people and activities,” he says of his title.

Bruce agrees, noting that the Mr Gay Canada label makes him “feel more responsible to make a difference, even if it’s something small.”

GET REAL

Derfner neatly sums up his own view: “Becoming the most gay man ever meant becoming the most authentic person I could be.”

It’s easy to mock the pretensions of a Mr Gay contest — even when we’re all heading out for the Best Ass Contest at Woody’s — but Krzyzanowski and Bruce do seem on the surface like the down-to-earth gay men Spradlin wants to celebrate.

Krzyzanowski didn’t take his own victory too seriously. “I looked at competing as an opportunity to broaden my intellectual horizons and meet great people,” he says.

Bruce, meanwhile, remains an unflappable spokesman even when reminded that Anthony Morley, Mr Gay UK 1993, literally cooked and ate parts of another man. “That’s pretty gross but it shows that no one is ever perfect and that mental illness can affect anyone,” he says.

Well played. How has his Mr Gay Canada status affected his relationship with his partner?

“He wants a tiara,” Bruce says before pausing. “No, seriously. He does.” Stereotypes rage on.


The International Mr Gay Competition is in Manila in May. Info: mrgaycompetition.com

Mr Gay World is next in Oslo in 2010. Info: mrgayworld.org

Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever and What Ended Up Happening Instead is due out in paperback in June. Info: joelderfner.com


Scott Dagostino is a writer and serious contender in any pageant…sorry, competition.