MR. AMERICA

A history of the Mr. America pageant, the first major competitive bodybuilding showcase that helped popularize the sport.

Retired professor and bodybuilder Fair’s (Muscletown USA: Bob Hoffman and the Manly Culture of York Barbell, 2008, etc.) study is not actually about one specific person. Rather, he focuses on the phenomenon of the first major bodybuilding competition, which paved the way for other competitions like Mr. Universe and Mr. Olympia. The author argues that the “tragic” fate of Mr. America was related to the decline of “Americanism.” Specifically citing the academic movement beginning in the 1960s to decentralize American exceptionalism, Fair believes this cultural context created a fatal erosion of the meaning and identity of what it means to be an American, thereby undercutting the ideals of masculinity embodied by Mr. America in favor of pure mass building to compensate for the “male predicament.” It’s an audacious and provocative argument, and his narrative of bodybuilding culture is informative and engaging. Beginning with Eugen Sandow in the late 19th century, “physical culture” was an outgrowth of neoclassical beliefs in athletics and masculinity. Physical beauty was more than simply vanity but an overall balance of body, mind and soul. However, these ideals would quickly become secondary to the appeal of greater muscularity achieved by Charles Atlas, for instance, preferring muscular proportion and symmetry to strongman displays and weightlifting competitions. The first Mr. America was crowned in 1939, and Fair traces the growth of the competition from the postwar golden years through the 1990s when, driven by promoters’ bloodlust for spectacle, steroid use mired the bodybuilding world in scandal. At the same time, market pressure by other competitions and committee regulations had largely forced Mr. America to the fringes of the culture that had all but forgotten its classical lineage.

An entertaining narrative of the bodybuilding subculture in America.