Only hours before the 30th annual Hunky Jesus competition, Danny Delorean offers me a Bloody Mary and a tray of Cheez-Its crackers from his makeshift bar in the middle of Dolores Park.
Beside him, a striking woman in a celery headdress flanks his right: The Bloody Mary herself.
I politely decline. “Are you Cheesus Chris — ”
“Cheez-Its Christ. Get his name right!” Delorean, says, grinning.
Delorean grew up in a family that took religion “a bit seriously,” he says.
He doesn’t mean any disrespect by dressing up in a Cheez-Its headdress and preparing to drag a cross made of a Cheez-Its boxes across a stage to compete against dozens of other Jesuses. Rather, he says, religion likes to take liberties with others’ freedom, so why not flip the script?
Next to me, a man leans over to shake Delorean’s hand. “It’s good to meet the man getting all the photos.”
“Good to meet you, I’m Daniel.”
“I thought your name was Cheez-Its. You lied to me!” Both men grin.
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, San Francisco’s beloved and satirical drag nuns, have been around since 1979. Their Hunky Jesus competition, held annually every Easter Sunday, has been around for around half of that; it first came to Dolores Park in 1999.
I wander away from the makeshift Bloody- Mary bar and shake hands with a few more Jesuses. There is Elvis Jesus. There is a life-sized Jesus made entirely of balloons, up to and including a balloon loincloth in the colors of the Palestinian flag.
The balloon Jesus is crucified on a balloon cross, which is carried by a shirtless man in leather who identifies the balloon sculpture as “Palestinian Balloon Jesus.” There is Cow Jesus with a cocktail-dispensing udder at the front of his tunic (“It’s filled with moogarita. It’s basically a coconut cream-based margarita”).
Also present in the park: Jennifer Kroot, the writer and director of “Hunky Jesus,” a documentary about the competition that recently screened at the British Film Institute.
Kroot grew up in San Francisco, and has known the Sisters for her entire life. She says she made this documentary to document a core part of San Francisco culture being overwhelmingly displaced.
“A lot of my artist friends have left,” she says. But the Sisters still walk the streets of San Francisco, wimples blowing in the wind, and that gives her hope.
The Hunky Jesus competition has begun. There is Trans Jesus. Woman Jesus. Mr. Rogers Jesus. Aunt Gladys Jesus. There is Fitness Jesus, wearing a shower curtain. Two French Jesuses are engaged in battle against one another on stage. How can anyone possibly choose? A choice is made, and that choice is neither of them.
Only two Jesuses remain, and they are none other than Cheez-Its Christ and “Renewable Jesus,” who has not come bearing a signature cocktail, but rather a crown covered in solar panels and a crucifix shaped like a wind turbine.
He once had a loincloth, but ripped it off backstage, mid-interview, because it had begun to sag unappealingly. Modesty thus discarded, Renewable Jesus — aka Miguel Velez —presents his message of 100-percent renewable energy to the assembled throng wearing only a very thin, very tight pair of briefs.
The crowd is appreciative. A stranger standing next to me leans over and comments, unbidden: “Well he sure isn’t bad to look at, is he?”
Velez is declared the victor, to thunderous applause. Next to him, Cheez-Its Christ graciously bends his knee and bows, his Cheez-Its cross bobbing to the side.
I wander over to Sister Roma. After hosting so many Jesus events, and so many Easter, for so many years, what does she want San Franciscans to know?
“This event is the litmus test for the first amendment. This is the personification of the separation between church and state.” She looks at me, steady and serious and dolled up in deep rouge. “It’s a love letter to San Francisco.”
Thank you thank you for a breath of fresh air in a very screwed up country. We need free speech more than ever. Turning the tables on the supposed separation of church and state is the antidote we all need in these fascist times. Thank you.
I’m Christian, and I approve of this event. It was always a favorite to head to after Easter service when I lived in the city.
Some of you need to get a grip. It’s a cute event.
Pagans gonna pagan.
It would have been more interesting to me if the story was written by a straight male reporter.
This is not only highly offensive, it’s blasphemous. I don’t support any of this!
I cannot think that this event elicits anything except anger and disgust from religious believers of many stripes. Even for non-believers like myself, it is worrying to see blatant disrespect celebrated as mere freedom of expression or as a challenge to oppression.
I know, I know — religion is still used as cudgel and terror. It can be a terrible force in the world. As such, it is on another level entirely of terrible. Still, that is not how most Christians in SF believe or behave. And isn’t this mockery of Christianity a revolting insult to our good neighbors?
Yes, and respectfully, the point is, get over it.
You have to earn ‘respect’ and the so called religion of the zombie ‘Jesus’ does not earn anything. I’m not respecting a blatant con-game, so comically obvious to anyone with an ounce of critical thinking ability. But I’ll just state my ‘faith’ … I have an unshakable faith, that every single religion of the last 10,000 years, is utter and complete B. S.