About five years ago, Marcus acquired the rights to The Great Cock Hunt, an anonymous and definitely NSFW blog about one gay man’s sexual escapades. You can’t have a sexually active gay guy who’s single on a network TV show.” “I’m glad it’s their story, but it’s not mine. “ The New Normal is not my story,” he says. The New Normal, which is about a gay couple seeking to have a baby, is said to be based on co-creator Ryan Murphy’s own life with his partner but while it may have some edgy humor (much of which actually mocks gay people) the NBC comedy certainly doesn’t represent Marcus and many of his friends. “Either I would have to become a girl or be married with a kid, but that’s not me,” he says. Marcus yearned to see something more of himself on-screen, but he knew that adapting his own life would mean watering it down or even turning himself straight. Network Person, you can’t do this,’ but you do get the rules conveyed to you at some point.”
“There’s a lot of political pressure on those characters…to be ‘good’ representations,” explains Marcus of the limits he sees imposed by broadcasters.
The openly gay producer, who has worked on such indie films as Boys Don’t Cry and Hedwig and the Angry Inch and such network TV fare as Scoundrels, feels that he isn’t seeing himself on-screen.
