Marc St. James

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Marc St. James
Michael Urie as Marc St. James
First appearance	Pilot (aka I Am Not Going To Sell Herbalux)
Information
Gender	Male
Age	late 20's
Occupation	Assistant/secretary
Title	Personal Assistant to Wilhelmina Slater at MODE
Family	Mrs. Jean Weiner (Mother) Schmoopy (pet)
Portrayed by	Michael Urie
Created by	Silvio Horta

Marcus "Marc" St. James is a fictional character in the American dramedy series Ugly Betty. He is played by Michael Urie.

[edit] Background

Marc, who hails from Schenectady, New York is the openly gay personal assistant of Wilhelmina Slater, the creative editor at MODE magazine. He is very loyal to Wilhelmina and so far he will do whatever it will take to help his boss succeed in her goal to become the magazine's editor by conspiring with both his boss and magazine receptionist Amanda to sabotage the two people responsible for costing Wilhelmina the top job, and in particular, ruin the 'beauty' of the magazine's workplace: Daniel Meade and Betty Suarez, respectively. Despite his semi-scheming and his efforts to detour the two, Marc has a record in failing in those efforts and at times finds himself at the mercy of his boss' wrath, where she had threatened to replace him with any other "curly haired, effeminate sycophant", five of whom she has on speed dial.

Although he has made no secret that he is openly gay as evident by his flamboyant behavior and his refusal to touch an attractive female, he has not told his family, who thinks he is straight and has a girlfriend who lives in Canada^[1] When Marc's mother came to visit him for a cat show, Marc uses Betty as a fake girlfriend to cover up his sexuality. However, when she sees the dysfunctional nature of Betty's family while having dinner, Marc eventually confesses that Betty isn't his girlfriend and comes out to her. Unfortunately, Marc's mother rejects him, and leaves for home. He suffers from asthma attacks whenever there is a crisis. At home he has a pet named Schmoopy, but there is no description on what type of species this animal is, but it is most likely a cat or a dog as Wilhelmina refers to these animals in a threat in the episode "Fey's Sleigh Ride".

When he is not around doing Wilhelmina's bidding, he makes extra money from tipping off retail chains by spying on what will be the latest must-have items during Fashion Week.

[edit] Connections

Marc dresses up as Betty for Halloween

Wilhelmina Slater - Creative Editor at MODE; Fiercely loyal to his boss, Wilhelmina will usually hand out orders to him to get the job done, especially when it comes dealing with Daniel and Betty. When Marc accidentally stumbles onto Wilhelmina's plans to take over Meade Publications, he turns that around by forcing Wilhelmina into buying his silence with financial security and a new Hummer H2 in order to keep her secret from leaking out. In a brief moment of resigned camaraderie with Christina, however, Marc hinted that Wilhemina's underhanded methods had worn him down over time.

Betty Suarez - Assistant to the Editor at MODE; He constantly mocks Betty (he has captured her screwups on cellphone and then proclaims "I think I just found my new screensaver!" after downloading it, and even dressed up as her for Halloween in which he almost got a raise from Wilhelmina, who then quickly changed her mind after saying that she can barely stand seeing the "real" one), as long as he doesn't endure Betty's wrath since she has threatened him with a Queens-style beating. She has also threatened Marc that she'll expose his personal page after she saw his screensaver shrine to Betty and her mishaps; he deleted them immediately. Recently, however, he hinted that he likes Betty more than he lets on, telling her "you'll always be my little chimichanga."

Justin Suarez - Betty's nephew; When Justin came to her workplace Marc seemed to like Justin, even giving him advice on dealing with bullies.

Amanda Tanner - Receptionist at MODE; a loyal ally; they share a dislike for Betty and enjoy humiliating her. In one episode Marc and Amanda were willing to work with Betty in an attempt to keep their jobs, even at the cost of lying to Wilhelmina, which got worse after he and Amanda make a prank call to the mystery woman while they were in Wilhelmina's office, but he used that to his advantage by telling Amanda that it will cost her after Wilhelmina saw her text message that pinned him as the culprit.

Christina McKinney - Seamstress at MODE; Christina has a love-hate rivalry with Marc, with whom she constantly bickers with, mostly because of her work. In the tenth episode she told "Santa Claus" that she wishes that Marc had "...Courage" because she knows how cowardly Marc is, especially concerning Wilhelmina. They formed a friendly truce during the fifteenth episode ("Derailed") when Christina needed help in designing an Oscar-worthy dress in one night, only to have the opportunity destroyed by a manipulative Wilhemina.

[edit] Notes

^ Contrary to common perception, this is not a borrowed quote from "Avenue Q", but rather his comment and the Avenue Q song are both references to the popular joke that gay men will often create a fictional girlfriend, located in a distance place, usually Canada, therefore making her existence difficult to disprove and in theory concealing his true sexuality. However, due to the common knowledge of the practice, the statement of a Canadian girlfriend, instead achieves the opposite result, highlighting his homosexuality. As a result, "a girlfriend who lives in Canada", has become a shorthand phrase used to indicate ineffectual concealment of one's homosexuality.

Ugly Betty

v • d • e

The Suarez family

Betty • Hilda • Ignacio• Justin

MODE magazine

Christina McKinney • Alexis Meade • Bradford Meade • Daniel Meade • Marc St. James • Wilhelmina Slater • Fey Sommers • Amanda Tanner

Recurring characters

Fabia • Gina Gambarro • Steve • Constance Grady • Henry • Claire Meade • Sofia Reyes • Santos • Nico Slater • Walter