Would You Rather: Mark Cohen or Roger Davis From ‘Rent’

Life often presents us with tough choices, but we’re here to help work them out. Each week, we discuss two attractive men, weigh the pros and cons, and decide, once and for all, which one we’d rather have sex with. In this week’s Would You Rather, we debate the leading men of the musical that defined a generation: Mark Cohen (Anthony Rapp) and Roger Davis (Adam Pascal) of Rent.

Tyler: Joel, I’m assuming the musical Rent was as important to you in your formative years as it was for me. You did, after all, suggest this matchup pretty much out of the blue. There’s no anniversary to speak of, neither of the actors are having a birthday anytime soon, and there’s no secret, unheard Jonathan Larson play that has surfaced since the show premiered off-Broadway in 1996. So, clearly, you must be just like me in that you have this inability to shake off those magical tunes nearly twenty years since its original staging.

Joel: Like a lot of closeted gay kids hiding in the suburbs at the turn of the Millennium, my connection to Rent was one of the top three reasons I realized I was gay (the other two being Estaban Vega’s Axe Body spray in third period and the copious amounts of gay porn I was consuming and then deleting from my parents’ browsing history every day). And growing up sheltered, it also gave me my first tastes of counter culture in a neat, melodically satisfying package (the lyrics, “To faggots, lezzies, dykes, cross dressers, too / To me, to me, to you, and you and you, you and you” would be emblazoned across my AIM away message for years to come, in every font and color imaginable). I forced many friends (and friends parents!) to see the movie version at least four times in the theaters. All this to say yes: this musical was very important to me growing up.

Tyler: I remember when the cast performed at the Tony Awards in 1996. It blew my goddamn mind! I was, of course, thirteen at the time and living in a tiny town in Virginia where there were no performance artists or drag queens or gay people (well, out gay people). So, yes, I feel you: it was an incredible cultural awakening, as was seeing it two years later on its first national tour with my parents (my dad did not know that Angel was a man until the end of the first act). But before we get to fighting over the leading men, can I ask you this: what do you think of Rent now?

Joel: Oh, I think it’s pretty dumb and for children. But if this column is any indication, I like a lot of dumb stuff that was originally intended for children.

Tyler: FOR BABIES. Babies like you and me decades ago and not as grown-ass men who live in this crummy city that bares little resemblance to the one in Rent. (When is the last time you angrily refused to pay your rent through song?) But we might as well get down to business here. I don’t think it should shock you that I would most certainly pick the sensitive rocker Roger over the dweeby filmmaker Mark.

Joel: I have no great love for Roger. He’s frustrating and annoying and his songs are the worst ones — truly. But I think my biggest issue with Roger is really my biggest issue in general with the show whenever I revisit it now: none of these people are artists. At least they say they are, but like many artists in modern-day New York, there’s a whole lot of telling and not a lot of showing going on to convince anyone. Not so with Mark. Sure, he may be as obnoxiously whiny as every other character (dude, your biggest daily annoyance is a phone call from your mom and dad?) he, at least, is actively trying to create something — even if it is just a shitty documentary that is exploiting the actual issues of people around him. All this to say I just have and continue to have a huge crush on Anthony Rapp. So, Mark wins!

Tyler: At first I thought that my picking Roger was solely because of my rule about not having sex with other redheads. (Why are you trying to do this to me again, Joel?) And there’s also the fact that before I grew a beard and strangers on New York City street corners drunkenly asked me if I was “that guy from Modern Family,” I heard the same thing over and over again: “You know who you look like to me? That guy from Rent!” But on top of my aversion to anyone who looks like me, I think you are 100% wrong about Mark. You think Mark is less annoying than Roger? Roger has AIDS. Roger has a lot going on! Mark is a failed documentarian who, like Lelaina Pierce in Reality Bites (seriously, Joel, learn a bit about recent history and watch Reality Bites already), can’t see beyond his tiny Alphabet City world to focus his lens on anyone other than his friends. And, please, “One Song Glory” is a jam, but Roger’s duets with Mimi — “I Should Tell You” and “Without You” — are beautiful.

Joel: Could never get into Roger’s songs, I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe it was Adam Pascal (you know, from “Suddenly Seymour” duet with Mandy Moore fame?, and his scratchy growl, but I would skip over nearly every one of his songs except for “Another Day,” and even then only because I have a major hard-on for good mashups. What can I say? I have a soft spot for bespectacled, nerdy neurotics, and I won’t apologize for that.

Tyler: As a bespectacled, nerdy neurotic, maybe you should! Or maybe I just hate my own kind. I mean, I live not far from where Rent takes place, albeit in a different time where young post-collegiate idiots speckle my stoop with their vomit and the only tent city that might crop up would be a line of morons eagerly waiting for the newest frozen yogurt shop to open. Roger represents the grit of the East Village / Lower East Side that has been replaced by fey art school alumni whose ideas of “art” involve filming other people do interesting things and bitch and moan about selling out, as if a check from a trashy Entertainment Tonight-type gossip show is less noble than sitting around in an apartment owned by your rich friend.

Joel: Can you imagine having to actually live with Roger, though? Yes, your description of Mark seems pretty apt, but it also sounds like pretty much everyone else we already know and guys I’ve actually dated. So I feel pretty confident that I could handle that. I’m listening to “Another Day” right this minute, and Roger is so incredibly rude to Mimi, who quite frankly seems really hot and cool and just wants to fucking hang out with him, and he can’t just like, calmly look out his window and say, “Hey, please get off my fire escape, I’m really tired and I totally get your point though, so let’s chat tomorrow. Bye”? No. Instead he says, “If you’re so wise, then tell me — why do you need smack?” Which is so incredibly rude, I gasped out loud at my desk just now. Excuse me? Mark’s myopia might be a struggle, but if there’s one thing I can’t abide, it’s rudeness. And Roger is hella rude.

Tyler: Have you no empathy for what makes Roger rude?! He’s healing from his girlfriend’s suicide — a suicide that took place right after she found out she and Roger were HIV-positive. Mimi’s a drug addict like his former girlfriend; naturally, he’s afraid to get close only to lose someone again. Yes, he’s gruff. Yes, he could communicate better. But couldn’t we all? Meanwhile, Roger is hung up on his ex, the lesbian performance artist. I mean, HONESTLY, Joel. You would rather date someone who would constantly compare you to IDINA MENZEL?

Joel: I would welcome the challenge. Quite honestly a lot of my personality is centered on the “lesbian performance artist” archetype, so I think I’d be up for the challenge. He would compare the two of us, and would ultimately find her lacking. And isn’t that one of the best parts of any relationship? The never ending competition with all of their previous lovers?

Tyler: I mean, I’m picking the one with the ex-drug addict with the dead girlfriend, but at least she wasn’t Idina Menzel. But I accept the baggage there. Compared to Roger, though, Mark has just a carry on. But it’s the kind that is just slightly too big to fit into an overhead compartment, and you know he’s going to make a big deal out how “it fits, I swearrrrrrrrr.” Ugh, MARK SUCKS!

Joel: But he gets all the best verses in “La Vie Boheme.”

Tyler: Of course he does, he’s the plucky lead. He’s the Kristin Chenoweth character of Rent!

Joel: Which makes Roger the Idina Menzel. So I guess that puts us in a stalemate.

Tyler: Well, before we go, I must ask: Jesse L. Martin or Taye Diggs?

Joel: OK, let’s get something straight here: Mark and Roger both suck. Tom Collins is the only choice. A sexy academic with a baritone speaking voice and an anarchist streak? Sign me up forever.

Tyler: I want to go with Tom Collins, especially given how evil the gentrifying Benny is, but I have to be cautious here because what if Taye Diggs unfollows me on Twitter???

Joel: More importantly: can you imagine dating some sexy dude who owns an entire building in the East Village? An entire building, Tyler.

Tyler: It’s the dream, Joel. It’s my dream.

 

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Harry Potter vs. Ron Weasley from the Harry Potter franchise
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