My newest obsession is HBO’s new show “Minx.” It is set in the ’70s and follows a naive young woman named Joyce Prigger who has had the lifelong dream of creating a magazine catered to pushing women past domesticity and into the modern world.
The magazine, titled “The Matriarchy Awakens,” features lots of serious articles on women-centered issues such as birth control, sexual violence, sexism in the workplace, etc. Joyce hopes to finally make her life’s work into a business when she attends a publishing convention where she tries again and again to sell her unapologetic feminist magazine to old white men who prefer their women pretty and quiet.
Through the course of the entire convention, only one publisher expresses interest in her magazine: a publisher of porn magazines by the name of Doug Renetti. Jokingly, Joyce makes an offhand comment about the only way that her magazine getting published by his company, which happens to be comically named “Bottom Dollar Publications,” being if it contains male nudes.
Instead of laughing, Doug takes her for her word, and together they birth a magazine that contains both articles on feminist issues and male pornography. This new magazine is “Minx.”
The reason I took the time to describe the plot in such detail is because it is honestly one of the funniest and most curiosity-inducing setups for a TV show I have ever encountered of recent years.
“Minx” is a pretty new show that has been having new episodes come out every Thursday since airing on March 17, and I have to say that I feel excited to be watching this as it comes out. If I were to summarize my experience with it, I put it plainly and say that “Minx” is a damn good time.
The cast of characters and their dynamics is arguably one of my favorite parts about the show. Each person in Minx’s staff is crucial to the team and is delightfully loveable and unique in their own way.
I think my favorite characters have to be Doug and Tina, who is Doug’s long-time trustworthy and hardworking secretary and love interest. The two of them started “Bottom Dollar” together and have been working with each other ever since. The mutual adoration and respect they have for each other is clear and it is such a precious thing to witness in the midst of the chaos of the porn industry.
I’m also drawn to the interactions between Joyce and Doug because of their widely different perspectives but similar leadership roles in the Minx staff. Joyce’s naivete and stubbornness contrasts Doug’s impulsiveness and assertiveness and the pair often clash heads when working on the magazine. Seeing the two slowly work to compromise and create the best possible product is unbelievably satisfying.
What I love the most about the show is the sheer number of questions it explores:
How does an industry historically as exploitative as pornography go hand in hand with feminist liberation? How does seeing men naked in a magazine change women’s place in society? Do the male nudes dilute the power of the feminist message? What does/did it say about society that male nudes are/were needed in order to make feminism easier to digest?
There’s a lot of grey area when it comes to the two things that Minx is trying to marry. This is great because the show doesn’t just manage to get a good laugh out of the audience, but also gets them to think about the more nuanced aspects of feminism and the different modes of expressing it.
Throughout the show so far, there have been several women who have expressed negative opinions about Minx because they believe it isn’t the right way to achieve equality for women. This then leaves us with the question of whether there is a ‘right way’ to achieve equality for women in the first place…
HBO’s “Minx” is hilarious, risqué and thought-provoking. It’s quite different from other shows on air right now and I couldn’t recommend it more. As the first season comes to an end, I’m already left excited and impatient for the second.