Minx | Channel

Jake Johnson and Ophelia Lovibond in Minx.

SHOW:

Minx

WHERE TO WATCH:

Showmax

OUR RATING:

3.5/5 Stars

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

In the 1970s, a feminist writer joins a porn publisher to create the first women’s erotic magazine. 

WHAT WE THOUGHT:

We all know a Joyce Prigger. That friend who is extremely opinionated but refuses to listen to advice or counterarguments from other people? Yip, that’s Joyce. And Minx is Joyce’s story. It is a story of feminism, eroticism, of liberation, but also it’s an extremely funny comedy series which puts all of these themes into perspective.

Set in the 1970s, we meet Joyce (Ophelia Lovibond), an aspiring magazine editor who is pitching her second-wave feminism magazine ‘The Matriarchy Awakens’. The serious magazine, much in-line with Gloria Steinem’s Ms magazine, focuses on topics such as abortion, marital rape and compensation for housewives at a time when this was very much still taboo. We watch as magazine publishers, mostly made up of men, continually reject her idea until we meet Doug Renetti (Jake Johnson).

Doug is a publisher of porn magazines, and he suggests to Joyce that they publish The Matriarchy Awakens as a magazine that incorporates her very serious articles alongside male erotica. This results in a conflict of ideas, especially when one considers how anti-porn the feminists of the 70s were. However, Minx takes these two big ideas and amalgamates them in a way that is funny, interesting and makes some vital points. 

My biggest problem with the series was with the character of Joyce. When we meet her, she can be seen as a prickly character. She comes from a privileged background and, despite being a die-hard feminist, still has very conservative views about sex and women’s enjoyment of it. This is all fine, we all have to start somewhere, but it feels like Joyce never really learns. In every episode, there will be a new conflict between Joyce and Doug or Joyce and the rest of her team. And even though it pushes the story forward, it still feels like a stall because Joyce is constantly learning the lessons of being flexible, understanding marketability, and not judging others. This may be true of how as humans, we are continually backsliding; it does not make for fun television, especially when we, as viewers, are always getting frustrated by Joyce’s actions. 

But what does make the show worth watching is the supporting cast. Jake Johnson’s Doug perfectly straddles the world between a suave businessman and a slightly sleazy porn producer. This also allows Johnson to play the confident and sexy businessman far removed from his popular character of Nick Miller from New Girl but with the same sense of likeability. The rest of the Minx team is made up of Tina (Idara Victor), Doug’s long-time secretary; Bambi (Jessica Lowe), the former porn model turned centrefold editor; and Richie (Oscar Montoya). And then there is Shelly (Lennon Parham), who is Joyce’s older sister and is much more streetwise than her and helps her adapt to her life at Minx. Like any workplace comedy, the best scenes are when the team is working together or interacting. However, as much as the show focuses on feminism and activism, it rarely focuses on the struggles of other minority groups, such as Tina, a black woman who is incredibly good at business, or Richie, who is Latino and gay. But Lennon Parham, in particular as Shelly, steals every scene she is in, and her comedic timing is worth watching. 

Also, unlike series set in similar periods like The Deuce or The Offer, it does not have that dark and deary colour grading. Everything is bright and colourful, from the costumes to the set design. It gives the series a light feel compared to other series set in the 70s. But even though it is a comedy, it is still able to make important points about misogyny, office politics and various women’s issues.

This is what the series does particularly well: it knows exactly how to hook the audience in and keep them entertained while still allowing them to learn something new. 

Minx feels like something new. Its commentary on male eroticism and women’s enjoyment of sex might feel like something that has been done before, but not to this extent. It is a show whose main character has no self-awareness, but the series itself knows when to be serious or when to laugh at itself. I hope that in the next season, the show attempts to fix the ‘Joyce problem’, but it is still an extremely enjoyable series. 

WATCH THE TRAILER HERE: