Tired of seeing headlines about how to “find your thin within” and “snag a spouse,” a young feminist vows to create a publication worthy of its women readers in “Minx,” an HBO Max comedy set in the ’70s. “This country treats women like second-class citizens. We’re overlooked, underpaid, and overwhelmed — we deserve a magazine that inspires us,” Joyce (Ophelia Lovibond) explains in a pitch meeting. Her dream publication, The Matriarchy Awakens, doesn’t go over well, but it does catch the attention of an editor known for sleazy mags.
Desperate to get her empowering message out to the masses, Joyce reluctantly agrees to go into business with Doug (Jake Johnson, “New Girl”), who supports her feminist agenda but argues that they’ll need to make her message more palatable to make a splash. “You gotta hide the medicine,” he insists. “It’s like when you give a pill to a dog — you dip it in peanut butter first.” He’s convinced that nude men will function similarly to peanut butter, drawing readers in and making Joyce’s feminist screeds easier to swallow.
Joyce is, to put it mildly, reluctant to let her precious magazine be tarnished by publishing smut alongside articles about birth control and equality. She’s horrified to consider what someone like her icon, Gloria Steinem, would think about her using her platform to glorify penises.
While Joyce seems convinced she’s made a deal with the devil, the show, right from the outset, makes it clear that Doug and the world at large are far more complicated than she’d like to believe. Despite positioning herself as an expert on feminism, she has a lot to learn about the movement and pretty much everything else. As he constantly needs to remind her, Doug has been running a successful business for years, but Joyce is too busy judging him, questioning his every decision, and recoiling from his work to consider that he’s someone she could possibly learn from. At least that’s how things start off.
Working as the editor-in-chief of the first erotic magazine for women quickly forces Joyce to confront her many blind spots, and she’s in for quite a steep learning curve. Particular attention is paid to her relationship with sex, and her own sexuality. In some ways, the series is a coming-of-age story. Joyce envisions The Matriarchy Awakens as a way to disseminate her own gospel, the world according to her, but the actual publication she ends up spearheading, Minx, is is as much about her education as her readers’.
“Minx” may sound like a downer, and while its protagonist often is, the show itself is breezy fun.
Created by Ellen Rapoport (“Desperados”), the first two episodes of “Minx” are now available on HBO Max. New installments drop Thursdays.
