Set in the 1970s, Minx – the new series on HBO Max – offers the mainstream world a glimpse of the difficulties the adult industry has gone through to survive and what it means to be a female working in the business.
Minx centers on lead character, Joyce, an intellectual who’s desperate to publish a feminist magazine about women’s issues and rights – she’s exactly the type of person you would think would be opposed to porn and in fact is — until she’s faced with a unique proposition. Bottom Dollar Publications the raunchy publisher of over a dozen hardcore magazines for the male reader is willing to take a chance on her highbrow journalistic endeavor. The hitch is, she’s got to adapt it to the confines of their first erotic magazine for women – Minx.
The positives: she’ll get to be the editor and they’ll run all those passionate articles she champions about the problems women face in the 70s (many which are still dealt with today). The negatives? It’ll advertise dildos, sport penis matching games and have a full-on frontal spread – the first to be a hot fireman who she’s incredibly attracted to – much to her horror.
Faced with spending the rest of her life selling subscriptions at a teenybopper rag, she caves to the call of the adult industry (and the fireman) and throws away all aspirations of being the next Gloria Steinem… or does she? What’s genius about the concept of the series is it takes a woman who is terrified of selling out and shows her that her belief system about what it means to be a feminist is flawed. It teaches her that the adult industry IS feminist.
In addition to tackling ideas about what feminism is and how it fits into pornography, Minx also has a lot of depth about issues of freedom of speech. Taking place against the backdrop of San Fernando Valley at the height of the porn empire, episodes deal with very real problems that happened during that time such as politicians attempting to shut down adult businesses, police raids to shakedown companies for money and judgements from citizens. What’s really striking is, thirty years later, the fight is still going strong, and the exact same arguments are being used in the name of moral corruption and protecting the youth.
In one episode, Joyce hoping to get a politician on her side who is planning to root out all the porn businesses in the valley, tries to convince her and a group of Girl Scouts that Minx Magazine will help women to balance the scales of equality. The scouts say they prefer to be stuck in the misogynistic world they’re already living in. It’s a great scene that shows you the porn industry is not something to fear it’s the future of kids like this.
Perhaps the best thing about Minx is it tackles these real-world issues that pertain to the adult industry all while wrapping it up in an incredibly entertaining red bow. I binge watched all the episodes back-to-back. Check it out on HBO Max and see what you think!
Image by RODNAE Productions from Pexels.
