Ellen Rapoport (Clifford the Big Red Dog, Desperados) had a vision to create Minx a ten-part TV series about a serious feminist/ liberationist magazine featuring full-throttle male nudity. It was a time of equality after all. Make no mistake, Minx was as much a magazine about objectifying the naked male form as much as it was about promoting the interests and status of women.

Minx centers around Joyce (Ophelia Lovibond), a serious journalist more interested in ‘real’ journalism than porn, and Doug (Jake Johnson), an unabashed low-rent publisher, aptly naming his outfit Bottom Dollar, where covering his costs was more important than publishing articles for the modern, thinking woman. This conflict formed the basis for their prickly symbiosis in Minx.

The 70s In The San Fernando Valley In Los Angeles

The time and place are integral to laying the framework for Minx to tell its story. It was a time of progress and sexism. Rapoport spent considerable time with her department heads trying to capture the mood and look to the 70s. To many, the 70s was a time of excess, sparkles, bellbottoms, big egos, and even bigger hair. “We realized that the early 70s was a bit of a hangover from the 60s, so we tried to communicate that visually. Our production designer was a storyteller.”

Case in point is Doug’s office – a former factory which Doug purchased ten years prior. “There were remnants of the old factory because Doug was totally immersed in business and wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of decorating his offices.”

Similarly, costume designer Beth Morgan was equally meticulous in ensuring she used her expertise to demonstrate the circumstances in which each outfit would be worn. “We thought what someone might be thinking and feeling when they wore it.”

Ellen Rapoport

Ellen Rapoport spent a great deal of time researching Fever, Playgirl and other prominent erotic magazines of the era. She even brought a stack of porn magazines to her pitch meeting to make her point.

She recalled Minx was set during a time of an administration that was determined to undo the progress women made to secure their civil rights established in the 60s. “They were scared of the progress women were making.”

The country is divided between people desperate for progress and people desperate to hold it back

Minx was born from an opposing mix of pornographers and feminists with very different ideas of what makes a successful magazine fro women. Ellen Rapoport went into painstaking detail to ensure the fidelity to the production processes of the time – manually cutting images and text rather than using current digital techniques. These details captured the essence of an era beyond the scope of the dialogue on the page. “An environment where you physically have to touch everything seems to have more weight somehow.” It was also a time of long lead in periods to print and the absence of 24-hour news cycles. “I wanted to celebrate magazines that would last an entire month not an entire minute.”

Minx: Erotica Not Porn

“Erotica is so much more innocent than porn. There is no actual sex involved,” said Ellen. She wanted to present the world of Bottom Dollar as “largely aspirational” rather than seedy, so there wasn’t any shame associated with Minx. Joyce initially believed that pornography was an affront to feminism. “That evolved over time as feminists learned to appreciate a male body.”

Minx is not your typical half-hour comedy with a single main character. “We had to give every character a satisfying arc.”

For Rapoport, the relationship between Joyce and Doug is the heart of the show. “The idea that a complete stranger can come into your life and change the course of it made it.” She also avoided the dark and unsettling tone associated with many films and television shows about the porn magazines. “We treated sexuality as normal. It might be portrayed as a fairytale, but it was heart-felt. We wanted the audience to feel good.” The characters couldn’t be caricatures controlled by their world. “Even in the episode with The Mob [which significantly controlled the porn industry at the time] we didn’t want cartoon villains.”

Ellen described the relationship between Doug and Joyce as “a pornographer becoming a little bit of a feminist and a feminist becoming a bit of a pornographer.” Their conflict arose from the fact that they basically disagreed on everything, but they worked together towards achieving the same goal. “Joyce is naïve, full of heart, and passion. She can come off as somewhat entitled and myopic. Doug is a dispassionate businessman. Porn doesn’t mean much to him. That’s just how he makes his money.”

Doug is pragmatic and slightly cynical – so Joyce’s joie de naïveté is his perfect antidote to change his outlook of life. Doug and Joyce followed the traditional buddy comedy tropes where two people are forced to work together for the greater good and eventually appreciate each other’s differences. Rapoport considers the “opposites attract” tropes to be over-used and antiquated.

Ellen Rapoport was adamant in not allowing any romance between Joyce and Doug to flourish. It would have derailed their professional relationship. “A business relationship and a mentorship is so much more interesting to explore than a romantic one. It’s a rich canvas.” Many workers today are finding they spend more time with colleagues than their partners, so personal bonds are bound to develop.

Joyce (Ophelia Lovibond) & Doug (Jake Johnson) at a business meeting. Photo by Katrina Marcinowski / HBO Max

Ostensibly, Joyce might be considered the main character of the show because it is largely told through her perspective. Ellen Rapoport begs to differ. Joyce and Jake are both main characters. “Both Joyce and Doug have miles to go before becoming complete people.” That said, Joyce is the “doorway into the story.” Although the Doug and Joyce story is nowhere close to completion, Ellen didn’t want there to be winners and losers at the end. Both characters make enormous strides in their journeys to self-actualization and personal growth.

Joyce is a woman full of contradictions. “She’s a feminist that’s out of tune with the feminist movement of the time.” She’s not the stereotypical humorless woman always attacking the patriarchy at every opportunity.

She also grew up in a wealthy family which helped shape her character. “I wanted to cast someone that had an inherent warmth and likability to play against that privilege.”

Doug’s character was created to defy expectations of the typical sleazy pornographer. Many pornographers are highly professional. They pay people on time, ensure safe and hygienic working conditions, and pay their staff benefits. Few characters are just one person. “I played with those contradictions.”

The Minx writers’ room was entirely conducted on Zoom. Ellen found this very challenging, especially for a comedy show. You can easily miss those moments when you come up with story ideas after the Zoom call has ended and need to wait until the next session to discuss them.

The writing team initially spent a few weeks discussing all story possibilities with few restrictions except that they weren’t exploring the seedier side of the porn industry. After they started discussing character arcs, the story took a firmer shape. The biggest concern was maintaining an even tonality in the show. “There were times we leaned too much into the darkness and had to pull it back into the light.”

Breaking story began with creating the big arc of brining Minx out into the world and gauging the public reaction to it. “The show had an inbuilt story engine.” The writers had one-page outlines for the first nine episodes within six weeks to pitch to the network. After the main story beats for each episode where written, each episode was assigned to a writer. Once scripts was returned, they would further punch them up in the room.

Ellen Rapoport loves writing about flawed female characters. “I like unlikable women, not because they’re monsters, but because they lack self-awareness and are often entitled.“