‘Minx’ and the Danger of Rushing Things. Also: Dongs.
There are a lot more dongs on this show than I expected. It’s also a good example of being impatient with your payoffs.
NEW STANDARD DISCLAIMER: This newsletter aggressively spoils things.
I was unprepared for the dongs, to be honest1. I’ve seen plenty of dongs in my life—I was born with one, after all—dating back to locker rooms and group showers at a wide variety of childhood events2. I am fairly comfortable with dongs—again, born with one—and I generally champion the idea of equalizing the amount of male nudity and female nudity in our entertainments. There’s no reason to show a bunch of female bodies and keep all the men covered up3, and while the powers that be are at it they should eliminate the magic sheets that cling to a woman’s cleavage when she’s sitting in bed contemplating world domination4.
But somehow I missed the fact that Minx, the little show about a fictional women’s magazine in the early 1970s that features nude male centerfolds (also the little show that got canceled at HBO Max after its second season had already been produced and picked up by Starz) features a lot of dongs. A little warning would have been nice. We’re not talking about purely flaccid dongs, either. There’s at least one extended sequence featuring a fully (and somewhat incredibly) erect dong, and one sequence showing a dong being manually, er, manipulated5. Sir, this is a Wendy’s! Or, you know: Starz.
But! I am not here to talk about dongs. Not this time, at least6. I am here to talk about how Minx does a lot of things right but gets one thing spectacularly wrong: It rushes its payoff.
DONGS DONGS DONGS
The basic premise of Minx is that in 1972 a woman named Joyce Prigger7 (Ophelia Lovibond) is trying to launch a feminist magazine called The Matriarchy Awakens. Prigger is well-meaning (and angry about the chauvinism towards and oppression of smart, capable women like herself), so her magazine is kind of a hilariously shrill, unappealing mess8. The only publisher who sees any potential is Doug Renetti (Jake Johnson) of the bottom-feeding porn publishing empire Bottom Dollar (think a low-rent Larry Flynt). Doug is a hustler, and he thinks there’s an untapped market of women who wouldn’t mind a little of Joyce’s erudite politics combined with some ... dongs9.
Now, the basic shape of this show is pretty obvious: Joyce is uptight, self-righteous, and somewhat sheltered, but her association with the weirdos and characters of Bottom Dollar brings her out of her shell, teaches her about true friendship10, and helps her turn her magazine into something people actually want to read. And that is all fine—it really is a good way to shape the story. The problem is, the endgame of Joyce and her magazine becoming a triumphant success against all the (very chauvinistic) odds comes way, way too soon.
DONGS DONGS DONGS
The odds are stacked against Joyce and Minx. Bottom Dollar isn’t known for its subtle artistic guidelines, and the mobsters who run the distribution networks that get the magazine to stores are deeply Catholic and easily offended. The stores themselves treat the magazine like any other smut11, it riles up the bluenoses who immediately launch campaigns to stifle it, and a lot of guys get worried that their wives will read it and get the idea that women might be equal partners in, you know, life12.
The gang catches a break, however, when Joyce visits a local college women’s group, who decide she’s a sell-out. This sparks a slow-rolling backlash against Joyce and Minx that eventually includes a bunch of unlikely bedfellows—people who hate the idea of the magazine for wildly different reasons. Doug, being a hustler, sees an opportunity, and soon Minx is national news and selling like hotcakes!
Now, that sequence of events makes sense enough, and works well enough for an overall story arc. But it happens in the space of, like, three episodes. Joyce goes from hilariously strident to a literary superstar in what feels like seconds, despite cobbling the first issue together from scraps of old writing and what scientists call sass. It doesn’t sell, because it’s kind of patently ridiculous: Joyce wasn’t presented as a genius who just needed someone else’s printing presses, she’s presented as an overeager scold, and an overeager scold who admits to herself that most of her old writing wasn’t very good. And yet a few months into her publishing foray with a low-rent porn house, she’s on Dick Cavett and fielding offers from literary agents13.
Again, if this arc had been given longer to brew, this would have worked. Honestly, this is the sort of arc that could sustain a few seasons, slowly building to a momentous moment. As it is, it’s weak sauce. You have to be more patient with your stories.
Of course, Minx has had a rough time of it, production-wise, so who knows what had to be done. Perhaps there was a longer 12- or 14-episode first season that had to be cut down. Who knows? And it’s a very entertaining and fun show, so there’s that. It seems very unlikely there will be a third season, so this is probably the last time anyone remembers the show existed14. I just wish it had slowed its roll a little.
Do I wish there were fewer dongs? Not really. Am I saying the world needs more dongs on TV? Maybe.
NEXT WEEK: Mad Max: Fury Road and respecting your audience.
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Say it with me: Yes, “Unprepared for the Dongs” is 100% the title of my memoir.
You haven’t lived until you’ve gone to Boy Scout camp 100 miles from your home only to be informed that the showers offer no privacy and you will be mocked if you show up wearing swimming trunks.
Unless making me feel bad about the zero crunches I did today counts as a reason.
Can we also deal with shows that depict two people sleeping together in what appear to be special sex clothing? I mean, it’s weird.
At least the scene where a woman manipulates a dong depicts a schlubby man whose dong is singularly unimpressive, a welcome respite for your suffering writer, here.
Contemplating a third Substack that’s just called Jeff On Dongs. DM me if you want to vote yay or nay on that one, and let me know how much you’d pay to read it. I bet it’s a surprisingly high amount.
Making your character’s name an obvious play on words (because she’s priggish, DO YOU GET IT?!?!?) is always a trick that should never survive the first draft.
This is also an example of a very common trope: The brilliant person who starts off almost totally humorless about their passion, then learns to be human by slummng swith the Less Brilliants. On a side note, I think I just coined the term Less Brilliants and I love it.
This, of course, will never not be true.
Also: Vibrators and the need for a brain-jolting orgasm once in a while.
Young men of this era will never know true courage, because they will never have to walk up to a newsstand proprietor, point to an issue of Penthouse and look them in the eye.
I am deeply in love with the silly idea that feminism (or any social and intellectual movement) is just waiting for a bunch of scrappy weirdos to politely explain it to the Less Brilliants. On a side note, I am definitely and absolutely going to make “Less Brilliants” into a thing. It’s streets ahead.
And in the second season, she’s being courted by the world’s top publishers and a recognizable celebrity. It’s just very, very fast.
Unless you’re compiling a history of dongs on TV, in which case this show gets its own chapter.
I will accept no less than $5 per dong to read Jeff on Dongs. That's what you meant, right?
By any chance was Groucho on the Dick Cavett Show with Joyce? Dick would often pair people with opposing viewpoints on his show, and Groucho was a bit of a chauvinist. Hello I must be going...