Minx creator on incorporating the '70s rock scene and Joyce's take on Club Minx
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Warning: This article contains spoilers for Minx season 2, episode 4, "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Sexiness."
This week on Minx, it's all about the music.
While Joyce (Ophelia Lovibond) romances Graham (Nash?) and falls further into the 1970s rock scene, Doug (Jake Johnson) puts together a pitch for his latest idea, Club Minx, a gentleman's club for women (think the Magic Mike show in Vegas with more porn 'staches).
The more Minx the magazine gains popularity, the more famous people Joyce gets to hob nob with, including new pal Linda Ronstadt (Caroline Arapoglou) and other '70s rockers. "It felt like a shorthand to say Minx has entered a new era," creator Ellen Rapoport tells EW. "They're partying with people who are cool. And the coolest people in the early '70s were the rock stars. That's what really was happening. A lot of the real Playgirl editors were hanging out with rock stars specifically. If we had gotten very deep with these stories, then we probably would've fictionalized them. But it's a really fast way to be like, 'Hey, Joyce is in a whole new stratosphere.'"
Part of that new stratosphere includes a new boyfriend as Joyce tries her hand at dating British rocker, Graham (Adam Cropper). He's never explicitly named as such but you don't have to work too hard to figure out he's meant to be Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Rapoport says not naming him was a purposeful creative choice. "I felt like it was cooler not to say it," she says. "And if you got it, you got it. If not, you just thought he was this hot guy."
She also wanted to feature one of their songs in the episode, but those licensing rights exceed their music budget. There were numerous '70s rock stars they could've paired Joyce with, which generated heated discussion in the writers' room. "We had someone in our writer's room who hated the Eagles so much," she says with a laugh. "I couldn't have done that to him. Graham Nash was hot, and I liked the groupie angle of the other band members. He was hot and British and a bit of an intellectual too. It seemed like somebody that I could see Joyce getting into."
One thing Joyce isn't into — Club Minx. Doug presents a hell of a pitch, complete with choreographed dances and Bambi (Jessica Lowe) as emcee. It's surprisingly tasteful for a Doug Renetti production. "Doug has grown and he understands what makes Minx successful is having a little bit of Joyce in it and honoring the feminism of it," Rapoport says of his more measured approach to a strip club. "This is his version of honoring feminism, which is a little misguided. But I also think that it would've been incredibly successful. He's evolved past making Chippendales. He knows that his brand is classy sexuality, or what he thinks of as classy."
John Johnson/Starz Jake Johnson on 'Minx'
But we'll never know if it would have been a hit, because with their increasingly elevated status, Joyce nixes the idea despite its attempt at classiness.
"Doug does fight hard," argues Johnson of why Doug doesn't get into it more with Joyce like he might have in season 1. "He just doesn't have a say."
Lovibond explains further, saying, "It's a fantastic idea. She's not saying they were bad dancers or they didn't look good, or this wouldn't sell. What she's saying is that it's not that it's not good, it's just not something that she personally wants to put her name on. It's not something the magazine would endorse. It's not that she thinks it's a bad idea, it's just not in line with Minx's ideology."
Rapoport echoes this, noting, "Joyce likes it. She just doesn't want to be the one responsible for putting it in the world. Cause it is a little trashy."
"It's kind of like how I have a million really trashy reality show ideas all the time," the creator continues. "But I don't try to sell them because I don't want my name on them. That's how I looked at it with Joyce. She thinks it's fun, but there's a difference between hanging out with Graham Nash and that upper echelon and Club Minx. She's wrapped her head around the idea that Minx is cool. Rolling Stone is there. This feels crassly commercial. It feels too trashy for her. It's not sexy and classy."
These interviews were conducted prior to the start of the SAG-AFTRA strike.
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