Catch the Creativity: "Minx" Creators Spotlighted at MindBrowse's XBIZ LA Event, Streaming Now!

Sssh
Published on Feb 20, 2024
LOS ANGELES, Calif. – Mindbrowse and Sssh.com have made available for streaming the full-length recording of “The Making of 'Minx' – Comedy, Culture, and Fictionalized Porn,” a discussion panel held at XBIZ LA on January 17, 2024.

Moderated by Dr. Chauntelle Tibbals and produced by Sssh.com founder Angie Rowntree, the guests for the session were members of the creative team behind the hit Starz TV series “Minx” – creator, showrunner and executive producer Ellen Rapoport and Rachel Lee Goldenberg, who has directed several episodes in the series.

Set in 1970s Los Angeles, 'Minx' is a fictional account of a young feminist who collaborates with a low budget publisher to create the first-ever erotic magazine for women. It’s a story filled with resonance for Rowntree, the founder of one of the internet’s first porn-for-women sites, Sssh.com, which is marking its 25th year in operation in 2024.

The show’s concept and inspiration are also a natural fit for a Mindbrowse discussion. As Tibbals noted during the Making of Minx session, Mindbrowse events are 'opportunities to discuss wider cultural and social happenings impacting our community.' As a hit mainstream show depicting a bygone era of the adult industry, albeit in a fictional manner, Minx is just the sort of sociocultural phenomenon referenced by Tibbals.

During the session, when asked by Tibbals where the idea for 'Minx' came from, Rapoport explained her inspiration largely came from reading an oral history of Playgirl magazine. Recounting her own first encounter with Playgirl, which came when she was cat-sitting for a neighbor, Rapoport remembered the event as “my first exposure to a penis,” which came in the context of what seemed a “kind of cheesy skin mag.”

“And then when I started to read about (Playgirl), I learned that it was, in fact, trying to be a feminist magazine, which I thought was really interesting, because I hadn’t realized that at the time,” Rapoport added. “Because it was an oral history, there were all these people’s stories about working in this environment and one thing that really struck me was that in the mid-70s, they said the entire staff at Hustler came over to work at Playgirl, because Hustler moved to Ohio, and they didn’t want to move.”

A lightbulb went off in Rapoport’s head at that point, and she saw fertile ground for a comedy show, in which there would be “a bunch of feminists and a bunch of pornographers, working together to make this thing happen.”

Asked by Tibbals what “guided artistic decisions, especially when portraying sensitive or controversial topics in the framework of a mainstream television series,” Goldenberg talked about conquering the learning curve the show’s theme and storyline presented her as a director.

“I had my own kind of joyous journey with this,” Goldenberg said, noting that she has “directed some sex scenes but hadn’t directed a ton of nudity.”

Observing that for an audience at an adult trade event like XBIZ, the questions she faced might be met with a shrug -- “Whatever, this happens all the time” – for the director of a mainstream comedy program, it’s an entirely different story.

“For me, it was like ‘Oh my god, we have to make sure people feel comfortable when they’re nude’,” Goldenberg shared.

The pilot episode for Minx presented one such challenge immediately, Goldenberg said.

“They’re auditioning to be centerfolds and there’s this montage of like 18 different dicks,” Goldenberg explained. “18 guys and a montage of them showing off their dicks.”

The scene required Goldenberg to have a series of conversations with the show’s intimacy coordinator, as well as its casting director, in part working on strategies to make the scene easier for all involved.

“One of our things as we talked to our casting director was, ideally, to have people who were already adult performers,” Goldenberg said. “I believe for that montage, there were only one or two guys who hadn’t already been fully nude on camera, and I remember one was really nervous, and it did make it a little trickier. So, it was very helpful to have people who were more experienced than me at this, because I was like ‘Hey, I just want to make sure you’re comfortable,’ and they were like ‘Yeah, we get it, it’s fine.’”

I really enjoyed the chance to meet and work with Ellen and Rachel. I was thrilled when they both agreed to be guests on MindBrowse and share their knowledge, humour, and on-set anecdotes. The Mindbrowse conversation was fascinating, one I strongly encourage everyone to watch and to dive into both seasons of 'Minx' on Starz.

The recorded, version of “The Making of 'Minx' – Comedy, Culture, and Fictionalized Porn” is now available to watch, free of charge, on MindBrowse.com, Sssh.com and XBIZ.tv.