Asexual, Exclusively Male, and Gay? The Minions Director Is Raising Big Questions

The outside observer might not think there’s a lot to know about the Minions. They’re little pill-shaped, bright yellow creatures who talk funny, what else do you need to know? But for the kind of person planning to show up to the premiere of Minions & Monsters in a full suit and tie, there is deep lore to be mined. For instance, did you know that many of the Minions went into hiding after the Napoleonic Era — largely, it seems, so that the films never had to address who the miniature henchmen would have sided with during World Wars I and II?You can thank the creator of the Minions, French director Pierre Coffin, for these wonderful nuggets of exposition — and on his latest media tour, he’s taken to explaining why all of the Minions are boys. (Unlike the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, all of whom were girls, until some of them spontaneously changed sex due to the frog DNA incorporated into their genetic code. Just thought you should know that.)On a Today show appearance, Coffin said in a viral clip that the decision was the accidental result of improv from Gru voice actor Steve Carrell, who randomly only said male names when addressing a group of Minions. But in a separate interview published in the Guardian today, Coffin was, um, slightly more declarative.“I think a female Minion would be the beginning of the end,” Coffin said in response to a question about Minion gender and reproduction. “Universal would want to do it because they’d think it would please all the women out there. But I’m not convinced. If I were a woman, I’d think it was tokenistic. I’m not saying we’re not gonna do it or not try, but maybe it’s not meant to be. Or maybe it is! Who knows.”Gotta say, I don’t love the slightly anti-woke “female Minions would be DEI” tone of that statement, but I’m not going to go on a crusade here over computer-animated creatures who speak exclusively in nonsense syllables. I’m more interested in unpacking what Coffin had to say