Are the Minions queer, genderless and immortal?https://www.thepinknews.com/2026/07/03/minions-movie-queer-themes/ 🔗Siân Thompson (3 July 2026)
French animator, writer, director and producer Pierre Coffin's recent interview promoting the latest Minions film left readers with far more questions than answers when Coffin delved into the reproductive method, genders, and lifespans of his kooky yellow characters.
During his dialogue with The Guardian on 2 July, Coffin was asked a series of fan-submitted queries about the Minions... However, the elusive functions of Minion society and Minion sexuality were cracked open when Coffin was asked: "Will we ever see a female Minion? How do they reproduce?"
Coffin shot down the concept of a "female Minion" by surmising that "a female Minion would be the beginning of the end. 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."
While the Minions are clearly aware of gender differences in human society – often donning dresses, skirts, and various female-presenting disguises for their escapades in the films – within Minion society itself, Coffin indicates that gender is ultimately completely irrelevant. From a structuralist perspective, categories only acquire meaning through opposition. If there are no female, non-binary, agender, or otherwise differently gendered Minions against which "male" can be contrasted, then masculinity loses its semantic value altogether. In Minion society, being male is no more descriptive than having yellow skin; their "he/him" pronouns exist only by convention and to serve those who need to address them in a gendered manner.
