thewrap.com -- According to “Minions” creator Pierre Coffin, in fact, all the title characters in Universal’s prequel to two “Despicable Me” hits are male, voiced by male actors (including Coffin himself). For the French animator, who co-directed the new film with Kyle Balda, the masculine-only nature of the Minions owes to their all-around cloddishness. “Seeing how dumb and stupid they often are, I just couldn’t imagine Minions being girls,” he told TheWrap. The new film, which is on track to earn $100 million in its opening weekend, does feature a female villain named Scarlett Overkill voiced by Sandra Bullock.
And the characters do occasionally dress up as girls, as when one Minion dons a maid costume to vacuum the house in “Despicable Me 2,” or another uses starfish to cover his nipples when he comes out of the ocean in “Minions.” But it’s highly unusual for a mainstream children’s movie to lean so heavily on an all-male posse of heroes. Even Pixar’s “Cars” had female protagonists — Sally Carrera and Holley Shiftwell — while Andy’s playthings in the “Toy Story” trilogy included Jessie and Bo Peep.
Fans of the “Despicable Me” films have long speculated about the nature and origin of Minions, including their long-established gender imbalance.
