The Olsen Twins Were Heroes For a Generation of Girls — New York Minute Was Their Swan Song

By Kristen Lopez


The state of girlhood changed wildly in the early-aughts. Catherine Hardwicke's gritty 2003 drama Thirteen depicted young ladies not as sugar and spice yet as they really are: messy and complex. The next year, Tina Fey's Mean Girls continued the trend, albeit toning down the horror and upping the comedy, yet still reminding us the kids were not alright, especially if they were bombarded with the sexualization and societal expectations that come with being a woman in America.


And sandwiched in between those two extremes were the Olsen twins and their final on-screen pairing, New York Minute. Millionaires by the time they could drive, the Olsen twins were synonymous with beautiful, wholesome family member entertainment. However by 2004, the women were seeking something different. Having just turned 18, their latest movie needed to be a gamechanger, the transition from their lives as tweens into adulthood. Released on May 7, 2004, just one week before Mean Girls, New York Minute was the opening of a three-picture deal with Warner Bros. Although what was originally suggested as a film meant to launch the Olsens into adulthood as an alternative became their swan song and the end of a brand that had profited off innocence and feminine purity.


As screenwriter Emily Fox tells MTV News, New York Minute’s objective was “to be a closing of the door” on their chapter as children, “undeniable” proof that the females who'd starred because the beautiful moppets of kiddie fare like It Takes Two and Full House were adults. Fox initially wrote New York Minute based on the twins’ interest in the city — they would attend NYU immediately after high school — and drew inspiration from Martin Scorsese’s After Hours and the 1970 comedy The Out-of-Towners to tell a story about two very different sisters forced to spend a day with each other in the Big Apple and fix their fading relationship. Fox, along with script doctor Roger Kumble, agree the females were “keen” to do something different, with their main inspiration being the 2002 coming-of-age story, Igby Goes Down.


The finished product contained little in normal with Igby Goes Down or Fox’s original inspirations. Sisters Roxy and Jane (played by Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, respectively) are starkly-defined opposites; Roxy the gregarious drummer of a musical group and Jane the makeshift mother figure with dreams of going to Oxford. Fox’s madcap New York-set story was retained, however the hijinks run wild, complete with 2004 plot devices connected with pirated music (with Andy Richter talking in a Asian dialect Fox declares she didn’t write) as well as An eas Plan music video.


Compared to Mean Girl’s barbarous humor and charismatic leads, New York Minute failed to bring in crowds, earning a total domestic gross of just $14 million. The Olsens had staked their careers up to that point on being innocent and pretty, with a highly-controlled private life that didn’t necessarily let people in. Unlike Mean Girls’ leading lady, Lindsay Lohan, the Olsens weren’t perceived as approachable and fun, however safe. Fox says Mean Girls was more in line with what she wanted to write for the Olsens because Fey’s feature was more in line with how young females saw themselves. Although the studio wasn’t interested in letting the females shatter their maintained identities. Case in point, Fox says one of the notes attached to her rewrites was that she’d “written a Woody Allen movie starring the Olsen twins.” The studio didn’t want the Olsens, connected with sweetness and light, to be edgy or grown up.


For their part, the Olsens’ ambitions for the film also seemed to diverge from Warner Bros. Though Fox explains there was an inherent attractiveness to young females about having a “built-in best friend” — long the structure of the twins’ appeal — it was obvious Mary-Kate and Ashley wanted their own lives, to be perceived as two individuals and not a unit. Thus, a key component of New York Minute’s plot lies with Roxy and Jane detesting each other. The two “haven’t spent the day together” in months, as Roxy says in the movie. Throughout the film’s climax, Mary-Kate’s Roxy almost speaks to what the Olsens hoped this movie would accomplish, that they should be celebrated for being different, not punished. Yet the need to bind them to being adult-ish kept them as one brand, not two young women.


Watching New York Minute today shows the power of the “Olsen machine,” as Fox calls it. Like the Spice Females, crowds could clearly identify with a specific character; you were either a Roxy (hence a Mary-Kate) or a Jane (an Ashley). Their adventure through New York City emphasized their own personalized goals; Jane’s dream of winning the McGill Fellowship and so a semester abroad in England, or Roxy’s rockstar dreams. Men were a nice bonus — one of whom is played by Gilmore Girls’ brilliant boyfriend, Jared Padalecki — nevertheless never came at the expense of their individual objectives. Roxy and Jane, like the twins themselves, knew what they wanted and went for it.


Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen at the Tribeca Film Festival's 'New York Minute' premiere.


This driven and decided attitude is what made the Olsens themselves such heroes for a generation of women. Right now, the Olsens’ corporatization of themselves is no longer a novelty. Actresses are far more open about beginning their own production agencies, going in back of the camera to direct, and having the autonomy to prepare their own projects.


Watching them navigate the industry at such a young age and creating an empire that allowed them to be their own bosses was empowering in a global where teen women didn’t have a lot of role models their own age. The Olsens never presented themselves as rich moguls, yet rather princesses who lived charmed lives however remained down-to-earth. For better or worse, they sold the idea of authority and determination as being appealing. In case you wanted to be like them, you didn’t just have to wear cool clothes, you had to have a clear-cut vision and means of achieving it.


New York Minute was a valentine to the legion of fans who’d grown up with the Olsen twins, according to Fox. While not necessarily the movie the women wanted to prepare, their final pairing emphasized their necessary for individual autonomy nevertheless celebrated them for the brand they’d created. It was a fairytale, yet for young females already torn in so several directions by the sheer nature of growing up, there was a comfort to be noticed in the Olsens’ patented brand of good tidy fun — and one that, for a minute, let them shine.