Book Review

Jill Watts's task in Mae West: An Icon in Black and White is a daunting one, namely, to write a biography of an avowed trickster. Watts meets that challenge with a meticulously researched book that is as lively as its self-inventing subject. Mae West was a woman who became a sexual icon yet failed to fulfill the dominant culture's prevailing notions of acceptable female sexuality throughout her long and tumultuous life. Never conventionally beautiful, feminine, or seductive, she challenged that culture by continually violating its sexual and gender norms. Borrowing from vaudeville and modeling herself upon Eva Tanguay, West embraced the vulgar and brazen camp sexuality that appealed to working-class audiences. Modeling herself upon the black comedian Bert Williams, her performance became a subversive parody of white genteel norms, gesturing at their roots in racist oppression and in white unease at black sexual prowess. In borrowing heavily from gay camp, West further destabilized sexual norms by implying that all sexuality was fluid and that fixed sexual identity was possibly a myth.

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