Too Much of a Good Thing is Wonderful

By Janie Mountain Baker

Full blown and over-the-top; sexy, funny, and endearing, Mae West shocked and delighted audiences and made herself an American icon of independent femininity.

Raised in vaudeville, she became a star on Broadway in saucy plays, which she wrote herself. She appeared in court on a morals charge for her play entitled "Sex" in 1926. (She was acquitted.)

Retaining rights to re-write her dialog, she took on Hollywood and stole scenes from the likes of Cary Grant, George Raft and W. C. Fields in movies that were intended to be vehicles for the male stars. Her sassy lines and sexual innuendoes kept her under the watchful eye of the Hays office and after only nine films, she tired of walking the line and retired from the movies. She had, nevertheless, established herself as a screen legend.

Women of America, arise! You can have all good things! Turn your backs on the whiney, man-hating rhetoric that has become today's "feminism." Embrace your femininity and celebrate the masculinity of your husbands and sons. Keep your sense of humor and go forth and conquer, shouting, "Vive la difference!" I think Mae would approve.