When the blight of Catholic censorship fell like an axe on Hollywood in July of 1934, Mae West was, if not the chief cause, at least Exhibit A in the case against movie smut. 42 years old and at her eye-rolling prime, she was in the middle of making "It Ain't No Sin" -- and there are no prizes for guessing what "it" was. Filming was suspended and she was forced to rewrite her outrageous, lowdown script two or three times before it could be approved. After that, the censors clamped down on her more with each film, and her huge popularity slowly evaporated.
In 1968, the ratings system drove the last nail into the Production Code, and suddenly you could put anything on the screen -- even "Myra Breckinridge," an incoherent mess of a novel featuring transsexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, female-on-male rape, and free-floating camp sensibility... to which the movie added Vietnam-era American self-hatred, anti-Hollywood vitriol, and Mae West.
But hey, maybe that's what happens when you bottle up your impulses for 34 years. To me, it seems entirely appropriate that the woman most responsible for censorship should sashay back on screen to headline this carnival of perversion and bad taste. Amid its flailing about, "Myra Breckinridge" half-heartedly tries to excuse itself as some kind of expression of Woman Power. But Mae West, moaning and clutching herself while black dancers gyrate behind her, simply IS woman power. And as ever, she's so rapturously in love with herself she can hardly stop grinning with pleasure.
Yeah, she's almost 80, and a lot of people seem hung up on that. Don't they notice she addresses the age issue herself? "I'm a little tired today," she tells her assistant. "One of these boys will have to go."
In today's post-shame America, old age is the last taboo. It's a beautiful thing to watch Mae West demonstrate that it ain't no sin.
In 1968, the ratings system drove the last nail into the Production Code, and suddenly you could put anything on the screen -- even "Myra Breckinridge," an incoherent mess of a novel featuring transsexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, female-on-male rape, and free-floating camp sensibility... to which the movie added Vietnam-era American self-hatred, anti-Hollywood vitriol, and Mae West.
But hey, maybe that's what happens when you bottle up your impulses for 34 years. To me, it seems entirely appropriate that the woman most responsible for censorship should sashay back on screen to headline this carnival of perversion and bad taste. Amid its flailing about, "Myra Breckinridge" half-heartedly tries to excuse itself as some kind of expression of Woman Power. But Mae West, moaning and clutching herself while black dancers gyrate behind her, simply IS woman power. And as ever, she's so rapturously in love with herself she can hardly stop grinning with pleasure.
Yeah, she's almost 80, and a lot of people seem hung up on that. Don't they notice she addresses the age issue herself? "I'm a little tired today," she tells her assistant. "One of these boys will have to go."
In today's post-shame America, old age is the last taboo. It's a beautiful thing to watch Mae West demonstrate that it ain't no sin.