“Sex Had Nothing to Do with It”: Mae West as Mentoring Icon

Abstract

While many celebrate Mae West as a sex symbol and feminist icon, she wrote herself into a mentoring role during the Great Depression as well. Few remember that West wrote or cowrote most of her own scripts, and in those parts—as well as in other nonfiction writing—she counseled women, young people, even a congregation. Among the messages in her themes, characterizations, plotlines, and dialogue emerged a pastoral one in which her character instructed others in a manner that might—in today’s parlance—be termed life coach.