Sex, Savagery, and the Woman Who Made Vaudeville Famous

Abstract

Aft er watching Eva Tanguay perform for the fi rst time in Buff alo, New York, around 1912, one critic commented: “Miss Tanguay’s voice contains no more music than a buzz saw, she has no more repose than a mad dog fl eeing before a mob of small boys.”1 It is no coincidence that the curious appellations and adjectives heaped upon Tanguay during her long, recordbreaking career in vaudeville could have more aptly described a wild animal. Tanguay evoked animality not simply in how she moved or what she sang, but in how she sang. One critic described her voice as “the wail of the prehistoric diploduocus.”2 Tanguay encouraged such comparisons herself by singing “I’d Like to Be an Animal in the Zoo,” in which she extolled the virtues of being a giraff e and an ostrich. By wearing costumes made of feathers and furs and singing seemingly autobiographically themed material about her primitive nature and animalistic aspirations, Tanguay became “Th e I Don’t Care Girl,” who was beloved for her defi ance of Victorian expectations of white feminine decorum. Using vaudeville— one of the most popular leisure activities of the day— as her medium, Tanguay gave live audiences a preview of the kind of sensationally “primitive” performances African American entertainer Josephine Baker would become famous for in the 1930s.3 Clad in feathers and fruits, Baker seemed to echo Tanguay when she told the press, “People have done me the honor of believing I’m an animal.”4 But Tanguay was a fairskinned white woman, and this kind of conduct made her a household name beginning in 1903. By linking white womanliness to animalistic savagery at a time when both race and gender were undergoing considerable reconstruction, Tanguay presented audiences with a new ideal of racialized masculine femininity. In the past fi ve years renewed interest in Tanguay has inspired her fi rst fulllength biography, a feature article in Slate, and comparisons to Madonna, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Sarah Silverman, and even Kim Kardashian.5 Th ough scholars have cited Tanguay as the highestpaid performer in vaudeville his-