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The Bowery Boys: New York City History

#182 Mae West: "Sex" on Broadway

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

Tom Meyers

Places & Travel, History, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.73.9K Ratings

🗓️ 15 May 2015

⏱️ 52 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Mae West (star of I'm No Angel and She Done Him Wrong) would come to revolutionize the idea of American sexuality, challenging and lampooning ideas of femininity while wielding a suggestive and vicious wit.

Transcript

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0:00.0

The Bowry Boys Episode 182, May West, Sex Unbroadway.

0:05.8

Hey, it's The Bowry Boys.

0:07.4

Hey.

0:08.8

Support for The Bowry Boys is provided by our listeners.

0:12.4

Join us for as little as a dollar a month by visiting patreon.com slash Bowry Boys.

0:22.0

Hi there, welcome to The Bowry Boys. This is Greg Young.

0:24.4

And this is Tom Myers.

0:25.6

It was another New York personality show.

0:28.9

And what a personality we chose for this show.

0:31.7

We didn't go with somebody boring.

0:33.8

There's no snooze fest today.

0:35.4

We're dealing with the legendary star of stage and later screen, Ms. May West.

0:42.6

You might recall we've done shows like this in the past on Rudolph Valentino.

0:47.4

And I recently did a show on Billy Holiday's New York.

0:50.5

But we're going to focus our intent with this show.

0:53.3

Maybe it's because I just saw the Avengers last weekend.

0:57.5

But I kind of see this as the origin story of May West.

1:01.7

Because we're going to get to the nuts and bolts of how she created that persona,

1:07.4

that larger than life, witty, glamorous, super sexualized persona that became an icon of the 20th century.

1:15.2

Because it happened here in New York, May was born in Brooklyn.

1:19.6

She got her start on the New York stage.

1:22.4

And she developed that career that would become iconic.

...

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