Come Up and See Me Sometime: Mae West and the Making of a Feminist Icon

“Come up and see me sometime,” Mae West purred in She Done Him Wrong — a line that has since become shorthand for wit, audacity, and self-possession. But behind the playful invitation was a woman who defied nearly every social rule of her era. Mae West wasn’t just a movie star or a provocateur; she was a cultural architect who helped redefine how women could speak, desire, and exist in the public eye. Long before the term “feminist” entered mainstream vocabulary, West was living it — unapologetically, strategically, and in heels.

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Her life reads like a manifesto in motion: one that challenged censorship, championed sexual autonomy, and built a foundation upon which generations of women — from Bette Midler to Madonna — would later stand. To understand Mae West is to understand the origins of female self-authorship in modern entertainment.

Origins: Building the Woman Who Wouldn’t Behave

Born Mary Jane West in Brooklyn in 1893, Mae was raised by a corset model mother and a boxer father — two figures who embodied the tension between restriction and rebellion that would define her art. From the start, she was encouraged to perform. By age five, she was entertaining family and neighbours; by her teens, she was on the vaudeville circuit under the name “Baby Mae.”

Vaudeville was her finishing school. It taught her rhythm, timing, and — most importantly — control. She learned that audiences could be seduced, teased, and challenged. She also learned that femininity itself was a kind of costume — one that could be exaggerated, performed, and wielded like a weapon. Her style, even then, was influenced by drag performers like Bert Savoy, whose exaggerated mannerisms helped her understand that gender could be theatrical. Decades before academic feminism caught up, Mae West was practicing Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity on stage.

“Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?” — popularly attributed to She Done Him Wrong (1933); first verifiable film use: Sextette (1978). 
“I’ve been in more laps than a napkin.” — My Little Chickadee (1940). 
“A woman in love can’t be reasonable — or she probably wouldn’t be in love.” — Every Day’s a Holiday (1937).
“It’s not the men in your life that count, it’s the life in your men.” — I’m No Angel (1933).
“I always did like a man in a uniform. That one fits you grand. Why don’t you come up and see me in it sometime?” — She Done Him Wrong (1933).
“When I’m good, I’m very good. But when I’m bad, I’m better.” — I’m No Angel (1933).
“I’ll try anything once, twice if I like it, three times to make sure.”
“I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it.”
“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
“Don’t cry for a man who’s left you — the next one may fall for your smile.”
“Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls go everywhere.”
“I only like two kinds of men: domestic and imported.” 
“A hard man is good to find.”
“Ten men waiting for me at the door? Send one of them home, I’m tired.” 

By the 1920s, West had outgrown the sidelines. She began to write her own plays — a radical act for any woman, let alone one who would populate them with prostitutes, lovers, and double entendres. In 1926, she wrote and starred in Sex under the pseudonym Jane Mast, exploring hypocrisy, desire, and the blurred lines between morality and survival.

The establishment was outraged. Critics called it indecent; authorities raided the theatre. West was arrested and sentenced to ten days in jail for “corrupting the morals of youth.” She refused to pay the fine, opting instead to serve her sentence. When asked about the experience, she quipped, “I met a lot of interesting people, and I learned that those who are the most moral are usually the least so.”

Her arrest made her a household name. More importantly, it made her an emblem of defiance. She took what was meant to shame her and turned it into publicity — silk underwear and all — creating a template for the kind of scandal-savvy feminism later used by Madonna and Lady Gaga.

Her next play, The Drag (1927), centred on homosexuality and cross-dressing, featuring a “Drag Ball” finale that scandalized censors. It was banned from Broadway, but West’s point had been made: desire in all its forms was human, and to silence it was to deny reality. At a time when even the word “sex” was taboo, Mae West was writing it in lights.

Hollywood: Negotiation and Resistance

In 1932, West brought her talents to Hollywood. Her film debut, Night After Night, included one unforgettable moment: when a hat-check girl compliments her pearls, West shoots back, “Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.” It was a line she wrote herself — and a declaration of independence. From that point forward, she would write or rewrite most of her own dialogue.

Her follow-up, She Done Him Wrong (1933), and I’m No Angel (1933), cemented her stardom. She was bawdy, brilliant, and in control — a woman who desired without apology. These films were commercial gold, but moral guardians were horrified. In 1934, the Hays Code — Hollywood’s new censorship regime — was enforced in part as a response to women like Mae West. She became both the muse and the menace of morality’s gatekeepers.

West, however, was nothing if not strategic. She learned to outwit the censors through innuendo. Every wink and double entendre carried a second layer of meaning — a code within the Code. When she was forced to tone down her lines, she would insert deliberately outrageous ones for the censors to cut, ensuring the rest survived intact. As she once said, “I believe in censorship. After all, I made a fortune out of it.”

Behind the laughter was a deeper act of rebellion. She hired Black musicians like Duke Ellington for Belle of the Nineties (1934), defying industry norms and insisting that artistry trumped prejudice. She demanded equal billing and creative control, becoming the second-highest-paid person in America (after newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst). In an era when women were expected to be decoration, Mae West was running the show.

The Persona as Weapon: Owning Desire

Mae West’s persona wasn’t accidental. It was meticulously crafted — a mask that became a mirror for society’s hypocrisy. Her exaggerated femininity, with its slow walk, sultry drawl, and corseted silhouette, was a parody of men’s fantasies. She held up their desires, magnified them, and then owned them. In doing so, she dismantled the power dynamics of the gaze.

West understood that the easiest way to challenge patriarchy was to perform it back at itself — but on her own terms. Her brand of empowerment wasn’t moralistic; it was material, embodied, and joyous. She didn’t plead for equality — she strutted in, claimed it, and told everyone to “come up and see me sometime.”

To many feminists of the 1970s, she was a revelation. To queer theorists, she was a patron saint of camp: the woman who showed that gender could be costume, that desire could be language, and that laughter could be subversion. To the rest of the world, she was simply unforgettable.

Aging, Visibility, and Refusal to Disappear

Most actresses fade with age; Mae West refused. After a hiatus, she returned in Myra Breckinridge (1970) — a satire about gender transformation — and later in Sextette (1978), a project she’d been nurturing for years. Critics called it outrageous; West called it living. Even in her eighties, she continued to play the siren, defying Hollywood’s erasure of older women.

Her persistence was radical. In a culture that equated aging with decline, she turned longevity into resistance. She showed that women could remain visible, sexual, and powerful long after society’s expiration date for desirability had passed. For a woman who had built her empire on daring to speak, silence was never an option.

Legacy: The Foundations She Laid

Mae West’s impact didn’t end with her film career. She became a symbolic ancestor to a lineage of women who blurred the line between sexuality and satire: Bette Midler, whose Divine Miss M persona was directly inspired by West’s camp excess; Madonna, who transformed sexual provocation into pop politics; Cher, who embraced theatrical femininity as defiance; and Lady Gaga, who continues the art of parodying desire.

West was the original architect of this lineage — a woman who used humour and audacity to claim power. Her influence also reverberates through queer performance, drag culture, and feminist theory. Scholars have described her as “a woman who played a man playing a woman” — a performance so layered that it turned gender itself into a joke at patriarchy’s expense.

Even her limitations reveal something profound. Her world was not inclusive by today’s standards; her feminism was largely personal rather than political. But her insistence on authorship, her refusal to be silenced, and her ability to weaponize wit made her a revolutionary in practice, if not in label.

The Woman Who Built a Stage for Us All

Mae West was arrested, censored, mocked, and imitated — but she was never ignored. In her lifetime, she was called indecent, immoral, and dangerous. In hindsight, she was prophetic. She understood what every woman who came after her would eventually learn: that empowerment doesn’t arrive as permission; it’s taken, with a smile.

When students at UCLA named her “Woman of the Century” in 1971, she responded with typical brevity: “Honey, I deserved it.” And she did.

In a world still wrestling with double standards and moral policing, Mae West’s voice rings clear across the decades. It’s an invitation, a challenge, and a wink all at once — come up and see me sometime. Not just to look, but to understand that she built the stairs herself.

References

• PBS American Masters — Mae West: Dirty Blonde (documentary page & materials). Excellent overview of her life, stage-to-screen, censorship battles, and legacy. PBS
• Jill Watts, Mae West: An Icon in Black and White (Oxford University Press, 2001). Definitive biography used widely by scholars; includes deep research on the 1920s plays and industry context. (Publisher page & reviews.) Oxford University Press+1
• Watts, Mae West: An Icon in Black and White (PDF scan excerpt). For quotations/notes cross-checking (use judiciously). doctormacro.com
• TheaterEngine, “THE DRAG by Mae West.” Notes on the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice blocking a Broadway run. (Supplemental.) theaterengine.com
• Golden Globes (HFPA), “Forgotten Hollywood: Mae West.” Narrative on the Sex obscenity arrest (Welfare Island, fine) with reference to Charlotte Chandler’s oral history. Golden Globes

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