ABSTRACT
Lillian Shaw, an early twentieth century vaudeville performer who specialized in comic mimicry and songs, drew ample criticism as well as praise from theater critics and managers during her career. Critics like M'Kee identified her as an exceptional woman, a female performer who lashed out with aggressive jokes and stomped angrily around the stage. Shaw attracted attention not only for her masculine style of comedy but also for her brazen sexuality. Outraged by her suggestive lyrics and her sexual wiggles on stage, theater managers cut some of her material, while many critics called her performances vulgar. Through her own outrageous performances on stage and through the messages of her comedy, Shaw helped broaden the boundaries of women's public roles and sexuality. The epitome of sexual liberation in Shaw's act was a young French woman whose youthful beauty and flirtatiousness resembled the characteristics of the 'flapper', a model of womanhood popular in the United States by the 1920s.
