Goldstar is a single channel video compilation made up entirely of mainstream media depictions of queer female affection spanning the late 90’s to the 2010’s.

This piece represents a specific moment in my queer history: the secret archiving and consumption of lesbian imagery at a time when I was discovering my own queerness as a teenager in the privacy of my childhood bedroom, with access to basic cable and my very own VCR. This private media consumption and archiving often took place late at night, with the volume and screen brightness turned almost all the way down, so as to avoid being caught watching The L Word, or the lesbian teen romance featured on a repeat episode of Degrassi.

Although the concept of the video is based on the VHS compilation I created in the mid 2000’s, this piece takes the shape of an imagined fantasy dream tape compiling my most coveted moments of queer female affection, while cutting out all other narrative elements from the source content.

Goldstar represents my coming of age and identity formation as a young lesbian, yet my relationship to the source material is complicated. Apart from a few exceptions, all of the characters depicted are attractive, white, able-bodied cisgender women, and the actors chosen to fulfill their roles symptomatic of a very singular and narrow range of acceptable queer representation in mainstream media. I still covet these clips and their content, but am aware of the problematic myths they perpetuate, and how these representations differ from my own non-binary queer identity.

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