Playing with Dolls: Girls, Fans, and the Queer Feminism of Velvet Goldmine

“Playing with Dolls” argues for a reframing of the critical view on Velvet Goldmine that places the women at the center. Female characters play more marginal roles, yet their omission misses the film’s overarching point about the performativity of gender and the fluidity of sexual identity and identification. The film can be read via the mise en abyme of a scene in which schoolgirls act out a romantic scene between two of their male pop idols, the film’s main characters. By focusing on the female fan, the chapter can tease out the complexities of the film’s portrayals of female-gay alliances and conflicts, situating them within the film’s fictional settings of the glam 70s and the bleak 80s.