Charytín Goyco, la rubia de América: A Case Study of Television Stardom in the Dominican Republic in the 1970s

This essay explores the complex relationship between race and class in the formation of a very specific and enduring notion of Dominican televisual stardom stemming from the late 1970s. My point of analysis centers on Charytín Goyco (known affectionately as “the blonde bombshell of America”), whose career as a singer, actress, and television personality commenced in the Dominican Republic in the early 1970s and then continued in Puerto Rico and, subsequently, in Miami. Throughout this essay I explicate how Goyco’s rise to fame was, to some degree, made possible by the political and social media framework set in the Dominican Republic under the presidential administrations of Joaquín Balaguer, who served three terms during the years of 1960–1962, 1966–1987, and 1986–1996. Paying particular attention to Goyco’s evolution as a televisual persona, I argue that her television personality is a site of contradictory interpretations if we are to understand the specific places of power, race, and class that have been afforded her.