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Whether possessing a capacity for magic or the ability to do battle with the undead, there is no question that contemporary teenage heroines have power with a capital P.
-Debbie Stoller, The Bust Guide to the Mew Girl Order1
In the digital effects era of the past ten years, "Supernatural Girls" has emerged as a new species of female icon. Bursting out of the "girl" category box, they transcend gender expectations, defend themselves, and vanquish demons. When first introduced, they are often fifteen to nineteen years old. Just like the young starlets who portray them, these characters evolve into young women before our eyes via blockbuster sequels and television syndication. Part of the fascination with Power Girl icons lies in the way they discover their special powers at adolescence. Advances in special effects have combined with a mainstream readiness for "chicks with power" to alter the visual landscape. But just as new technologies like the Internet, DVDs, and iPods have been so seamlessly integrated into daily life in the United States as to obliterate their novelty, a look back at media history as recent as the late 1980s reminds us that Power Girls are a relatively new phenomenon.
Since the mid-1990s, popular culture has expanded its collection of female icons to include teenage girls endowed with special powers like television's Bufly the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) and film characters like Jen Yu of Grouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000, by Ang Lee), Hcrmione Granger of the Harry Potter series (2001 -2005, by Chris Columbus, Alfonso Cuaro, and Mike Newell), Rogue of X-Mm and XZ (2000 and 2003, both by Bryan Singer), and Violet of The Incredibles (2004, by Brad Bird). Add to these Hayao Miyazaki's animated features Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), Pnncess Mononoke (1997), Spirited Away (2001), and Howl's Moving Castle (2005), and the conflation of girls and the supernatural in the popular imagination expands even further. For a post-feminist discourse seeking balance in gendered images of power, the past decade has witnessed a dynamic shift in representation.
With the recent proliferation of Supernatural Girls, it is easy to forget that teenage girl characters of 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s media widely seen by American audiences barely had narratives dedicated to them, let alone the ability to...