In the 2000s & 2010s, the Terrifying Teen Girl - from Jennifer's Body's Jennifer to Mean Girls' Regina George to Thirteen's Tracy & Evie and beyond - started taking back her power in movies and tv by getting to tell her *own* story.

The teen girl had become a rather terrifying force in movies and tv at the end of the 20th century – adults just couldn’t understand what was going on with teens, and so this fearful, outsider perspective informed on screen portrayals. But as the 2000s and 2010s rolled around, the terrifying teen girl on screen began to enter a new, more powerful phase. These stories actually grappled with the harsh, conflicting realities that teen girls have to deal with (and many felt much more real because now they were actually written by people who had, y’know, actually experienced being a teen girl instead of just outside observers. From lack of control to oversexualization to the intricacies of war in Girl World, these teens were constantly being pushed to the edge – but they were always up for the challenge.

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