Supernatural Youth in Media

Since the turn of the millennium, stories about young people with mystical abilities have enjoyed tremendous popularity. This volume is the first collection of essays to posit that such stories form a distinct teen- and young-adult-oriented genre, characterized by tales in which young people use ancient magic—not modern science—to solve problems and save the world.

Scholars explore the cultural implications of this phenomenon, considering how media’s discourses about youthful gods, witches, fairies, and other magical beings address social change, youth, and modern identities. By examining stories whose protagonists stand at a crossroads between identities and states of being—human and not-quite-human, child and adult, mundane world and mythic world, old millennium and new—the volume invites readers to contemplate the cultural significance of the persistent mediated fantasy of magical youth.

“This is an engrossing collection of studies about supernatural youth media (SYM), each of which explores collective fears and fantasies of young people: power, magic, death, sex, technology, the occult. The essays illuminate how recent generations, particularly around the turn of the millennium, have been represented by movies and television shows as both victims and masters of unknown mystical forces. With a particular emphasis on gender and racial identity, the book offers a revelatory and distinctive assessment of this broadly appealing genre.”
—Prof. Timothy Shary, Eastern Florida State College

Ilana Nash is an associate professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at Western Michigan University. She is the author of American Sweethearts: Teenage Girls in Twentieth-Century Popular Culture (2006) and several articles on girls’ representations in media. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Popular Culture.

Rebecca C. Hains, Ph.D. is a professor of media and communication at Salem State University. She has authored and edited many books and articles on children’s media culture from a critical/cultural studies perspective. A 2024 Fulbright Scholar, Hains serves on The Journal of Children & Media editorial board.