TL;DR: The authors argue that the representation of the teen witch is a significant site through which the articulation in popular culture of the shifting relationship between 1970s second-wave feminism, postfeminism in the 1990s and femininity can be traced.
Abstract: Press 19891 p 553 This essay brings together two interests, first, teen films and television programmes and the ways in which they deal with a significant moment of identity formation, exploring and policing the borders of femininity, and second, representations of the witch and of magic in film and television. My focus is on the figure of the youthful or teenage female witch as a discursive site in which the relationship between feminism (as female power), and femininity has been negotiated in historically specific ways. Beginning with an exploration of the concept of 'glamour', and using it to address texts from Bewitched (US. tx 1964-72) to Charmed (US, tx 1998), through Came (Brian De Palma, 1976), The Craft (Andrew Fleming. 1996), Practical Magic (Griffin Dunne, 1998), Sabnna the Teenage Witch (US, tx 1996) and Buff)' the Vampire Slayer (US. tx 1997), I will argue that the representation of the teen witch is a significant site through which the articulation in popular culture of the shifting relationship between 1970s second-wave feminism, postfeminism in the 1990s and femininity can be traced. I begin by offering three related ideas on the subject of magic and femininity which inform this discussion. The first is a definition from The Oxford English Dictionarv: