ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes that features of long-ago heroines resonate with contemporary girls' concerns. History’s heroines have had attachment, narcissistic, and gender identity issues, just as contemporary girls do. A psychoanalytic look at current mythological heroines can be quite revealing about girls now. The chapter explores a number of heroines of girls under seventeen years old, through three recent film and television chronicles: Beasts of the Southern Wild, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Juno. In Greek mythology, Mother Earth gave birth to Heaven/Sky, and then married him. Goddesses could often conceive and give birth to children without a male’s participation. Despite her having done all of this, Heaven/Sky banished their first children back into her womb. Grief-stricken and furious, she conspired with subsequent children to emasculate their father. She was forced to wield her power “behind the throne”. She accomplished this through her sons’ loyalty to her.
