Girl Friday PowerChloe Sullivan and the Hacker Sidekicks of

Twenty- First Century Teen Television

TARA K. PARMITER

Sometimes heroes cant do it all on their own, Chloethats why theyneed sidekicks.Lois Lane, Metallo (2009)

Ladies, get out your boxing gloves and bustiers, Jennifer Steinhauerproclaims in Pow! Slam! Thank You, Maam, a New York Times piece on theproliferation of tough female action stars in the popular media of the early twenty- rst century.1 With Buffy, Xena, and Dark Angel, among others, slap-ping, immolating and kickboxing their way through life, Steinhauer seeswomen and girls charging into a formerly male- dominated arena: sheer phys-ical prowess. Since the turn of the century, these new heroines have ralliedunder the banner of girl power and deftly stomped on old stereotypes that rel-egated women to romantic interests and damsels- in-distress. As Sherrie Innessnotes in Action Chicks: New Images of Tough Women in Popular Culture, notonly have these tough women heroes taken on heroic roles formerly reservedfor men, but they do not require men to help them, a shift that removes womenfrom their stereotypical role as mens helpers.2 These superwomen embracetheir roles as leaders in a brave new world, refusing to be the second sex anylonger.

Whereas the action chick rules with brute force, the hacker diva ruleswith her intellect, her high- tech gadgets, and her incredibly fast typing skills.Perhaps as prominent a pop cultural phenomenon as the physically empoweredheroines, female hackers of the turn- of-the-twenty-rst century run the gamutfrom the sexy Acid Burn of Hackers (1995) and Trinity of The Matrix (1999),

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