Kristen Stewart and the History of Alt Teen Queens

Photograph of Kristen Stewart by Jason Merritt/Getty Images.

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There are always the obvious teen idols—doll-faced girls with shows on the Disney channel, their own perfume lines, a forthcoming solo album, and weepy PR apologies when their nude pics emerge. They have managers, Twitter feeds, YouTube channels, and publicity-friendly courtships. They have a fluff-piece reservation in the tabloids every week.

Click here to read a slide show on dark-sided teen queens.

Then there are the stars who find unlikely popularity without paying homage to the merchandising machine, who espouse a more fuck-you attitude toward their celebrity status. Girls who have become unlikely pop idols in their own right for epitomizing the plight of the underdog in their movies, or if not the underdog exactly, at least some alternative—be it bitchy or geeky or tomboyish—to the bubblegum persona of Hollywood’s charmed.

They’re Hollywood’s dark teen queens. The current reigning misfit is Kristen Stewart, the star of a blockbuster teen franchise who allegedly skipped out on the New Moon wrap party to make out with her vampire boyfriend in a dark SoHo bar and constantly complains about the annoyances of celebdom rather than basking in it. Her most famous predecessor is Winona Ryder, who won hearts on-screen with her perfect depiction of the smart, lost, '90s everygirl undergoing a post-collegiate identity crisis in Reality Bites, while off-screen she dated questionably-coiffed rockstars and later indulged a hankering to shoplift. Then there are the goth heroines, like The Craft star Fairuza Balk, who used to own an occult store called Panpipes Magickal Marketplace, and Evan Rachel Wood, the out-of-control heroine of the movie Thirteen who spent her later teen years in the arms of Marilyn Manson. From Ally Sheedy to Christina Ricci, they’re the girls people love not because their face belongs on a lunchbox, but because they seem real.

Photo credits for the slide show as follows:

Kristen Stewart: Kevin Winter/Getty Images.

Winona Ryder: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images.

Shannon Doherty: Scott Wintrow/Getty Images.

Christina Ricci: Jordan Strauss/Getty Images.

Fairuza Balk: David Livingston/Getty Images.

Evan Rachel Wood: Jason Kempin/Getty Images.

Ally Sheedy: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images.

Thora Birch: Getty Images/Getty Images.