Read this Vox article on what makes Zendaya a great celebrity. Answer the following questions:
1) What was the 2015 Oscar controversy involving Zendaya?
That was when Zendaya, age 19, happened to appear on the red carpet in a white silk gown, with her hair in dreadlocks — and on E’s Fashion Police, Giuliana Rancic commented, “That hair is swallowing her. I feel like she smells like patchouli oil.” An offscreen (and never-identified) voice added, “Or weed.”
2) How did Zendaya control the narrative of that controversy?
Outrage followed thick and fast, with commenters across the internet decrying the Fashion Police segment as racist. And in the ensuing controversy, Zendaya could easily have let those commenters position her as the passive victim of Rancic’s ignorance. Instead, she rapidly took control of the narrative herself.
3) What examples are provided of Zendaya using her celebrity to raise issues of race and social justice?
“There is already harsh criticism of African American hair in society without the help of ignorant people who choose to judge others based on the curl of their hair,” she wrote in an Instagram post the next day. “My wearing my hair in locs on an Oscar red carpet was to showcase them in a positive light, to remind people of color that our hair is good enough. To me locs are a symbol of beauty and strength, almost like a lion’s mane.”
4) Zendaya insisted on a black family in Disney’s KC Undercover show. How can we link this to the ideas of Paul Gilroy?
She often talks about how she feels she has a responsibility to help represent the black community onscreen. So when Disney offered Zendaya the starring role in a new show when she was 16 (K.C. Undercover), she says, she insisted that her character have a black family. “I was like, ‘If I’m going to do this, this is how it has to be.’ There needs to be a black family on the Disney Channel,” she said in the Glamour interview. “A lot of people who aren’t people of color can’t quite understand what it’s like to grow up and not see yourself in mainstream media.”Gilroy suggests diaspora challenges national ideologies and creates cultural tension. Zendaya supports this idea by challenging the conventional white family stereotypical sitcoms.
5) Who is Zendaya’s stylist and how did Zendaya use fashion and appearance to develop her celebrity persona?
n large part, that’s because Zendaya knows how to dress for a moment. She uses her outfits to tell her audience a story about how she wants to be seen on a given day — and she proved with her response to Rancic that she is willing to back those choices up when questioned on them.
None of this means that she’s making her style choices all by herself. She’s been dressed by stylist Law Roach since she was 14 years old — including on that fateful Oscars night — and his playful, performative aesthetic and commitment to storytelling is definitely at work in Zendaya’s outfits. (When Roach wants her to wear a particularly challenging look, Zendaya told Vogue in 2017, he tells her, “It’ll be a mo-ment.”)
6) How has Zendaya influenced the representation of characters she has played?
“A lot of people don’t realize their power,” she told Vogue in 2017. “I have so many friends who say yes to everything or feel like they can’t stand up for themselves in a situation. No: You havethe power.”
Zendaya inarguably does have the power. As her star has risen, her projects have leaned increasingly heavily on her image for their promotion. Spider-Man: Far From Home, her most recent film, is roping in a giant segment of its audience by dangling the question of whether Zendaya and Tom Holland are secretly in love. In the lead-up to Euphoria’s release, it was vanishingly rare to see a headline about the show that didn’t name-check Zendaya, and showrunner Sam Levinson says he put Zendaya on his vision board when he created the show.
7) How did LL Cool J describe Zendaya?
“She’s cool. You can manufacture fame. You can manufacture publicity. You can manufacture songs. You can’t manufacture cool.”
8) Do you agree with his assessment? Is Zendaya authentically cool or just another manufactured celebrity?
I partially agree with this statement because we can see both point of views of relating to the general public and also showing her celebrity persona.
Zendaya textual analysis
Work through the following tasks to complete your textual analysis of Zendaya's website and social media.
Social media analysis
1) Visit
Zendaya's Twitter feed. Analyse her use of tweets - are they promoting her film/TV work, linked to fashion or sponsorship work or more socially or politically oriented?
She attempts to engage with the audience and have a element of realism. Also, often talking about or interacting with real life events outside the film world.
2) Look at Zendaya's Instagram account. She has said this is the one account that is always 100% created by her - can you find any evidence of that in the way posts or images are constructed? This is very difficult to tell however she uses Instagram in order to promote her films.
She is presented as the audience's friend and this feels more personalised.
4) Research Zendaya across any other social media accounts - e.g. Facebook. Do you notice any differences in how she represents herself on different platforms? Comment on text, images or tone/content.
She posts glimpses of her personal life onto social media and is mostly focused on upcoming projects.
Representations
Go to
our Media Magazine archive and read the article on Zendaya, social media, feminism and celebrity (MM81 - page 12). Answer the following questions:
1) What the concerns around social media discussed at the start of the article?
It’s not a new criticism of social media that it wreaks havoc on our brains, especially those of young people. We all grew up being told to put our phones down for various reasons, one of them being that screen time has the potential to give you square eyes. However, nowadays people seem to be taking these criticisms more seriously and concerns that social media can negatively affect one’s mental health and cause anxiety are more widespread and being taken more seriously. Younger and more impressionable users can’t help but compare themselves to one another whether consciously or unconsciously.
2) What example is provided of Zendaya’s authenticity – or possible lack of authenticity?
Zendaya is a great example of a celebrity who is now, seemingly, in control of their relationship with social media, but that wasn’t always the case. In 2017 a video was posted to her YouTube channel titled ‘Watch Me React To My First YouTube Vids’ in which she and a friend watched back the YouTube videos she first posted onto her channel as a child star.
3) What is the one social media app that Zendaya manages entirely herself?
Instagram
4) What are the issues highlighted by Billie Eilish regarding self-representation and feminism?
Every girl wants to feel desirable...But then there’s a whole world of men who argue that women say, ‘Oh, I don’t want men to sexualise me’ but then wear shirts that show their boobs and sing songs about having sex.’ I’m like, do you not get the idea that we want to wear what we feel good in but we don’t want you to jump in? It’s very dumb.
5) How authentic do YOU feel Zendaya’s media representation is? Is it the real Zendaya or a media construction designed to look authentic?
I feel like Zendaya's media representation can be seen as authentic because she isn't always trying to express capitalist ideologies and also tries to fit in with the general public.
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