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Hanna O-Lee

Mr. Bowler

English 10 Honors

08 Dec. 2018

Disney Star to Hollywood Wonder

In her second year of kindergarten, a little girl obsessed with dance and theater begged

her principal to to let her and her two friends, the only other black children in the school, perform

a play in honor of Black History Month. She acted as Bessie Coleman, her friends Harriet

Tubman and Madam C.J. Walker. From that day on, Zendaya Coleman fell in love with acting

and making a change (Field 1).

She then attended the Oakland School for the Arts, became a member of the Future

Shock Oakland dance group, and studied hula dancing at the Academy of Hawaiian Arts

(Biography.com Editors 1), but that wasn’t all. She was thirteen when her career skyrocketed. In

2010 Zendaya made her first debut starring in Disney Channel’s ​Shake It Up.​ Soon after came

A.N.T. Farm​, ​Good Luck Charlie​, ​Frenemies​, ​K.C. Undercover,​ ​Black-ish​, ​Spider Man:

Homecoming​, and ​The Greatest Showman​. In 2013 she released her first solo album ​Zendaya​ and

competed on ​Dancing With the Stars​, showing off her strong background in hip hop.

In 2015 she left Disney and set out on finding her purpose. With no fear of speaking up

publicly, Zendaya’s youth empowerment speeches have inspired countless young girls to love

themselves truly and fully. She tells girls to cherish their body images and not to obsess over

having tiny waists and stick legs. Her strong opinion expresses itself in her inspirational book for
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tweens titled ​Between U and Me​. She uses her voice for change, fighting against gender and race

inequality, negative aspects of daily life, and even global poverty.

Through supportive social media use, Zendaya invokes conversations about touchy topics

like modern-day racism. She pushes people to see the world from a different perspective. In this

day and age, negativity spreads like a wildfire, and Zendaya feels it is her purpose to conquer

that negativity and wield it as her weapon for the greater good.

On the 2015 Oscars red carpet, ​Fashion Police ​cohost Giuliana Rancic said that the

18-year-old smelled of “patchouli oil or weed.” Zendaya replied back professionally and with a

clear goal “to remind people of color that our hair is good enough. To me, locs are a symbol of

strength and beauty, almost like a lion’s mane” (Young 1). Rancic apologized soon after.

Throughout her widely successful career, Zendaya has become a prominent teen role

model as a strong African-American woman in a changing society. She’s proud to be herself.

She’s proud to be black. She’s proud to be a woman. It only makes sense that she recently

became a feminist to inspire countless young girls in America to have that same sense of pride.

On a trip to South Africa to promote HIV testing with the United Nations program

UNAIDS, she met three South African brothers who had lost their parents to AIDS. She was so

touched by them that she made it her nineteenth birthday wish to help them, raising an

astonishing $50,000 to buy them a home. It’s this sense of purpose that separates Zendaya from

all the other celebrities claiming to be activists for a good cause. The strength and power in her

voice carries far beyond the edges of the stage, stretching out to each and every individual in

America and challenging them to join her in making a change for the brighter future of our

country.
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Works Cited

Biography.com Editors. “Zendaya Coleman Biography.” ​Biography​,

https://www.biography.com/people/zendaya-coleman-21219049​. Accessed 12 Nov.

2018.

Feeney, Nolan. “Zendaya on Body Image, Being an Influential Teen and How Scandal Got Her

Into Politics.” ​Time​, 02 Nov. 2015,

http://time.com/4093271/zendaya-interview-influential-teen/. Accessed 12 Nov. 2018.

Field, Genevieve. “The Unstoppable Zendaya.” ​Glamour​, 09 Feb. 2016,

https://www.glamour.com/story/zendaya-speaks-on-unaids-work-supporting-young-fans.

Accessed 12 Nov. 2018.

Macatee, Rebecca. “Zendaya Talks Race and Cultural Appropriation: ‘I Have Pride in Knowing

That I’m an ​African​ American.’” ​E! News,​ 12 Nov. 2015,

https://www.eonline.com/news/715284/zendaya-talks-race-and-cultural-appropriation-i-h

ave-pride-in-knowing-that-i-m-an-african-american. Accessed 12 Nov. 2018.

Shahidi, Yara. “Zendaya on Blackness, Beyoncé, and Telling Disney ‘No.’” ​Glamour​,

photographs by Emma Summerton and style by Jillian Davison, 02 Oct. 2017,

https://www.glamour.com/story/zendaya-november-2017-cover-interview. Accessed 12

Nov. 2018.

Young, Lucas. “Zendaya Wants You to Behold Your Own Beauty.” ​Glamour,​ music by Grayson

Matthews, C​ondé Nast​, 15 Nov. 2016,

https://video.glamour.com/watch/women-of-the-year-zendaya-wants-you-to-behold-your-

own-beauty.
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Efron, Zac and Zendaya. “Rewrite The Stars (Instrumental).” ​The Greatest Showman: Original

Motion Picture Soundtrack,​ Atlantic Records, 2018,

http://www.atlanticrecords.com/artists/greatest-showman-original-motion-picture-soundtr

ack.