Zendaya Coleman has been in the news lately, which isn’t a bad thing considering how smart and reasonable she is. Zendaya recently called out a magazine for photoshopping her body. She wants to look like herself instead of setting an unrealistic, unattainable example for young girls. The original photos came out this week, and you can really see how much Modeliste altered her body. That’s inexcusable, but it happens every day.
Zendaya also appears in Flaunt magazine, which hasn’t hit newsstands yet, but here is a brief excerpt where she calls out clueless record executives:
“I’ve had a lot of voices tell me what I should be making. Personally, I would much rather live and die by my own hand. If my stuff sucks, then at least I made it suck. I didn’t allow some person, some old dude in a suit, to make it suck for me.”
[From Flaunt via New York Daily News]
Hilarious. I love that she has no problems calling out the ridiculousness of her industry. Those guys are usually completely out of touch and only looking at the bottom line. Zendaya won’t let them get away with this, but even when she’s calling someone out, she’s never too rude. She speaks the truth without embarrassing herself. I just adore her, even when she wears silly, furry shoes like with this outfit.
Photos courtesy of WENN
I actually love the outfit with the silly, furry shoes. From head to toe. I would rather see an outfit like that than what I see on my college campus every day– droves of girls in little variations of the exact same outfit. Looking exactly the same, no originality whatsoever. Zendaya is a tall sunflower in a world full of uniform little daisies, and she’s amazing. Shine on, Z!
I think the outfit, including the shoes, is fun. She looks adorable. Furry shoes…why not?
Oh GNAT… because… fur?? What is the excuse in 2015 for wearing fur? I can understand someone living in Iqaluit whose traditions involve hunting and eating/wearing the animals they kill; living in their harsh environment according to their traditional way of life and all that. Fine. But wearing fur sandals in LA?
When KK showed up in similar sandals everyone tore her a new one and rightfully so. I adore Zendaya but I don’t think we should cut her slack on that issue. (Silly outfits, if that’s what she wants, like the faux corral hanging off her bust? Sure… but not fur.)
Its not real fur, keep calm 😛
+1,000
I also adore her for not being afraid to speak her mind despite the veritable mindfield of social issues that could otherwise induce her to keep her mouth shut. She’s a young, black, woman in an industry that tends to marginalize people for being even one of these. The fact that she marches to the beat of her own drummer in (as far as I can tell) every aspect of her life – fashion choices included! – makes me love her like crazy. Even if the furry shoes aren’t my jam either, Bedhead, I admire her for making the decision to wear them herself in the first place. She’s a young girl and when can you make the decision to wear such things, if not then?
Rock on, Zendaya – and bring your faux-dreadlocked Barbie doll to the masses! I’d love for my four-year-old to have one, to help drive home the idea that what’s pretty for one person is different for another. People comes in all different colors and sizes and even if she is model (and very nearly Barbie) sized herself doesn’t diminish the fact that she’s not made from a Matell cookie cutter.
Not to be a grumpus, but at the end of the day–its never a good idea to piss off the old guys in suits.
I’ll be a grumpus with you – those old guys in suits are the reason why she has a career. She’s a Disney kid and was picked for this. She’s not exactly toiling away making music in her garage and putting it on YouTube.
And the “old guys in suits” are probably only in their thirties.
See Miley, oh the double standards.
Oh, the youthful idealism!
I love her style, she definetly has an eye for clothes. Now, can anyone tell me if she’s talented? It’s not a shady question, it’s pure curiosity since I’ve never heard anything from her.
I saw her acting in a show recently and she was good, very natural. I think it was Blackish? I’ve also seen her on Dancing With the Stars and she was amazing (and should have won imho). Singing? Didn’t know she did that.
Yeah she was good in Blackish.She is a teenager and most of her acting credits are from her Disney stuff.
Of course she was good on DWTS, she’s a dancer.
She’s actually quite charming on her Disney shows and I’d take her over her Shake It Off counterpart Bella Thorne any day of the week.
She’ll be Old one day too….. and judging by this she may not like it.
Oh yeah, because she is the FIRST teenager to talk about” old guys” not getting it or understanding.I said the same thing.
She’s not the first but Miley said something similar and suffered a lot of backlash.
I hear she’s an actress but I’ve never seen her in anything.
turn on the Disney channel lol
She’s actually pretty good. Time will tell if she successfully transitions to non-kid roles, but she definitely has a chance. She and Bella Thorne were the leads in Disney’s Shake It Up series, and she was far beyond Bella even when they were quite young. Bella never really grew as an actor and seems to pull down the production in anything I’ve seen her in since, but Zendaya keeps getting better.
It’s always about the bottom line. That should not be a surprise to anyone working in business.
She can know the business and still want to change it.According to the”old guys” in Hollywood ,films with Female leads don’t do well yet the “old guys” have been proven wrong many times.Funny when Taylor Swift or Adele said they ignored the music executives and made the music they wanted to make.They are lauded.
Zendaya isn’t necessarily the person to use as an example of raging against the machine, though – she’s basically on the Selena Gomez career track. Get in with Disney, have them nurture you as a child actor, and then they use their mighty framework to launch you into music and more grownup fare. She seems like a lovely young woman, but she’s an entirely manufactured pop product.
Bridget- Zendaya did theater before Disney picked her up. I don’t think Disney had to push her along, although they gave her added opportunities. Not every Disney kid is manufactured by The Mouse. Sometimes The Mouse gets lucky and latches onto a kid already doing well on their own track.
Selena Gomez also had been acting for a long time before she joined The Mouse. Disney did push her into singing to make money for The Mouse, as they try to do no matter how tone deaf a kid might be. I don’t think she was really a very good singer despite her Barney days and had to be seriously digitally enhanced (she was a wobbly and weak singer on her own, I heard her before they brought in the engineers). But she was by then a good actor, so her music videos were fun to watch. Selena kept improving all through the Wizards of Waverly Place run. All three of the kids were very good by the last couple of seasons, which often doesn’t happen (they can actually get worse with age…).
I’m more commenting on the Disney machine when it comes to turning their talent into products. She may be talented (as mentioned above, I think she’s charming) but when you sign on to the Mouse, you get a pretty massive push. They clearly see their talent as long term investments, and have the means and the ability to create massive opportunities once the kids age out of the Disney shows. The albums are an additional revenue source from their stars. Look at Selena Gomes: as cute as she is, it’s her Disney connections that made most of her career. Zendaya being a part of the Mouse conglomorate doesn’t mean that she’s not talented on her own; it means that when she makes that album she’s given access to producers, songs, etc that she wouldn’t otherwise have.
Smart young lady. How lovely to have someone with character for young people to look up to. Stunning looking, too. In that photo where she’s wearing the shorts suit, she looks flawless.
Eh, I have to take this one with a grain of salt. She’s a singer, only credited on having a hand in less than half her tracks. She’s not writing all the music and lyrics so she doesn’t really have that much control over her sound.
And she needs those old guys in suits to provide writers, musicians, producers, recording artists, mastering artists (definitely that guy, he makes you sound good), studio space, equipment, etc.
Agree, Willa! At least for now she does.
So why doesn’t she have any international hit? Her music is nothing but mediocre pop. Her voice is not outstanding either. She sounds like every white girl who tries to be singer (I know she’s mixed but her voice is white)
She’s famous for appearing on every red carpet event ever.
I haven’t heard her music so I have no opinion on it, but what it sounds like she’s saying is she wants ownership of her artistic integrity, and will bear the responsibility of it.
Definitely a good idea, but probably a bit idealistic, especially in today’s music industry. It may not always work out that way for her, but I hope she fights for it.
Yes, she just seems to want some control so she can succeed or fail on her own as a singer. I don’t think she was claiming to be a superstar. I don’t know why people think singers have to be songwriters, though. The skill sets are different, even though some people have always combined the two. I don’t recall it being assumed that singers wrote their own songs when I was a kid in ancient times, but the kids today seem to expect it.
I lost all respect I had for her when it came out she’s collaborating with Chris Brown. So she’s completely to blame for working with a known, proven abuser. Have all the @&$+#?+ seats Z.