Introduction
We have chosen Zendaya as our role model. Zendaya is a 22-year-old singer, actress, dancer, and model. She was first publicly seen on the show “Shake it Up”, which was on Disney Channel from 2010 until 2013. Furthermore, she played in other shows, and made songs, while being an iconic teen role model.
To us, Zendaya is a role model because we have been looking up to her since we were young. Mostly because she was on one of the most famous shows on Disney channel; “Shake it Up”. She was everything a girl at our age then wanted to be: funny, smart, pretty and she could dance very well. After 2013, Zendaya got older and decided that she did not want to be on Shake it Up anymore, she wanted to make room in her life for other opportunities. However, she does still want to be on Disney Channel because she feels that she has the responsibility to do so for young people, and she enjoys making positive programs/series. Thus, she kept having a great impact on every girl’s life by still playing in a Disney Channel serie today, which is called “KC Undercover”.
Life Story
Zendaya Maree Stoermer Coleman was born on September 1, 1996, in Oakland, California. She is an actress and singer and her family is very musically and theatrically gifted. She is the daughter of a stage manager so she spent a lot of time in the Shakespeare theater. She trained in the theater’s youth programs and played in some of the productions. Zendaya is also a great dancer, she was a member of the Future Shock Oakland dance group for several years, and studied hula dancing at the Academy of Hawaiian Arts. And has also participated in “Dancing with the stars”.
Zendaya also had some early success as a model, working for companies such as Macy’s and Old Navy. For a commercial, Zendaya performed as a backup dancer for Selena Gomez. She eventually decided to only use her first name professionally. “Zendaya”, which means “to give thanks” in the language of the Shona people of Zimbabwe.
Apart from being talented, Zendaya is a very selfless, sympathetic and an optimistic person who is committed to her work. She is also very ‘realistic’, and she does not act fake like half of the celebrities out there; the fame hasn’t gone to her head. She shows how she is a real person as well, and not some perfect celebrity. You can see this in an interview she had at the MET gala when she was asked what she was going to do after the interview. Instead of saying she would go to an after-party, or go and fix her makeup or hair, she answered: “Imma eat!” And that’s what we really like about her. You can also see this in the picture on the right; she posted this picture on Instagram of herself without makeup on to wish her brother a happy birthday. I don’t think there are many celebrities out there who would (voluntarily) post a picture like this of themselves on social media for everyone to see!
Zendaya’s parents were both teachers. Her father was a teacher in a private school and her mother in a public school. Zendaya saw the problems the kids that were students at her parent’s schools had. Like having a bad home situation, not enough food, or clothes. She was shocked by the fact that she had everything she needed, while other kids hadn’t.
Why is she a role model?
Charities
Zendaya is not only a great dancer, actor, singer and model, but she is also involved in multiple charities. We will list a few charities here:
American Heart Association
American Stroke Association
Communities in Schools
Convoy of Hope
DonorsChoose.org
PETA
UNICEF
Campus Sports
UN Aids Ambassador
As you can see she battles for Human rights, Animal rights, Slavery and human trafficking, Poverty, Children’s rights, education, health, Disadvantaged/Abused children and disaster relief. She is even involved in a charity which makes sure that all children can get the chance to do what they love. In this case, it is music. And she encourages young people to get tested for sexually transmitted diseases. She is also not afraid to stand for what she believes in. For example; she fought back after she was judged for wearing dreadlocks to the Oscars and was very mad when a magazine photoshopped her torso and thighs because she really is against digitally manipulating body shapes because it creates an unrealistic body image for women. And each time she stands up for herself and for others, she manages to do so calmly and gracefully.
On her 18th Birthday, she started donating and helping kids in Africa with the quote “Zendaya’s birthday wish”. This is what she said: “I already have everything I need, and I want others to feel the same”. So she went to Africa together with the charity “feedone”. She helped three schools getting enough food to give to the kids. Since then, every year on her birthday she finds a good cause to donate money to.
How does she handle criticism?
Even though Zendaya is, as you can see, a very inspiring person who has achieved a lot in her life, she does sometimes receive (unnecessary and very rude) critique. However, she always manages to give a mature answer, she always manages to (instead of being very rude and list all the reasons why the person is wrong) educate the person who offended her, and tell them that what they said is not okay, and why it is not okay. For example; when comedian Julie Klausner insulted Zendaya with an anorexia joke. She wrote about Zendaya’s appearance at the Children’s Choice Awards. She said: “Zendaya’s ultimate retort to Giuliana Rancic is starving herself down to the size of one of her elbows, you don’t have to have an eating disorder to attend the Kids’ Choice Awards….but it helps!” Zendaya replied: “Do you find this funny? I will write another paragraph to educate you as well #youreallywannabenext? When will we learn our lesson about laughing at unconventional female bodies, and making jokes about serious mental illnesses like anorexia?”. This makes the younger people who follow her on Twitter realise that things like Anorexia and eating disorders are serious matters and that they can’t joke about such things.
Charity work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XV_cNC8x2k
Interview about being a vegetarian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofHrxKoJSng
UNICEF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWl6LjpCUk8
Her personal issues
Zendaya used to deal with very bad anxiety. This started when she had to sing her then-new song “replay” on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2013. “It was one of my first live TV performances and my mic pack went out and I had to perform my song ‘Replay’ even though I couldn’t hear anything in my in-ear monitor. It wasn’t my best performance and I had mad anxiety ever since that.” She really struggled to move on from that incident. She eventually learned to focus on other things. Now she does sing live again but always makes sure her earplugs are working. She never showed she was struggling with this, which makes her strong, she moves on and leaves the past in the past and thinks that it will be better, so she is very optimistic.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Zendaya is a very selfless, humble, strong and caring person. She helps people in need, not because she feels she has to but because she thinks everyone deserves a chance of having a good life. As you read previously, she battles for animals rights. Because of this, she also is a vegetarian and in the video inserted down below, you can see why and how she became one.
Why she became a vegetarian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snDAgjOEDM8
We will close off this project by talking about one of Zendaya’s best assets, which is the way that she always takes account of the audience she has. Zendaya still has a show on Disney channel, thus, she always bears in mind that she has got a lot of people looking up to her, and her audience mostly consists of young children who see her on Disney Channel. Because of this she is a very responsible and mature teenager and always thinks twice about what she says, and she tries to set an example for younger children, like for my sister and for Charlotte’s brother. Zendaya was an example for us when we were younger (and she still is an example for us), and now she is an inspiration to a new generation as well. And we think it’s amazing that you can still stay relevant in multiple generations, and through many years.