Have you seen this unicorn?

1. outgrowing a disney star as she matures / little to no screen time when very promoted.

zendaya is someone we all grew up with on disney channel and for the most part, we all admired her and thought she was one of the best people that came out of the disney industry. i grew up a huge fan of zendaya because she was someone i wanted to be like, we all have those kind of celebrities growing up and she was a good role model.

now, it wouldn't be fair to go off by just her disney acting because let's be honest... all disney acting is overdramatic and not good, and that's really all the young actors can work with when they are given a contract. but for what it was, zendaya was a great dancer and singer in her disney career. she even got to produce her own show & had her own website/youtube channel to post videos of her daily life or hairstyles and cooking videos. she seemed to show a bit of activism as she grew as well. it was empowering to see a successful girl of color take interest in things that mattered to other girls of color. she was this bubbly, fun, and quite an adorable person who seemed to have a lot of passion in her eyes. but, everyone grows up.

as zendaya got older, so did all of her loyal fans so, that means closing the door on her disney life and opening to new and "mature" projects as a young adult. thus, the huge renewed franchise, spider-man, was her first big movie role－ yet she had 2 minutes and 50 seconds of screen time (even less than marisa tomei) and not even the love interest, yet her face AND name were big enough on the poster that you would think she had more lines. laura harrier, the actual love interest, is no where to be found. another factor is that tom holland was not a well known actor at the time, so they probably needed a familiar face in order to get people to say "i'll go see it for zendaya". it sold. it worked.

and of course we want to see our fav, miss zendaya, but for what we got & only for it to be relieved all along that she's mj? (as a new character, michelle jones, not mary jane)..... [opinion] it could have been squeezed into the second film if i'm being quite honest if the budding love between peter and mj weren't one of the main plots of far from home. it seemed sudden that it was revealed she was the new love interest when the role of mj seemed to be a goofy/fun role as one of peter's possible sidekicks in future movies.

there's no avoiding the accusation that throughout the films it seems that ned is becoming less of a main character the further the petermj / t*mdaya narrative is being pushed by both the mcu and shippers. even though mj was more introduced in ffh, she still got her own poster promo while jacob batalon did not. mj went from having 2 minutes of screen-time to 19 full minutes, ned leeds went from 15 minutes of screen-time and cut down to 14:30 in the sequel, less than the amount he was given in the first movie. [ this sudden shift in character stories is not stated or confirmed by marvel or batalon himself, just a theory by fans. ]

since the drop of the spider-man: no way home full trailer, some people do not think the character of mj is deserving of what seems like a gwen stacy parallel, which is understandable considering the big jump her character takes from barely being in the first movie then suddenly peter's girlfriend after the events of homecoming with liz moving + half the population was blipped so, peter & mj's relationship can only be condensed down to a few weeks, maybe 2-3 months.

recently, the dune press was massive knowing that two young talented leads, timothee chalamet and zendaya, were going to play "side-by-side" in a sci-fi movie remake that had an amazing director. everyone expected to see a new dynamic on-screen, yet some people weren't surprised that zendaya got 7 minutes of total screen time of a 2 hour film.

while the argument has been made that chani (her character) has more of a significant part in the sequel of the movie franchise [ set to come out in 2023 ], the question of "why was she bigger than some of the actual main characters?" is plausible. i'll answer honestly... profit from familiarity / knowing the audience that will want to see this movie. same business idea as spiderman: homecoming.

while zendaya did state she was disappointed about only spending a total of 3-4 days on set, it is still surprising for some fans to see how publicized her face/image was and the amount of interviews she had with chalamet yet they weren't in most scenes together within the whole movie.

2. she plays the same roles (as of now) aka it doesn't matter that she won an emmy.

she's had roles in greatest showman, spiderman: ffh, malcolm & marie, HBO's euphoria, the OA and most recently, dune & spiderman: no way home while also having voicing roles in childrens' movies such as smallfoot (zendaya is meechee) and the space jam sequel as the iconic lola bunny.

now... if you don't already see a theme in zendaya's physical roles, look a little more on the surface of all of them. it's no lie and not unseen to almost everyone that she always plays the "too cool to care" character in most of her acting.

rue bennett, michelle jones, and marie can all be compared to being the same character. the basis of a cold, bare-faced character with a monotone voice who tries to be emotionless until provoked, has a rough backstory (2/3 are being a semi-recovering drug addict) and someone who subconsciously pushes away the people they like because they are too scared to care. this character has not only had trust issues from others who have wronged them, but they has some mystery to themselves－ enough that the audience can either hate them for being unnecessarily angsty or love how blunt and quick-witted they are. it's common trope used in media, not just zendaya's way of portraying her characters.

important to say that no one is saying winning an emmy is easy!!!, but there was much speculation that zendaya won because of how well-liked she is. her performance as rue bennett was amazing, a bit more emotionally driven than most of her acting, there's no doubt in that. she even admitted how she feels connected to the character of rue in some way & wanted to take same levinson's personal story about addiction and treat it respectfully. but, people still questioned the nomination, wondering if because she was a hot, relevant and talented young person contributes to that award when winning nothing huge previously [ since she was the youngest person to receive that award as of 2021 ].

"And she [Vernieu] argued vehemently to showrunner Levinson that the series needed the magnetic good-girl Zendaya to draw in the audience, giving them someone familiar to make them feel secure within a challenging contemporary milieu that often feels too authentic for comfort." stated by casting director, mary vernieu in an Indiewire interview in 2019 about the casting of euphoria.

zendaya, herself, even said, "Essentially [Levinson] said that I was on a mood board for Rue, like he had put me on this thing for Rue," she explained. "And I was like, 'No he didn't. There's like, no way. There's nothing I've done for you to ever think that I could do that.'"

it was never confirmed she had the most likable vote, but speculated by some, especially when the other women in her category were much older than her and in award winning series with previous seasons (killing eve, the crown & ozark).

interviewed by collider magazine with sam levinson, she is asked what she was planning to do after the first season of euphoria wrapped. she says how euphoria felt like home to her and that she'll miss it & wants to be a more open actor, but ends with, "But it’s gonna be hard because this is such a special experience. You don’t get to play people like this often. It’s just a special thing. So, I don’t know what I’m doing. Thank god I have Spider-Man." This statement can be seen as something relatable of an actor or just knowing her luck, either way, she knows she has a safety net/enjoys spider-man.

where zendaya has always shined most is in fashion. not specifically modeling, but choosing the brands she wears and having a personal relationship with her stylist. in whatever she wears, everyone agrees that no matter what she wears, she has the body and struts the pose. but, it's really the only thing some people can say that they think she is expert in.

3. the feuding of t*mdaya... and the eruption of racist comments / the problem with shipping celebs / how hollywood pr is a profit driven business within its own industry.

while the other points have been proven more as fact, this is where the drama has exploded the most in recent months. drama that no one wants to deal with when simply what happened is they allegedly started dating.

for years, people and fans accused tom holland and zendaya having more than just a friendship. once a small, innocent joke that holland made about having a crush on zendaya turned into an ideal pairing that fans latched on to for the next 4+ years.

i'm not talking just about people who thought they were cute together, but i'm speaking about those creating dedicated pages to stalking any time that both tom and zendaya were together. all of these can be seen on instagram, twitter, tiktok and tumblr while also tagging tom and zendaya in their photos. not only does it cross a line of safety, but also privacy for the two when stories of their friends are screen-shotted by random "fans" only to post to a wider audience to the users own theories.

after denying multiple times that they themselves were not dating, in july of 2021, there were sudden pap pics published of them kissing in a car. while shippers have tried to prove someone (another shipper/fan) anonymously paid for these pictures, there is tons of speculation that this was the start of a spider-man pr relationship. not only are they're millions of followers for these accounts, but there are also trending tags (most likely since 2017).

for example: on tiktok, the #tomdaya has 893.3m views and on instagram, the hashtag is used 298k times. it's not unseen or surprising how it's always been talked about/vouched for before they were seen together + fueling the tag when the papz pics dropped and quickly spread around the internet.

with these, allegedly, candid pictures came a storm of mixed opinions and boy, was it messy, to say the least. a number of accusations were made of the two's sudden connection, including that the funko pops for spiderman: no way home came out later that day or that both of their previous movies, cherry + malcolm & marie did not do well in viewings, ratings and reviews.

hollywood has proven time and time again that it is a business within a business. pr teams, more likely than not, contact the papz because it is their job to publish big news. "According to Rolling Stone, it's likely that 90 percent of the paparazzi photos in Los Angeles are taken in West Hollywood and Beverly Hills -- specifically at celebrity hot spots." A HuffPost article from 2014 posted. so evidence/statements like this can leave people with different opinions on pr relationships, so it shouldn't be so far-fetched to believe that some people believe and don't.

[ this isn't a rant to prove t*mdaya as fake. i'm taking sources that i found about hollywood media and stating facts. do not say it is bias because i don't mention tom's gq article specifically mentioning their sudden relationship. ]

while we'll never know what couples throughout time were and weren't pr, it wouldn't be strange for papz to get called while other family members and friends agree to a contract of said relationship, they are usually never forced to do something they don't because they have the money and management. this is a fact that people have to keep that in mind-- in order to not slam "non-believers" and saying it's false or using the excuse "i know how the business works".

[ this is not truly fact, but been circling around lately, ] some fans have also noticed the attention to "details" on both holland's and zendaya's instagram pages. while tom has posted zendaya a handful of times from july to this november, zendaya has not posted about holland, other than in temporary stories. holland is referred to as "zendaya's hype man" which makes some fans upset since he, as well, is an actor and should be more than a zendaya fan page. basically what i'm saying is, some people think this is all zendaya driven while tom gets nothing in the end.

papz or otherwise, it will still wrong to invade the privacy of both. this is not an opinion, it's something everyone should know. if you respect tom and zendaya so much, as a couple or not, don't ask for their whereabouts or if they're with one another 24/7.

besides the i told you so's and invasion of privacies, the one that stuck out to me the most was that stans/shippers seemed to use the argument that "if you don't like tom and zendaya together, you're racist" or "if you dont like zendaya, you're racist" which brings me to the actual topic of this whole thing. not everyone who doesn't like zendaya is racist & using that it is racism as an excuse is unacceptable and misused.

it's not only abusing what racism actually is, but not an actual reason to say someone dislikes a celebrity. not to mention, i've seen this brought up by more white people than others (again, this is just from what i've seen) who don't/shouldn't have the right to say it unless with true evidence of said racism. shippers gear toward the argument of, "you're just jealous of zendaya because she's dating tom and that's why you don't like her" which is also not true, for the most part. no one wants to see tom or zendaya bitter, lonely and unhappy, but to, once again, falsely accuse others of this with no backup of said accusation is a far reach.

nevertheless, both are weak and immature responses to someone simply saying "i dont like zendaya". people and fans have to have different preferences or the world wouldn't go round. i'm not encouraging any kind hate toward either of them. it's the lack of respect toward others in each fandom that is very disheartening and toxic over celebrities who they, will probably, never be friends with / get to know since they like to defend them as if they do personally know both tom & zendaya (couple or not). i'm also not saying to abuse celebrities for their pure kindness, just know the boundaries they ask you to set.

no one, absolutely no one should have to sell /manipulate others on the idea if zendaya and tom (or any celebrities, for the matter) are dating or not or using racism as a "valid" excuse. both ways are toxic enough and they don't deserve to have their every move photographed or written down. and no i am not saying this was provoked by either tom or zendaya, they are not in charge of the way their fandom decides to act because it doesn't reflect on their characters.

conclusion !

i know this was titled "you're not racist for not liking zendaya" but i think it all simmers down to that let people like who they like and dislike who they dislike. no one has a choice on who admires who or who thinks is an amazing / terrible person or couple. i'm not saying that celebrities aren't human or don't or do deserve anything given to them, but they don't own your world nor do we know them.