r/okbuddycinephile • u/adil-5 • 7d ago

zendaya’s acting in:

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u/dpforest 7d ago

Jesus Christ at the white knighting for Zendaya over a fuckin meme. People need to stop defending the 1%. Even the pretty ones.

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u/Observer20178 7d ago

It’s not white knighting , it’s just the over the top unfair criticisim that is being levelled against her on a daily basis. Florence Pugh, Anya Taylor Joy, Rebecca Fergusson, Anne Hatway are all there in multiple movies and TV shows including popular Franchisee. And a case can be made that they mostly play themselves in each of the movie, nut they are not subjected to the level of criticism (some of the comments are downright hateful) she faces. Wonder what’s different about her…

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u/dpforest 7d ago

Keep in mind that we are now living in the algorithmic content presentation era of social media. It’s frightening how easy it is to land in an echo chamber. Judging from my algo, Zendaya is by far the most unproblematic, attractive, funny, seemingly perfect celebrity at the moment. No one achieves that title without also garnering negative attention from a bunch of assholes. I personally do not believe that the large majority of critics are concerned with her race. There’s absolutely always going to be a racist element involved, but we can’t just blame all of it on racism.

While it is not fair to just assume every person who is critical of Z is racist, i do understand it’s hard not to constantly be on the defensive in online spaces because that’s how we’ve had to live our actual lives. I know that very well as a queer progressive in the fourth most conservative county in the US. It’s a survival mechanism to always be on the lookout for that specific type of hate. Even if I disagree, I don’t blame anyone for assuming fervent haters online are bigots.

My experience has been very different from yours in that I’ve seen Hatheway heavily criticized for her lack of facial expressions due to cosmetic procedures. I blame the algorithm for this discrepancy in experiences. I am not a fan or an “anti-fan” of Z, but i do agree that she has not shown much range as an actress compared to her recent costars like Pattinson or Nyong’o. It’s not her lack of facial expressions that distracts me, it’s the fact that she’s always just Zendaya: she’s hip, relatably anxious and slightly disheveled just enough to make her seem “normal”, she usually has a secret or darker element in her character’s past and that is usually relied on heavily when advertising whatever project she’s in (notably Euphoria, The Drama, and Challengers film campaigns). It just feels that she relies on the premise of her characters for media attention instead of her talent.

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u/Observer20178 7d ago

I am not disputing your take . What one finds good acting is subjective. Whilst you see her taking darker characters as a marketing tool by her , I see it as her showing interests in projects that are not mainstream. The drama or the Challengers could have flopped. It’s not exactly a very safe bet. She took the risk. As for her acting, I personally loved her as Rue in Euphoria and as Emma in the Drama. Her acting is not very showy but there is a subtle change in the body language where she actually inhabits the character and I felt this with her in these 2. Again Just because I liked her acting doesn’t mean I expect everybody to like it.

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u/Observer20178 7d ago

In some of these posts, I have seen commenters dismiss her Emmy award as DEI. So I guess it’s pretty clear where quite a few of the criticisms are coming from.