Saturday night was a big night for Zendaya Coleman, who won the award for Favorite Female TV Star at the Kids’ Choice Awards. In her acceptance speech, she thanked parents for allowing her to be a role model for their children. But comedian Julie Klausner took the liberty of adding, “And thinspo model for your impressionable tweens.” This marked the beginning of a slew of tweets in which Klausner shamed Zendaya for her slim figure, falsely accusing her of starving herself. She went on to say, “You don’t have to have an eating disorder to attend the Kids’ Choice Awards….but it helps!”
Zendaya, who has always appeared naturally slender, tweeted, “Do you find this funny? I will write another paragraph to educate you aswell #youreallywannabenext?” This tweet alludes to the time Rancic said Zendaya’s locs looked as if they smelled of patchouli oil and weed, and Zendaya eloquently shut her down in a paragraph explaining the implications of the disrespectful stereotype.
Klausner tweeted back, “cant wait,” before defending her earlier comments: “I will never stop criticizing celebs who perpetuate dangerous beauty standards for a generation of girls who grow up thinking they’re fat.”
We wholeheartedly agree that young women shouldn’t be made to feel inadequate in their bodies by celebrities and the media, but when body positivity involves shaming girls with skinnier figures, it is no longer body positive. For Klausner to preach, “All women are beautiful” and yet joke that a skinny 19-year-old girl must be starving herself is not only contradictory, but also insensitive. Eating disorders are nothing to joke about, and a comedian such as Klausner should have known better.
And to say Zendaya is perpetuating dangerous beauty standards is a stretch. She may be a skinny actress who young children look up to, but she has always used her platform to encourage fans to be true to themselves and love themselves as they are. She addressed the situation in a similar manner by tweeting, “everyone go look in the mirror at their beautiful body, and love that shit #thickgirlswinning #skinnygirlswinning #weallwinning”
Her tweet reminds us that we should be embracing people of all body types, not uplifting some by tearing others down. As Zendaya said, no matter what body type we have, we’re all beautiful and we’re all winning.