Zendaya, 'Challengers' & The Renaissance Of Femininity

'Challengers' is a fun, unpredictable non-romantic romance film in which the story allows Zendaya to embrace her femininity and walk around in her panties... and we're here for it.

It seems like only yesterday (even though it was almost six months ago) I was writing my review about Sydney Sweeney's unlikely box office hit Anyone But You (and I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I did predict that it blow up in the box office before any other bloggers did), quickly (and probably poorly, as I'll be the first to admit I'm a terrible proof-reader and often leave many grammatical errors in my articles) reading over my work, and feeling like I'd missed something. At a glance, my article looked complete: it was a short, simple film review about a fresh, new, feel-good rom-com released right before the holidays. I left the theater quite happy that I'd chosen to see the film, and couldn't wait to tell the world about what an awesome, unlikely box office hit this film may (and deserved to) become. But I couldn't help but feel that I'd left something out of the article - something important - that really should be in it; I just couldn't figure out what it was. But as the months went by, and Sydney Sweeney began to blow up as a small-time-TV-actress-turned-major-movie-star (almost exclusively because of her role as 'Bea' in Anyone But You) and while I was in the theater this afternoon watching Zendaya's new sports-romance film Challengers, it had become quite clear what I'd left out of my article from back Christmas Eve of last year: Americans are finally ditching modern feminism, and trading it for a renaissance of classic, traditional femininity, and Challengers is a perfect example of this cultural phenomenon.

Now before we all celebrate the hammering of the final nail in the coffin of this extremely-annoying period of 'woke culture' in American history, I should mention that, there was some minor annoying wokeness in this film, which I'll get into later (though, it may actually be merely one of the last remaining artifacts of woke culture, as this movie was written all the way back in 2021, and production had wrapped back in June of 2022). But overall, the film gave Zendaya a great opportunity to embrace her femininity and sexiness, and boy, did she do a good job. You may not have ever even noticed before (because she's frequently filmed wearing copious amounts of clothes), but Zendaya has an absolutely rockin' body; she has great legs, a great ass, and nice, perky little boobs, and this becomes quite evident during her tennis scenes in which she usually sports sexy tennis outfits (and on a side note, Zendaya fucking rocks the Anna Kournikova single-braid in all her tennis match scenes - very sexy) , as well as some of her... uh... "spicier" scenes in the film, in which she rocks as little as her bra and panties. But it's these scenes particularly in which the death of modern feminism and the renaissance of classic femininity becomes the most evident - and it's Zendaya's sexiness, confidence and talent as an actress, and willingness to bear it all for a male audience (who, I'm assuming) would love to see her naked, that hit me like a ton of bricks and made me realize everything I spoke about in the previous paragraph in the theater this afternoon. Zendaya and Sydney Sweeney aren't just actresses, they're not just movie stars - they're both modern sex symbols and the movies they're making are leading the renaissance of classic, traditional femininity in the '20s.

All that said, Challengers as a movie is solid. This film has some of the best, most creative cinematography I've seen in modern cinema, and when compared to other films in the same genres (romance or sports films), might be some of the most creative cinematography ever. In fact, it's arguable that the photography in this film borders much more on art than that of modern entertainment. And the relationships between the characters in this film are complex and interesting, and really accentuate the imperfections of friendly relationships and romantic relationships alike. Zendaya's character "Tashi Duncan" is by far the most interesting though (and Zendaya's performance is definitely the standout and most memorable), and really reminded of me (almost uncomfortably so) of Rich Cooper's philosophy on women - women want to be with kings, but they're certainly not kingmakers. "Women wait at the finish line, and pick the winners," says Rich Cooper. Challengers affirms Rich Cooper's philosophy on femininity to the letter, whether the writers intended to do so or not.

Challengers has some of the best music I've heard in any movie in a long time. The sound of this film consists of very electronic, industrial dark-electro songs with very deep bass drum tracks, and I found myself wondering as the ending credits started to roll if what I was hearing was a Nine Inch Nails song, and sure enough, (it wasn't, but) I found out shortly afterward that the film's soundtrack was composed by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and Atticus Ross (and it was Reznor who sings the ending credits tune), the brains behind the soundtrack of The Social Network; so the film score gets an A+.

My only complaint about Challengers is the occasional out-of-place wokeness that seems reminiscent of a bygone era in cinema (because it is; as I mentioned, this film was written all the way back in 2021). And maybe this is a good thing, as it marks the end of an era, but the wokeness in cinema seemed to have died down so much in 2023, that seeing it in this film just already seems so out-of-place. Watching two dudes pretending to be post-modern and making out with each other while they simultaneously make out with Zendaya just isn't necessary anymore (on a side note, I wonder exactly whom the writers were trying to pander to anyway with this in the first place, when they were writing the script back in '21). And I'm not quite sure what the fuck the writers were trying to do with the man-lady/lady-man (I don't fucking know - the goatee'd she-male, whatever the fuck this person was supposed to be) chair umpire who called the shots. This person is just so out-of-place and unnecessary in the film, and is so reminiscent of the box-checking in cinema that was customary in '20 and '21. Making this person just a normal, everyday tennis chair umpire would have been fine, and would have detracted from the story far less than whatever-the-fuck that person was supposed to be.

Aside from the out-of-place wokeness reminiscent of a bygone era of cinema, Challengers is a great, artistic film, and worth the two hours of your time and the cost of admission. And it's especially worth it if you're a fan of classic femininity, the death of modern feminism, and the soft, tan skin on Zendaya's freshly-shaven tennis player-legs.