﻿Zendaya As mentioned in previous videos,
casting for roles is very deliberate in how a director wants to portray an on screen persona.
Specific features are taken into account; thus, it is no mistake that Zendaya
is cast in youthful roles. From playing high schooler MJ in the Spider-man universe,
to a high schooler on 2014’s “Zapped”, there is a trend in the types of roles she plays. Despite
the age difference, her dentofacial structure and youthenizing features allow her to convincingly
play a high schooler even at 25 years old. Zendaya is also portrayed as a strong, non-timid figure in
her role in the Spider-man franchise. She does not stray away from danger or from speaking her mind;
this is the way the directors seemingly wanted this version of Mary Jane to be portrayed
as opposed to Kirsten Dunst’s who did serve that “to be rescued” love interest role. Instead of
touching on her skin quality and symmetry which are more blatant and universal health/genetic
markers, we will take a look at the facial proportions and features that make Zendaya’s
face attractive. Zendaya has a near perfectly symmetrical face and healthy skin so there is
not much to elaborate on in that respect. One such feature is her rounded hairline
combined with a short forehead length. While a high forehead can be a neotenous trait,
a rounded and lower hairline is going to be perceived as more feminine than a mature,
M shaped hairline. Zendaya possesses a rounded hairline and her upper third is only 30%
of her total facial height. This provides zendaya with a sort of “boyish” effect; this does not
necessarily masculinize her face, but it adds a youthful facial trait that is commonly found in
boys that have not experienced any male pattern baldness. The next measurable characteristic of
her forehead is her bitemporal width; this divides how wide the face is by the width of the hairline.
Zendaya has an exceedingly low bitemporal width at 68%, with most clinical facial assessments
desiring in the 80-85% range. However, even slightly upwards of 90% produces attractive faces.
This may not be a perfectly ideal percentage, but it adds a unique look and does not significantly
reduce Zendaya’s overall facial attractiveness due to her strong dentofacial development.
Next, let’s take a look at one of Zendeya’s most notable facial features: her face shape.
Similar to Hoyeon Jung, she has a short and wide face with a very high Facial-Width-to-height ratio
at 2.16. Hodges-Simeon et al. discussed how “Our results also showed that sexual dimorphism in fWHR
emerges early, with sex being a significant predictor even in our juvenile sample”.
Additionally; a meta analysis did find significant sexually demorphic differences in FWHR,
but not as much as something like height or voice pitch.One key thing they noted was:
“A lower brow position may be an important factor in raters’ perceptions of aggressiveness,
fighting ability, masculinity, dominance, and threat in those with high fWHR. Research on
emotion attribution from facial features has shown that lower-placed eyebrows are perceived
as more threatening and aggressive regardless of the facial expression and that raters have greater
anger recognition accuracy for high fWHR faces and greater fear accuracy for low fWHR faces”
Instead of attributing a high fwhr with these traits in both men and women, we should also
examine if the brows are high or low set. This makes a large difference in trait perception,
because a high fwhr with medium set brows like Zendeya and a high fwhr with very low set brows
will look different. Tom cruise is an example of a high FWHR(although not quite as high as Zendaya)
and low set brows. It may also be that low-set brows also lead to a higher FWHRbrow calculation
as evident in the study. Zendaya however gains her high FWHR due to a compact midface and wide
cheekbones, similar to Hoyeon. Also similar, she has a mix of juvenile and dimorphic features
that more so align with Western ideals. These ideals include wider faces with traditionally
more masculinizing facial proportions; this is achieved through a larger jaw
width combined with stronger dentofacial growth leading to wider, more prominent cheekbones.
Zendeya’s jaw width is approx. 90% of her total facial width. Combine this with her lower third
height being a bit over that ⅓ mark, and it adds to the strong jaw effect.
Another component to having above average dentofacial growth is a harmonious jaw frontal
angle. An internet survey tried to determine what the most harmonious jaw inclination looked like in
frontal view. We can derive through common sense that the jaw should neither be overly steep or
flat because it can indicate a higher than ideal gonial angle, maloclusion, or other dentofacial
deformity. Zendeya perfectly fits that bill. Zhao et al. stated that “the eyes are the windows of
the soul, then we can consider the eyebrows as curtains. The eye is a picture of life, and the
eyebrow is the picture frame.” Essentially, the eyes and eyebrows are integral to facial harmony.
Zhao et al. geometrically modeled different combinations of eyebrow shapes eye shapes,
and face shapes to find the most attractive combos. What they concluded was “high-bending
eyebrows with small eyes and round face, low-bending eyebrows with large eyes and longer
face will make the facial image have a higher attractiveness score” Following this, Zendeya
does seem to have more high bending eyebrows with smaller, almond shaped eyes and a round,
wide face as opposed to an elongated one. A study by Pallet et al. seeked to find feature
arrangements and spacing that resulted in the most aesthetically pleasing face.
As you can see the interpupillary distance being changed, the perceived attractiveness of the
individual also changes. The most attractive eye separation ratio was about 46% of total facial
width, neither too close set nor wide set. Zendeya has an ideal eye separation ratio of 45.2%.
However, that is one test of harmonious eye spacing; another test is that the eyes should be
about one eye apart. Her eyes are not perfect in that respect, but they are still harmonious.
Moving on to Zendaya’s side profile. Most of her crucial side profile assessments
are within the scientific normal ranges, and dare I say ideal in that respect. Lower nasolabial
angles near 90 degrees produce more masculine profiles, but a nasolabial angle that is too high
is unaesthetic and can appear too upturned in frontal view; thus Zendeya’s is harmonious.
Both Zendaya's total facial convexity and facial convexity demonstrate harmonious dentofacial
alignment; along with her wide bone structure it indicates her face developed ideally. Zendaya
has a flatter side profile with nose included; this is evident from her total facial convexity
being higher than one normal standard deviation from the average. Aside from that,
all of her angles fall within the normal ranges of both Caucasianh and African averages.
Zendaya has a masculine gonial angle at 121 degrees. Usually lower gonial angles are preferred
as they produce sharper, less rounded jaws. However, lower angles are more masculinizing and
lower is better only to an extent. While here at Qoves we have noted, “A jawline of 113 degrees
is very similar to the likes of Angelina Jolie or Kareena Kapoor’s jaw who are both
regarded as beauty standards.” Those are the extremes of low gonial angle and probably the
lower bound for an attractive gonial angle. The most attractive faces will usually lie anywhere
from 113 like Jolie to 130 degrees. it is yet to be seen whether one can
be undoubtedly proven as more attractive than the other; it has to harmonize with facial thirds,
chin height, and other facial features. However it is safe to assume a gonial
angle below 130 degrees will always produce the most attractive faces possible. This ties into the
mandibular plane angle which measures how steep or inclined the jaw is. This is a less variable
number, and most people lie within the normal range of 15-30 degrees. Too steep or too flat of
a mandible can be indicative of malocclusion and result in noticeably unaesthetic increased lower
third height combined with jaw steepness. Zendeya has a perfectly normal mandible inclination
and overall harmonious jawline. To close out, we will take a brief look at the
mouth and nose area. Right off the bat we have to mention that she has a prominent cupid’s bow
that adds to the aesthetic of the lips. In terms of ratios, she maintains an ideal lower: upper lip
ratio, where the lower lip should be about 1.5-2 times the vertical height of the upper lip. Her
nose also maintains a harmonious ratio relative to her mouth; the mouth should be a bit wider than
the nose, and this ratio will vary between races. The mouth width should be wide enough to make
contact with the inner part of the pupils, though, even if the nose width does not fit between
the eyes. This can indicate good dentofacial development as the oral fissure size can give
us some clue into the palate size. If you want to get your facial harmony assessed
order a qoves facial aesthetic report over at our website to get feedback on how specific
facial proportions affect your looks. If you enjoy facial aesthetics and beauty from a
scientific perspective, then subscribe to the channel to catch our upcoming podcast and videos.