15-year-old actress Rowan Blanchard was never your typical Disney girl: outspoken, political, and mature, she never fell into the same category that Miley, Selena, Demi, and more who came before her did. And now that Girl Meets World is done, she’s relieved to move on.
Speaking with Nylon, she confided that,
“I feel good about it now in the sense that, as much as I loved my Girl Meets World family, working for the Disney Channel is stressful, and I have more freedom to do what I want and talk about what I want without feeling inhibited.”
Not that Disney ever tried to stop her from getting political. As she explains,
“I think they actually figured out somewhere along the line that no matter what they said I wasn’t really going to stop.”
Along with her friends Yara Shahidi and Amandla Stenberg, Blanchard has become part of a new kind of generation which is politically active and aware, not to mention extremely well-read. She’s used her fame and power to educate her younger fans on intersectional feminism and the issues that affect young women.
It’s because of her awareness that she was initially reluctant to join the Disney cast at all, saying, “You know what happens to those girls.”
She adds,
“I knew the show would end someday, and I didn’t want there to be this weird part where it was like, good girl, good girl, good girl, and then, all of a sudden, bam, she’s going to show her boobs.”
In fact, if she’s going to rebel like the typical Disney kid, it’s going to be in the other direction.
“Part of my rebellion is saying, ‘I’m going to educate myself.’”
Since Girl Meets World ended, Rowan Blanchard has spoken at the Women’s March and spent her days attending charity benefits.
