"Pretty Hurts" is a song recorded and produced by American singer Beyoncé Knowles with an accompanying music video directed by Melina Matsoukas. The song is a power pop and soul ballad with R&B and hip hop undertones and a main focus on subjects of third-wave feminism, self-empowerment and body image [SOURCE]. The music video's beauty contest concept was proposed by Beyoncé who decided to utilise this setting to address the issue of unattainable beauty standards set by society. [SOURCE].
The narrative for the seven-minute long, dark-colour schemed, graphic music video is used to express the video’s controversial theme and to provide an illustration of the song’s lyrics. The music video starts with slow moving camera shots of Beyoncé and …show more content…
In this moment of hesitation the audio stops, a soft piano can be heard and Beyoncé’s character is seen drowning, which can be interpreted as drowning from the pressures of society. This moment of hesitation allows the viewer time to self reflect on their own aspirations in life. The scene where Beyoncé’s character loses the pageant and an albino woman wins suggests to the viewers that standards for “conventionally” beautiful women are false and should be changed and shows that all the effort of living up to beauty standards is unworthy of the time and dedication spent as people still may not be accepted by society, even after all the time they’ve put in to achieve perfection. Additionally, the scenes where Beyoncé is pictured wrecking a shelf of trophies and smearing her makeup represents the overcoming of beauty standards and realising the importance of self acceptance. The last scene depicts the singer looking happy and smiling with no makeup, she then looks into the camera and asks ‘are you happy with yourself?’ [SOURCE] . By Beyoncé using this direct mode of address with the audience it allows a time of personal reflection for viewers to question whether they accept themselves and to connect with the song and its …show more content…
Colours of the costumes like pink, yellow and white are used a lot to represent happiness, delicacy and femininity. Contestants change costume excessively throughout the video illustrating how important image becomes when dictated by society’s idea of perfection. The locations used are in a home-like environment, in the pageant dressing room and onstage of a beauty pageant. These point of view shots are very important within the video because it puts the audience in her position and shows how much “pretty hurts”. Body language and posture backstage is mostly slouched whereas onstage posture is upright and the contestants are smiling most of the time. This contrast shows how the characters feel behind closed doors and how they pretend to feel to society to mask their unhappiness. During the backstage scenes the artist is the focal point of the shot whilst onstage she blends in more with other contestants. Tracking shots also reinforce this to show the similarities between the women and how they are ‘all the same’ through the eyes of men and judges. The use of yellow and how they are all dressed in it reinforces this idea that they are all the
The narrative for the seven-minute long, dark-colour schemed, graphic music video is used to express the video’s controversial theme and to provide an illustration of the song’s lyrics. The music video starts with slow moving camera shots of Beyoncé and …show more content…
In this moment of hesitation the audio stops, a soft piano can be heard and Beyoncé’s character is seen drowning, which can be interpreted as drowning from the pressures of society. This moment of hesitation allows the viewer time to self reflect on their own aspirations in life. The scene where Beyoncé’s character loses the pageant and an albino woman wins suggests to the viewers that standards for “conventionally” beautiful women are false and should be changed and shows that all the effort of living up to beauty standards is unworthy of the time and dedication spent as people still may not be accepted by society, even after all the time they’ve put in to achieve perfection. Additionally, the scenes where Beyoncé is pictured wrecking a shelf of trophies and smearing her makeup represents the overcoming of beauty standards and realising the importance of self acceptance. The last scene depicts the singer looking happy and smiling with no makeup, she then looks into the camera and asks ‘are you happy with yourself?’ [SOURCE] . By Beyoncé using this direct mode of address with the audience it allows a time of personal reflection for viewers to question whether they accept themselves and to connect with the song and its …show more content…
Colours of the costumes like pink, yellow and white are used a lot to represent happiness, delicacy and femininity. Contestants change costume excessively throughout the video illustrating how important image becomes when dictated by society’s idea of perfection. The locations used are in a home-like environment, in the pageant dressing room and onstage of a beauty pageant. These point of view shots are very important within the video because it puts the audience in her position and shows how much “pretty hurts”. Body language and posture backstage is mostly slouched whereas onstage posture is upright and the contestants are smiling most of the time. This contrast shows how the characters feel behind closed doors and how they pretend to feel to society to mask their unhappiness. During the backstage scenes the artist is the focal point of the shot whilst onstage she blends in more with other contestants. Tracking shots also reinforce this to show the similarities between the women and how they are ‘all the same’ through the eyes of men and judges. The use of yellow and how they are all dressed in it reinforces this idea that they are all the