MV Critique 1

Music Video Critique 1

The song Pretty Hurts addresses the issue of society’s focus on outer beauty and the effect it has on women. Beyoncé Knowles’s music video Pretty Hurts was released on December 13, 2013 and ironically produced by a production company by the name of Prettybird. The music video was well done and well thought out because the images depicted in the video serve to enhance the lyrics of the song instead of detracting from them. The director, Melina Matsoukas does a great job of highlighting the song’s lyrics by setting the stage of the music video at a beauty pageant, which is the ideal setting to demonstrate society’s obsession with physical perfection.

The message of the song is best stated within its hook in which Beyoncé sings, “perfection is a disease of a nation, pretty hurts… we shine a light on whatever’s worst, we try to fix something but you can’t fix what you can’t see, it’s the soul that needs the surgery”. She is basically stating that society has become so fixated on the idea that women have to be physically perfect that instead of celebrating the things that make each woman beautiful, we have started focusing on what is keeping them from being even more beautiful or perfect.

The idea that “pretty hurts” is expressed in the song and depicted in the video in two ways. The first way it is addressed is the bodily harm that women go through to achieve physical beauty. The song lists plastic smiles, doctors and pills as some of the ways women attempt to appear more appealing. The music video does an even better job of showing this; you see the beauty pageant contestants waxing their facial hair, pushing themselves to the limit exercising, swallowing cotton balls, injecting Botox, getting plastic surgery and forcing their selves to throw up. Some of these things seem a little extreme or even slightly disturbing to watch but that only helps emphasize just how far women will go to reach this impossible standard of beauty being set. The second way the song states that “pretty hurts” is much deeper, it delves into the serious psychological effects that the emphasis on physical beauty has on women. The most impactful quote from the song is when the music takes a break and Beyoncé says that her aspiration in life is to be happy. The music video then cuts to clips of her crying and rubbing off her makeup, smashing trophies, and drowning in water. These images reinforce the statement in the hook that “it’s the soul that needs the surgery” meaning that happiness is not obtained through destroying your body for superficial beauty.

The music video is well done because the lyrics and images work together to truly intensify the message of the song and put a spotlight on the issue of society’s fixation on perfection and the toxic influence it has on women of all ages.