Analysis Of Beyonce's Song 'Pretty Hurts'

Even though media vaunts an iridescent image of what every girl should look like, the simple fact is just, it is impossible. It is because the pictures in the media are not true—they all have gone through lots of Photoshop. Only 5 percent of women have the body type seen in almost all advertisements. Besides, most of fashion models are thinner than 98 percent of American women. However, women still continue to do whatever they can in order to fit into that idea of ‘perfection’. Eating disorders have harassed who want to feel like they are ‘beautiful’, for years. Women are willing to do anything even though it can cause harm to their own self due to low self-esteem. Do you want your sister, friends or girl friends always feel depressed and doing harm to themselves, as they feel dissatisfied about their

Beyoncé is a singer known for her fantastic voice, rejuvenating dance moves, and most importantly her empowering throughout her songs. These skills are no different in her song “Pretty Hurts.” Released on June 10, 2014, from her self-titled album Beyoncé, the song written by Sia, Joshua “Ammo” Coleman, and Beyoncé herself resonates its empowering message with people of all different genders, body types, and races. This song, in particular, is targeted towards women, especially young women who are still developing. Beyoncé gained popularity when she started off in an all-female group named Destiny’s Child back in 1997, and once she broke off from the group, she only continued to grow as an artist and person. In all six of Beyoncé’s solo studio albums, there are songs with galvanizing messages of female power and all of them reached number 1 on the charts. In Beyoncé’s song “Pretty Hurts,” she uses social issues, rhetorical appeals such as pathos, literary devices, metaphors, and vivid imagery to further the theme of female empowerment.

There are beauty standards all over the world, but America has one of the most highest and unreachable standard of the all. In the article “Whose Body is This,” the author Katherine Haines reflects the issue on how narrow-minded society, magazine and the rest of media is depicting the perfect body. The ideal body in America is established as skinny, tall, perfect skin, tight body are characteristics that destroyed majority of woman’s self esteem (172). As girls get older and into their teen years, they have been brainwashed to need to look like the unrealistic, and photoshopped models in magazines and advertisements. Girls don’t feel comfortable to be in their own skin, because they were not taught to love themselves for who they are right in the beginning.

Throughout the song, the plot consists of multiple bystanders. The bystander that is mentioned in verse two is, “The teacher wonders, but she doesn’t ask/It’s hard to see the pain behind the mask” (lines 5-6). The teacher suspects the girl has an issue with abuse, but she ignores her suspicions, assuming the girl is happy because she hides it well. The teacher’s reaction is a common experience for many adults because most adults assume an abused child appears okay, when the child may not be. The following situation that involved a bystander was, “Somebody cries in the middle of the night/The neighbors hear, but they turn out

“Beauty is subjective yet American society creates an objective facade of what beauty is and how it looks and that is one does not fit in to it than they are not “attractive,” superficially over substance, Americans simply are uncomfortable being themselves” (Williams). The beauty standards for women are shaped by society’s ideas of beauty. When women try to fit these beauty standards to be accepted into society, men think they have the right to objectify women and their bodies. Of course, it’s never the man’s fault when he gets caught doing just that. Beauty standards for women are getting to a point where they are almost unrealistic, and often leads to someone objectifying a women’s body, which of course, society says it’s not the man’s fault.

“Pretty Hurts” by Beyonce is embedded with Pathos.“Are you happy with yourself?, ” (Beyonce, Pretty Hurts). This line of the song provoking and emotion-filled song causes the listener to think about their self-esteem. The lyrics have the ability to emotionally connect to the audience that he or she is speaking to, as the topic is not one spoken about much. The emotions of how society can make people feel, pressured, self-conscious, not worthy. The songs make the audience reflect on themselves, do they fall into the pressure? The diction used surfaces sadness, shame, indignation. “ain't got no doctor or pill that can take the pain away” creates sadness, as many people change themselves into someone they are not, such as taking pills and undergoing

Females have been constantly shamed for generations if one does not act, dress or look a certain way. The media has been a major influence on women from a young age on how one is perceived in society. The media has created an impossible goal for women to achieve. The media will take multiple different parts of women that are seen as perfect and Photoshop them and put them on billboards (Kilbourne, 2010). This makes young girls lead a life where one will inevitably fail to what she has always been shown as the ideal women. This causes eating disorders, depression and low self-esteem in women, which leads to mass amounts of unnecessary cosmetic reconstruction surgeries (Kilbourne, 2010). This is just one negative issue with the way societal norms degrades women. Women are constantly portrayed as objects and to be viewed as lesser than a male. The way men are shown of needing a masculine side and cannot show femininity

In Beyoncé’s song, “Pretty Hurts” and Christina Aguilera’s song, “Beautiful” are very similar songs. However there are some differences. In the song “Pretty Hurts” talks about how being pretty is not defined by what you wear or how you look. While “Beautiful” talks about how people feel bad about themselves. The intended audience are somewhat similar, the tone, the mood, and the purpose in both songs are similar.

All American females live in a society that puts undue pressure on women to accommodate an unreasonable ideal, and the Euro-American standard of beauty has dominated popular culture causing devastating economic, physical, and psychological effects, particularly on African American women, who should embrace their natural beauty. African American women make destructive changes to their body that will break down their bank accounts, and the woman's physical body appearance to the naked eye. Rhinoplasty, breast augmentation, and botulinum toxin are just some of the costly surgeries that have major changes and that can cost up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Physically, African American women begin

Beauty has become stigmatized in our culture. Women are starving themselves and men are abusing steroids in a never ending quest to achieve what is to be believed is the perfect body. This has led to an increase in cases of lower self esteem, body dysmorphia issues, and eating disorders. Popular culture has influenced what is to be perceived as beautiful, especially in women. All of this pressure is coming from magazines, movies, reality television, music, social networking, and peer pressure.

Writing for the Huffington Post, Temimah Zucker presents her opinion on society’s expectation for women in America through different forms of communication and advertisement. Zucker’s article is based off of what you as a woman, think of yourself, versus what society thinks of you. Zucker believes that society’s opinions and beliefs will constantly change through the generations, but your thoughts about your own beauty will not become gray to you; “Beauty is molded by society -- by the advertising, fashion, and cosmetic industries. We live in a society of billboards and ads, Photoshop, and Botox. We are trained to believe that size two is perfect, while most healthy women in America fit into a size 12.” (1)

In the middle of the video, it states that, “In one survey, 91% of women said they would rather cancel a first date, than go without wearing makeup” (2014). Society standards are set so high that these young women believe that they will not find love if they are not beautiful. Women think that they have to be covered in make up in order for a male to be attracted to them. Another statistic that this video gives the viewers is that, “A United Kingdom study suggests British women spend 474 days of their life applying makeup” and “The average women spends $15,000 on makeup in her lifetime” (2014). That is 474 days and $15,000 wasted in order to be “beautiful.” If society did not put such a strain on women’s looks, then women would be comfortable in their own

America’s poor body image can lead to an unhealthy lifestyle. The standards of how society views women as beautiful have changed throughout the years. Seeing constantly that only women who are a size two are considered beautiful doesn’t make loving yourself easier. These issues cause depression and eating disorders among women and some extreme cases the criticism and self-hatred lead to suicide. The reason often evolves from people picking on them and constantly being put down by the media. The media is mostly to blame for these false perceptions of beauty, through their advertisements and the type of women they cast for lead roles. Recently, there's been small movements of progress. More diverse women, ethnically diverse and bodily diverse, have been making waves. America must step up to the plate to challenge the media on the narrative they've set forth for women's bodies. Ultimately, women must take back this

In J. Cole’s music video “She Knows” he tells a story through a juvenile young man's point of view, who is also the visual motif. The video begins with the young man stealing money from his parents. Starting with his title the viewer becomes curious as if this is the thing “She Knows”; and by default “She” being the young man's mother. The message of J.Cole’s video is predominately captured in two different scenes. The first being when the young man's mother gazes at him as he is being dropped off at school and the second being when the young man gazes at his mom, he walked into his house after school and found his mom with another man. Although both scenes add to the overall meaning of the video, they each does have a meaning of their own.

It 's not a mystery that society 's ideals of beauty have a drastic and frightening effect on women. Popular culture frequently tells society, what is supposed to recognize and accept as beauty, and even though beauty is a concept that differs on all cultures and modifies over time, society continues to set great importance on what beautiful means and the significance of achieving it; consequently, most women aspire to achieve beauty, occasionally without measuring the consequences on their emotional or physical being. Unrealistic beauty standards are causing tremendous damage to society, a growing crisis where popular culture conveys the message that external beauty is the most significant characteristic women can have. The approval of prototypes where women are presented as a beautiful object or the winner of a beauty contest by evaluating mostly their physical attractiveness creates a faulty society, causing numerous negative effects; however, some of the most apparent consequences young and adult women encounter by beauty standards, can manifest as body dissatisfaction, eating disorders that put women’s life in danger, professional disadvantage, and economic difficulty.