Comparing Beyoncé's Pretty Hurts To Cristina Aguilera

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.

Two women from two different backgrounds have so much in common yet they are so different. One grew up in Houston, Texas while the other grew up in Saint Michael, Barbados. Even though these two women have had very different up bringing the one thing they have in common is their great voices. These two women’s background, musical style, and other career ventures make them both two of the best female artist in their field.

“Beauty” by Tony Hoagland was written in 1998. In this poem, Hoagland expresses his feelings on how women care too much about physical appearances. Throughout his poem he tells the story through the eyes of a brother of a girl who learns to love herself for who she is. Hoagland’s poem stresses the importance that beauty goes deeper than the surface. Throughout his poem, Tony Hoagland uses many literary devices to perfect his poem. These devices include the message, tone, imagery, figures of speech, and personification.

If you ask twenty people to define beauty you will receive, in all probability, twenty different definitions. Beauty, being as ambiguous as it is, leaves room for interpretation. Alice Walker, in “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self”, attempts to demonstrate that perception is subjective, and she successfully does so. Albeit, our perceptions do change as we go through life, experiencing and learning. By taking the reader on a sequential journey throughout her life and establishing a sentimental and sympathetic tone, Walker is able to portray that accepting and loving yourself is greater than being considered “beautiful” by society.

Based off the lyrics, the song is all about how Beyonce truly feels deep down inside. The message behind

Next, as Helen Keller explained, “beauty is not always seen, but it is also felt in the heart.” Beauty felt by the heart can also be found anywhere. This attribute of beauty can define a person’s heart and personality; not described as an inspiring view, or it can explain a person’s actions. In fact, a person can be beautiful just front the way they act towards others or the way they go about their daily lives. For instance, a simple smile from an individual helping a homeless person can be defined as beautiful. Additionally, someone sitting in a coffee shop lost in thought while reading a book or a child playing in the park. Beauty can also be found in a baby sleeping peacefully or even an elderly couple walking and holding hands. During these unintentional moments, the viewer is allowed to see past what society wants people to think is beautiful and is truly able to catch a glimpse of what Keller describes as beauty being felt by the heart.

This is an inspirational song for an average teenage girl, but as I pointed out there were some contradictions to the lyrics and the meaning. They may want to see themselves as beautiful in every way possible, but the world is a puzzle and there is a piece that is gone because of what has become socially acceptable.

Beyonce uses pathos, the first of the three appeals in her song by using very descriptive phrases. When she states, “I’d listen to her, `cause I know how it hurts,” Beyonce is telling her audience that she understands what it is like to be hurt, and that if she were a boy, she would treat her women better because she could understand where she was coming from. This tugs at the listener’s heart because you can see that she has been emotionally hurt from a past relationship. Also, many people can relate to what she is disclosing. It is human nature for people to get emotionally damaged in a relationship and therefore her feelings are empathized. She also uses syntax by the way she orders her words by telling a story. If the song was not in story form, it would not produce the great impact that it does.

"Beauty isn't about having a pretty face. It is about having a pretty mind, a pretty heart, and most importantly, a beautiful soul." (Unknown) Beauty is not just about being beautiful on the outside it is also on the inside. I feel that people have to be beautiful both on the inside and outside. Beauty is mostly on the inside because they are the people who are nicer and kinder. A person personality can make the person more beautiful because it is the way people act and talk. People are more beautiful on the inside because it is the way people talk and act.

A Beautiful You “To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.” (author unknown) In Ayn Rand’s

Finally, the last stanza depicts a slight playfulness between the guy and the girl. I sense that the girl still feels that she is not beautiful enough for the guy. The guy commented on how beautiful her lips are and yet she still feels that he is teasing her. Towards, the end of the stanza, the guy finally convinces the girl that her looks don’t matter to him. “Cause girl you’re amazing, just the way you are!”

Is it true that pain is beauty? Melanie Martinez challenges this question in her music video for the song “Mr. Potato Head” Lyrically, the song deals with plastic surgery, its consequences, and the struggle for beauty in the modern world, especially for women. In the music video the fictional character Melanie Martinez created, Cry Baby, watches the decay of a woman pressured to undergo plastic surgery through a television screen. The woman suffers a horrible surgery gone wrong and it teaches Cry Baby that she doesn’t need to enhance her appearance because she’s beautiful the way she is. This song isn’t about bashing women who get plastic surgery, but more of "Why are you doing this when you're beautiful without it?" (Martinez, 2015) Martinez

Scars to your beautiful, by Alessia Cara, says that we’re good enough just the way we are, and outer beauty is not the only beauty that matters. Women experience a lot of pressure to make themselves look appealing, but this song says that we should love and appreciate ourselves no matter what. We have to perceive that there are diverse types of beauty in the world, and not just the beauty of our outer appearance. “And you don't have to change a thing/ The world could change its heart” is a line from the poem that asserts that you’re perfect just the way you are, and you don’t have to change yourself just to fit in with everyone.

What exactly does Christina Aguilera try to convey? According to her words along with personal interviews of the true meaning of this stanza in her song, Beautiful, Christina Aguilera approaches the reader and listener with her profound emotions. She perceives that through immense pressure and criticism, she is still "beautiful."

A young girl may hear a variety of tips on how to beautify herself, but do these pieces of advice make her genuinely happy? That sometimes depends on the music she hears around her, particularly on the radio. Many hit pop contemporary radio singles, generally performed by female recording artists, encourage a distorted perception of beauty that leads to the state of perception, which is usually nearly impossible to achieve. However, a select group of songs by female performers and their accompanying music videos promote the ideology that young women and girls do not have to make dramatic changes to their body or appearance to be perceived as beautiful. This message is widely spread by singers including Beyoncé, Meghan Trainor, and Alessia Cara.