The song Pretty Hurts, written by Sia Furler and performed by Beyonce Knowles in a video directed by Melina Matsoukas has been viewed more than 203 million times on YouTube. At first glance the lyrics and storyline of the video, are moving and even at some points heartbreaking. The setting of a beauty pageant shows some of the darker aspects of girls trying to fit into societal beauty standards, which is all too relatable for far too many people. It might not be until your second or third viewing that you begin to realize that it may not be as powerful as you first thought, or at least not in the way you first thought. There are a few major flaws with the message of the video that could potentially be making these problem worse. In this paper
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As previously mentioned, the video is about a beauty pageant that Beyonce is competing in. It is framed as though Beyonce does not fit in with the rest of the contestants, with her peers ostracizing her for not meeting their standards of beauty. The video then shows what she puts herself through in order to get her peers’ and the judges’ approval, which is meant to represent the everyday societal expectation put on women to meet a certain standard of beauty. One issue she addresses are eating disorders, and she does this in a couple of ways. There is a scene with a stoic looking Beyonce walking into a bathroom, and aesthetically draping herself over a toilet to make herself throw up. Another scene shows a different competitor eating a cotton ball after dipping it in orange juice, and then striking a pose in the mirror. This is “trendy” form of anorexia known as the cotton ball diet where you fill up on cotton balls so that you aren’t hungry and don’t eat actual food. While it is important to address eating disorders and the havoc they can wreck on women, there are a few issues with these scenes. For one thing, there were no actual downsides shown, the girls were able to continue competing in the pageant. No vomit was seen, no shakiness, none of the dangerous side effects were shown, just skinny girls going about their routines. While it may not be intentional, this could make eating disorders seem like a viable option for some girls, with the only consequence being getting thinner. Another scene shows Beyonce in the gym, while the lyrics say, “Vogue says thinner is better,” once again trying to show some of the extremes that people put themselves through to get a “good” body. The problem here is, once again, that none of the actual downsides were shown. In the scene, Beyonce does a couple of reps of one workout, bicycles for a few seconds, and then steps on the scale. She doesn’t even break a
As previously mentioned, the video is about a beauty pageant that Beyonce is competing in. It is framed as though Beyonce does not fit in with the rest of the contestants, with her peers ostracizing her for not meeting their standards of beauty. The video then shows what she puts herself through in order to get her peers’ and the judges’ approval, which is meant to represent the everyday societal expectation put on women to meet a certain standard of beauty. One issue she addresses are eating disorders, and she does this in a couple of ways. There is a scene with a stoic looking Beyonce walking into a bathroom, and aesthetically draping herself over a toilet to make herself throw up. Another scene shows a different competitor eating a cotton ball after dipping it in orange juice, and then striking a pose in the mirror. This is “trendy” form of anorexia known as the cotton ball diet where you fill up on cotton balls so that you aren’t hungry and don’t eat actual food. While it is important to address eating disorders and the havoc they can wreck on women, there are a few issues with these scenes. For one thing, there were no actual downsides shown, the girls were able to continue competing in the pageant. No vomit was seen, no shakiness, none of the dangerous side effects were shown, just skinny girls going about their routines. While it may not be intentional, this could make eating disorders seem like a viable option for some girls, with the only consequence being getting thinner. Another scene shows Beyonce in the gym, while the lyrics say, “Vogue says thinner is better,” once again trying to show some of the extremes that people put themselves through to get a “good” body. The problem here is, once again, that none of the actual downsides were shown. In the scene, Beyonce does a couple of reps of one workout, bicycles for a few seconds, and then steps on the scale. She doesn’t even break a