Pretty Hurts Beyoncé

Explore how values and cultural values have been represented in the text: The music video for Beyoncé's song "pretty hurts" has Beyoncé playing a beauty pageant contestant, who does everything in her power to look flawless, yet is unable to achieve her desired goals to be happy. The music video is targeted at an audience range of females between the ages of 12-30. In today's society pressure from the media put on female to have the values of beauty or perfection can have a horrible effect. .

In today's society, perfection is portrayed as the ultimate beauty standard. Young girls all over the world are given a barbie doll by the time they can walk. What do these dolls look like? Tall, blonde, twig thin,big breast, tanned skin, white teeth,long hair, blue eyes and perfect skin. No one is like this so why do we aspire to look like this? In regards to the lyric "it's the soul that needs the surgery" Beyoncé is trying to say that we don't need to change how we look on the outside we need to change how we see things on the inside. As human our souls need "surgery" or fixing to realise what's really important in life. This line gives the audience a mental image of what beauty is portrayed to be in society. Images of perfection in the media are so constant and extreme they can become dangerous. Images of super models in magazines and images become the standard of perfection that every person, even the model aspire to be.The photo shopped images of perfection reach almost every single corner and this message is so big, so powerful, and that is heard and followed but most teenagers. The lyrics "We shine the lights on whatever's worse" this line is significant because it tell the target audience that today's human population focuses on the flaws they see in themselves. 96% of teens, from the age of 13-20 would change their body type if they could. This lyric demonstrates how as humans we are trained to see the negatives in ourselves, or a spotlight at our insecurities. If we focused on our positive traits, then we would be happier all around. A significant amount of people, think these things will create a sense of happiness, attract more friends leading to an increase in popularity and feeling of being loved. Unfortunately, the repetition procedures are merely a distraction from the things that will truly make people happy, true friends, close family. And an inner sense of self acceptance and love.

Beauty as a concept is highly regarded by societ, obtaining the socially set standard of beauty, which becomes the norm of society, is a painful process for both the people who are pretty and the those who are not. As the standard of beauty is so high people can't accept their selfs for who they really are. The pretty people have to continuously hurt their bodies to keep up with socially idealised standards, while those who don't possess the same qualities are judged and are negatively affected by the judgment. By believing that changing our appearance will make us happier, we often end up obsessing over dieting or plastic surgery rather than doing the things in life that truly bring lasting happiness. Focusing on helping others is proven to bring feelings of happiness and satisfaction while restricting what you're eating can just make you feel more unhappy and frustrated. a shot of a pageant contestant resorting to using cotton ball and orange juice diet, struggling to swallow the cotton ball but still persisting