What Is Pretty?
Is it thin legs? Small breasts? A flat stomach? Straight, blonde hair?
Or can it be thick legs? Big breasts? A pouch on your stomach? Curly hair?
Watch Pretty Hurts
In Pretty Hurts, Beyoncé is a pageant queen representing the Third Ward of Houston. While pageant queens look poised and beautiful to the public, Beyoncé points to the stress of public appearance and the pressure to become thinner, prettier, and more feminine.
Pretty Hurts shows the inner struggles of women with eating disorders and self-perception problems. Beyoncé shows tragic scenes of other pageant contestants eating cotton balls to fill their empty stomachs. One scene shows Beyoncé getting measured by, what appears to be, a pageant coach. She is quickly scorned for being too heavy even though her waist looks very small.
At one instance, Beyoncé had been working out and steps on the scale to weigh herself. When she looks up, you can sense a feeling of disgust and shame for the number that appears on the scale. The video shows the behind the scenes of a pageant queen—waxing, tanning, injections, and eating disorders—which ruin her self-esteem and self-worth. Just by watching the video you can feel the pressure that these pagaent contestants feel to remain thin and beautiful.
Beyoncé sings,
“Blonder hair, flat chest, TV says bigger is better. South beach, sugar free, thinner is better.”
This quote demonstrates the intense pressure to try diets and change your appearance to become skinnier and have the “ideal” body. The self-hatred is evident throughout her entire video and it is juxtaposed by the seemingly put-together pageant scenes.
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Throughout the pageant scenes, Beyoncé has a smile on her face, and she tells the pageant judge that her, "goal in life is to be happy." But, in the pageant industry she is in, happiness is a facade, and women are forced to be someone that they are not.
The most noteworthy line, in my opinion, is when she says,
“Shine the light on whatever’s worse, perfection is the disease of a nation. Pretty hurts.”
Beyoncé is confronting the societal pressure for women to be skinny. Perfection is truly a disease of our nation that detrimentally hurts women's physical and mental health. Beyoncé has always been a full woman with curves and strong legs. But, even Beyoncé faces the scrutiny of the public world calling her fat and hating on her looks. While Beyoncé never publicly discusses weight pressure, Pretty Hurts sufficiently explains her frustration with the current system.
Beyoncé didn’t just stop challenging this societal issue after she released Pretty Hurts. She quickly began the hashtag campaign, #WhatIsPretty, to encourage all people to share on social media their stories and struggles with self-image. The campaign showed that this is not just a problem within one industry of pageants, this is a nation-wide issue that affects all people. Social media users were able to redefine what they think pretty is, and the campaign sparked a movement towards self-love.
What is pretty campaign video
When you watch Pretty Hurts you can see Beyoncé attempting to relate to a wide audience of people. You can feel her pain, and you can feel similar pain. I could understand how it feels to be frustrated when I’m five pounds overweight or when I compare myself to the countless beautiful women I pass on the street. I’m sitting here writing this piece after I just finished a salad, and I am thinking about what my next low-carb meal is going to be in order to keep my weight down. It’s easier said than done, but this song does make women, just like me, think for a second about the stress we put on ourselves to look thinner and to be considered “pretty.”
Through intense scenes of self-hate, Beyoncé ends her video with a smile on her face, which gives the audience hope that she will eventually achieve higher self-confidence. Beyoncé is reaching out to women to show that she understands, and to ignore society and appreciate your body and appearance.