The video depicts a beauty pageant where female contestants go through pain and suffering to change their physical appearance and conform to stereotypes to impress the male judge. It shows the contestants preparing in the dressing room by applying makeup, dresses, and changing their looks unhappily. Throughout the video, Beyoncé contrasts the contestants' initial and final appearances through cuts between her singing with trophies and eventually destroying them, representing how the pageant forces her to pretend to be someone she's not. The video uses props, settings, and sound mixing associated with pageants and performances to emphasize the darker realities behind changing one's looks to please others in such competitions.

1. Lacey’s Repertoire of Elements – Beyoncé
Beyoncé’s pretty hurts video recreates a beauty pageant, in which we see female characters
changing their appearance to win the competition. The video reflects the preparation girls have to
go through before entering pageants. The first scene shows a series of shots of a group of female
characters getting ready in a dressing room. We can see these characters physically changing their
look, putting themselves through pain and suffering through the way their physique and facial
expressions are shown. An example of this would be when a female is shown in a backless dress,
pinching the skin on her body. This is an emphasis on stereotypes of girls in beauty pageants losing
weight and willing to change their look to win.
The appearance of the women in the video contrasts in the beginning and towards the end. At the
start we see female characters getting ready, applying makeup and dresses. However towards the
end these same characters are shown with their makeup on and dressed in elegant dresses. This
conforms to stereotypes of women becoming obsessed with their image, always wanting to impress
male. As the only male character in the video is the judge, therefore the girls are trying to impress
the man. The girls in the video all appear unhappy. This again is emphasising the girls are putting on
a show to impress the male character, using the false smiles, hair and makeup to do so.
The music video shows the story line of girls entering a beauty pageant, competing to become the
winner. The narrative is shown clearly as the story carries on in each shot. However cross cuts are
used showing Beyoncé standing in front of a shelves of trophies. This reminds the audience they are
watching a music video, switching back to Beyoncé singing the song. When Beyoncé says “My
aspiration in life is to be happy.” The camera then cuts to Beyoncé destroying her trophies. This
shows she is not happy in the pageant as she has to pretend to be someone she isn’t. The narrative
is shown clearly through the way the video is edited in chronological order apart from the use of
cross cuts and cut aways to Beyoncé singing the song. However Beyoncé sings the song during the
talent part of the music video. This makes the story more believable and doesn’t conform to any key
features of a typical pop music video, with high key lighting and over exaggerated acting.

2. Props used in the scene are iconic of a beauty pageant. Examples of this include; trophies, elegant
dresses, crowns and makeup. These props are commonly associated with beauty pageant. This is a
contrast to the props that are seen to the girls changing their appearance which reveal more of the
serious side behind pageants. For example there is a scene in which Beyoncé is seen with her face
outlined with a dotted line as a surgeon takes a needle to her face. The prop of the needle
emphasises the serious reality behind beauty pageants and remind the audience that women i n
reality do change their appearance to impress other people.
In this music video the setting is varied. The main settings are the stage where the competition
takes place and the dressing room backstage. This is done to show peoples expectation of a pageant
or a competition and then also show the reality of them backstage. Neither of these settings use
high key lighting, this is done for a dramatic and dark effect which links to the message and narrative
of the song and video. I think this is successfully done to emphasise the darker side to the narrative.
This again goes against our expectations of a pop genre music video. The setting is also used to state
the clear location of the music video. The stage and dressing table show clearly that the video is set
during a beauty pageant as well as the props and characters.
The song ‘Pretty Hurts’ is used both diegetically and none diegetically through the music video.
The sound begins of just a non diegetic as the women in the changing rooms are getting ready. This
is done to introduce our characters before going straight into song. Beyoncé is introduced to the
stage by the pageant show host. A mid-shot shows Beyoncé stood behind a microphone she begins
to sing. In this scene the song is diegetic as she is singing the song. However the camera then cuts to
the next scene the song starts again only this time non diegetic as it is played over short clips of
Beyoncé preparing herself for the pageant. For the rest of the video the sound varies between
diegetic and none diegetic, showing both the narrative and performance style in the video.

3. Beyoncé’s ‘Pretty Hurts’ music video does use Lacey’s repertoire of elements as characters,
iconography and narrative evens are used. Even though the music video is a mixture of the
performance and narrative video the contrast works well to successfully and clearly show the linear
narrative of the storyline.