The music video for Beyoncé's "Pretty Hurts" criticizes unrealistic societal standards of beauty. Through lyrics and visuals, it shows the physical and emotional toll of trying to conform to expectations of beauty pageants. The video uses various camera shots and lighting to portray Beyoncé's unhappiness with herself and the pageant world at the beginning, and her growing self-acceptance by the end. It aims to teach viewers that true beauty comes from embracing imperfections and loving oneself.

1. Melina Matsoukas -‘Pretty Hurts’
Lucie-Rebekah Carr

2. Pretty Hurts

3. The Narrative
Beyoncé's ‘Pretty Hurts’ is a music video that speaks for itself. The empowerment, inspiration and self-love it teaches. Its spoke through the lyrics that no matter
how perfect you are or ever will be, that to society its still not enough. That more and more is constantly required from you. That you’ve always got to be more
than number one. Being ‘perfect’ is developing into a disease that nobody wants the cure to. Perfection isn’t about how clever you are or how academic you may
be but about your physical presence. Are you skinny; do your lips look full enough; is your bum round enough; do you have that perfect smile; are you happy with
yourself? Everything will fall down to your physical appearance and figure. Your ability to outshine others, that your life has become this roundabout that refuses
to stop spinning until you eventually fall off. Lyrics such as, ‘What’s in your head I doesn’t matter’, ‘What you wear is all that matters’, ‘Pageant the pain away’ and
‘Pretty hurts’ all reflect what’s been said above.
‘Starving, neglected the people I love, conformed to society's expectations which meant losing my true self, all for a trophy. Society's expectations and standard of
beauty is impossible’ – Beyoncé
The entire message of the music video demonstrates that to be beautiful and feel happy within yourself is to firstly find beauty through imperfections and be
good to yourself and others.

4. Camera/Cinematography
At the beginning of the music video we are introduced to Beyoncé by a close up of her face looking into the mirror. She appears unhappy and almost broken. The
use of camera in this music video remains quite basic and follows Beyoncé’s point of view throughout. There are multiple long shots of her getting ready in the
dressing rooms with the other contestants. Within these shots, we are able to see the rivalry between the women and the competitiveness they all pursue. Here,
a medium long shot is used where we are able to see women pulling in their corsets, doing their hair and sorting out there clothes. As well as this, our focus
becomes struck on a particular contestant who holds her waist in with her hands, looking herself up and down. By using these particular shots within the dressing
room its allowing us to enter the world of a pageant contestant. Resembling the reality of what they all feel. It can often come across as very shocking. The extents
they’re willing to go to. This can be shown through the medium close up of Beyoncé eating a cotton wool in supplement for actual food. As well as that, we are
shown multiple times the women throwing up in the toilets. Here, in the lyrics you hear, ‘Pretty Hurts’ revealing the truth of a daily beauty pageant life.
Further on in the music video a long shot of Beyoncé in a corset-style body suit wearing a crown is shown. We see her sat by all her trophy's looking rather fed up
and physically drained. To empathise this prolonged pain a big close up is then used so that were able to see her face even clearer. An extreme close of Beyoncé's
stomach is used when she’s being fitted and measured. By using this we are able to identify that in the pageant industry being thin or having a certain sized waist
is a huge (extreme) part of the overall competition.
At one point in the music video we also see Beyoncé fall underwater where a long shot is used. This represents the thoughts inside her mind when she’s asked
what her aspiration in life is. In a literal sense she wasn’t expecting the questions and probably felt like she’d just been thrown into the deep end. Whereas if you
look into it deeper you can assume the empty sea to be her mind and that she feels very out of herself. To follow on from this a close up is then used when her
hand are placed on her head and we hear the words, ‘to be happy’ in reply to the presenters question. As soon as that’s said, the whole music video almost acts in
a reverse motion where the close ups are now long shots to show that she’s now becoming distance from the pageant her and evolving into who she was meant
to be. To end the music video a close up of Beyoncé's faced is used, the same one seen at the start. However this time, rather than being sad and feeling drowned.
She’s seen smiling with tears in hers eyes to resemble that through all the agony non of it was really worth it and she’s come out in a happy place.

5. Mise-en-scene (CLAMPS)
The majority of clothing throughout the music video are very pageant related. The women are often seen in bikinis and tightly fitted dresses. Being in a role where
you have to look good all the time you wouldn’t expect any less. An example of this would be when all the women are in the dressing room getting ready wearing
bikinis. All the women's hair are either tied up or curled. Beyoncé's for example was tied up out her face which could show her confidence. Beyoncé's makeup was
very cleanly finished and made her look as if she was wearing none. This helped enhance her natural beauty as well a making her look elegant.
Throughout watching the music video I found that when Beyoncé was owning up to being her true self the lighting was dimly lit as if she had to cover it all up. An
example of this would be when she was sat on the sofa singing ‘Pretty Hurts’ with nothing much more than a table lamp on. I also found in the video that when
ever Beyoncé appeared to be putting on a show and/or fake smiling the light was very harsh and white. An example of where this occurred in the music video was
when Beyoncé was on the stage singing her performance piece accompanied by the words, ‘Shine a light on whatever’s worst’. To me, I saw this as Beyoncé
feeling bad within herself not being who she really was but society liked it so she kept to it with a fake smile while the harsh white light beamed upon her face.
The props were very much what you’d expect to see in a women’s dressing room. There were items such as; hair spray, cotton wool, hair dryers, Vaseline, makeup
and hair brushes. These items are all very stereotypical to women. All things were very feminine in way of either colour of very figure hugging.

6. Editing Techniques - Audio
At the beginning of the music video the audio starts off with a piano playing quite slowly and gently giving an empty feel. While this is happening a fade in of
diegetic talking is added to make it seem more natural. We can also hear some of the women arguing, hair dryers blowing and generals move-around noises begin
to join in. As the noise begins to heights with gives the audio more depth we also begin to notice that there's no a violin joined with the piano making it feel less
empty. The audio quickens pace towards the end as the rage increases. In the music video where Beyoncé is asked a question the audio stops and Beyoncé's reply
of, ‘My aspiration in life is …’ becomes echoed. Again, making he whole atmosphere feel empty. We then cut to the scene of her underwater where we hear the
diegetic sound of water movement. While this goes on a voice over is used to repeat the echoed and broken sound of ‘My aspiration in life is …’. We realise that
this is all in her head as were brought back to reality by her answer along side the diegetic clapping. The music comes back in more powerful than ever.
Throughout the whole audio piece ‘Pretty Hurts’ is repetitively said under the vocals constantly emphasising the pain though the lyrics.
The music video uses a lot of cuts from scene to scene to make this appear quicker. The pace of the while music video is rather quick and only slows down during
the scene when Beyoncé is underwater. A panning shot is used when Beyoncé I brought onto stage to make her statement to the presenter. Here we can see the
worry and surprise in her face as it pans right to left. To add emphasise onto her worry the camera zooms in so that just Beyoncé's face is in the screen giving a
claustrophobic feel. Towards the end of the music video where Beyoncé is again looking at her face in the mirror a slow zoom out is used when she answers ‘yes’
to ‘are you happy with yourself’ that all the struggle is slowly fading away.

7. Artistic Performance
Overall, visually her music videos are extremely satisfying and engaging to watch. She covers so many levels within her videos which make the videos have such an
authentic feeling to her name. Her artistic performances reach heights that no other music video director would have thought of. Melina goes above and beyond
with her ideas. Always referring back to her original intentions and ideas.
Here, you can see that Melina
has experimented with colours
and their tones. The purple and
blue really compliment each
other and make the whole
appearance more magical and
experimental
Melina has also trialled various
depths of focus in the second
image giving the music video
definition
Again, you can see that Melina
has played around with the
lighting and here it’s a really
bright white light
Water has been the topic of focus
here and how the different things
move around within the water as
well as adding another medium
into the video