Music Video Analysis

Beyoncé- Pretty Hurts (Narrative) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXXQLa-5n5w

Target Audience & Needs

Most Beyoncé fans are usually females or homosexual males at the age range teens and older. Beyoncé is a role model to many girls because a lot of her songs have a meaning behind it that they can relate to. The seven-minute long video to Pretty Hurts shows Beyoncé competing in a beauty pageant contest representing Third Ward; It opens with the sound of a piano and shots of Beyoncé sporting short hair, looking at herself in the mirror. It transitions to a segment of her fellow contestants preparing for the pageant backstage, combing their hair, fitting their dresses and analysing their bodies; one scene during the preparations of the shows is Beyoncé arguing with another contestant over a hair dryer. Multiple shots of the singer follow her sitting on a floor and leaving a bathroom after vomiting, showing the contestants looking tired and distressed backstage and there are clips of Beyoncé consuming diet pills, exercising at her home and measuring her weight to her own dissatisfaction and wrecking a shelf containing her personal trophies when she doesn’t win. Beyoncé has a message throughout this song and video and this could really influence teen girls to make the right decisions when they think they are not ‘perfect’.

Music Video Analysis

Lyrics (Meaning Implied?)

The song is called ‘Pretty Hurts’ for an obvious reason, it’s based on a girl who is doing different things to herself to make her feel comfortable with the way she looks. The first thing she says is ‘My aspiration in life... would be... to be happy’, Happy with the way she looks and feels and this is what the lyrics are about. ‘Mama said, "You're a pretty girl. What's in your head, it doesn't matter. Brush your hair, fix your teeth. What you wear is all that matters.’ When she’s singing this it shows clips of her doing her hair and putting Vaseline all over her teeth.

‘Just another stage, pageant the pain away. This time I'm gonna take the crown. Without falling down, down, down’. She doesn’t want to come 2nd she wants to be crowned ‘Miss Pretty USA’ and she’s saying ignore the pain that she’s putting herself through to feel good just think about the pageant because she doesn’t want to lose she wants the crown and the sash.

Tempo

The tempo starts off slow with the sound of a poignant piano as we see shots of Beyoncé. Once she’s on stage she starts to sing the chorus of the song a Capella whilst the judges write down comments this is when begins during a depiction of Beyoncé in the preparations for the show, in which she combs and sprays her hair, depilates her face and whitens her teeth.

As she finishes singing and everyone claps and she is shown backstage, smearing her make-up, and vomiting in the bathroom, another contestant is pictured eating cotton. The song begins to start, This is when the background music becomes a Hot R&B/Hip-Hop, catchy background sound and Beyoncé starts to sing her lyrics.

Music Video Analysis

Genre

This song has two genres there’s a Power pop and soul. They both work really well within the song.

Camera Technique

In the video they use a lot of different camera techniques whether its close-ups to show the emotion on their faces or long shots to show Beyoncé crying lay on the floor after not winning with her trophies broken all over the floor.

When Beyoncé is making herself sick in the toilet it is filmed as a bird’s eye view, this shows how people would look down on her if people was to find out and that we are the bigger person watching this happen whilst she’s weaker.

Editing

The video itself shows different shots of Beyoncé struggling to maintain herself. It shows us flashbacks of what she is/was going through before her pageant and shows us how she feels and why she is doing this. The editing is mostly just focused on these flashbacks showing us her being sick, and then putting her makeup on, then crying and then going back to her making herself sick again.

Use of Digital Effects

When showing Beyoncé is making herself be sick in the toilet the lighting is very dark to show this is her struggling and not coping well with the stress of the beauty pageant but when she’s on stage singing or anything that she’s confident with the brightness is bright to show her feeling bright and happy instead of doubting herself. By looking at the contrast and colouring It tells you what type of emotion she’s feeling.

Music Video Analysis