Media Analysis Paragraph By: Ashley Yaffe - Ashley Yaffe...

Ashley Yaffe
4/1/16 ELA
Media Analysis Paragraph
Are you a woman who tries to look pretty and is happy? Based on
the “Pretty Hurts” video by Beyonce (2013), the artist is trying to show the pain of women
having to be perfect in the media and that a lot of women are not happy because of this problem.
The music video shows how much suffering women have to go through to be perfect by
displaying a bunch of women competing in a beauty pageant. Beyonce’s song, “Pretty Hurts”,
supports a counter narrative about gender, but a dominant narrative about race. The message that
Beyonce is trying to portray in the song is that women do not need to be perfect to be beautiful
and their imperfections should not matter. Beyonce gives another message that race matters in
competitions. These narratives relate to what is shown in the media in general because the media
always criticizes women based on how they look and not their knowledge. The media also does
not show women of color very often.
The “Pretty Hurts” music video supports a counter narrative about gender because
Beyonce shows the issues that women have to go through to be perfect (being skinny, white race,
wearing makeup, and having straight teeth) and how women should not have the idea that the
definition of pretty is being perfect. In the music video the lyrics say, “perfection is a disease of a
nation.” This song sends the message that beauty and perfection is hurting women, but it should
not matter. These words mean that women think that they have to look a specific way in order to
be perfect and they should not have to think that way. This matches a counter narrative that is