Pretty Hurts – Beyonce
English 2.9 – Wide Reading Text style: Short text
Written by: Beyonce Produced by: Beyonce and Ammo
Background info/brief summary of the text
[Verse 1]
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”
[Pre-Chorus]
This time I’m gonna take the crown
Without falling down, down, down
[Chorus]
We shine the light on whatever’s worst
Perfection is a disease of a nation
We shine the light on whatever’s worst
Tryna fix something
But you can’t fix what you can’t see
It’s the soul that needs a surgery
[Verse 2]
Blonder hair, flat chest
TV says bigger is better
South beach, sugar free
Vogue says thinner is better
[Pre-Chorus]
Just another stage, pageant the pain away
This time I’m gonna take the crown
Without falling down, down, down
[Chorus]
We shine the light on whatever’s worst
Perfection is a disease of a nation
We shine the light on whatever’s worst
But you can’t fix what you can’t see
It’s the soul that needs the surgery
Ain’t got no doctor or pill that can take the pain away
The pain’s inside and nobody frees you from your body
It’s the soul, it’s the soul that needs surgery
(It’s my soul that needs surgery)
Plastic smiles and denial can only take you so far
Then you break when the fake façade leaves you in the dark
You left with shattered mirrors and the shards of a beautiful past
[Chorus]
We shine the light on whatever’s worst
Perfection is a disease of a nation
Pretty hurts
We shine the light on whatever’s worst
Tryna fix something
But you can’t fix what you can’t see
It’s the soul that needs a surgery
[Outro]
When you’re alone all by yourself
And you’re lying in your bed
Reflection stares right into you
Are you happy with yourself?
You stripped away the masquerade
The illusion has been shed
Are you happy with yourself?
Are you happy with yourself?
Yeah, yes (Ah, ah, ah)
Personal response
Pretty hurts is a song written by Beyonce about the prejudices that come with being a girl. The expectations of being beautiful and the confinements to what beautiful is. From reading through the lyrics I reaffirmed in my mind how complicated these expectations of beauty are. Of course I understand the struggles that come with these expectations, I’m a teenage girl in 2019 and I often find myself obsessed with my image and and how to “improve” it. However this attitude has become normalised in my mind and from reading through the lyrics I realised and reaffirmed how twisted and overwhelming this attitude is.
The form of prejudice in this song is clearly sexism represented through the ideas and attitudes of unrealistic beauty expectations and the expectation that beauty should be a priority for all women. The song begins with the lines
“Mama said, “You’re a pretty girl
What’s in your head, it doesn’t matter”
Immediately establishing a toxic attitude that is taught to us, in Beyonce’s situation, by her mother and for many of us, if not by our mothers, then by society. We are commonly taught to value ourselves as a physical attraction to other people and to focus on being pretty as if there isn’t any more to it.
“Brush your hair, fix your teeth
What you wear is all that matters”
I reflected on how this attitude affects my own life and it does everyday. I don’t want to consider myself vain but if I am honest I do constantly find myself prioritising time and energy into trying to be beautiful. This was difficult for me contemplate because I guess I have never wanted to admit to myself that I’ve been swayed by other people’s perception or opinion. I don’t like the idea of conforming for the sake of feeling comfortable. I like to feel strong in my views and myself. I value knowledge, strength of character, passion, culture and everything else that sits on a deeper and more sophisticated level than the physical appearance. But I have to be honest with myself, societal expectations do affect the way I am, the way I see myself. My eating habits, what I do before I go to bed and when I wake up in the morning, my skin care regime, what I wear and even if it’s not affecting a decision I’m making it’s something that sits in the back of my mind. My mum has always told me I’m beautiful and that I don’t need to change myself for anything or anyone. She has taught me perseverance, integrity and strength. She has dragged me up mountains, made me sit at the piano and practice my scales and showed what real hard work, real failure and real success looks like. She showed and made me value what it is to be a strong woman. Hence why I feel a sense of guilt as I sometimes contradict what she has taught me and let my appearance determine how I feel about myself. As I looked into it more I realised, due to my guilt, I have been decorating my vanity with excuses. I say I like to workout / run because exercising is good for my mind and mental health. This is true and something I need but there is a line drawn when I can’t forgive myself for skipping a day or two of being active. Thinking I’m unattractive or lesser because my stomach is slightly less defined or my thigh gap isn’t so prominent. I like taking care of my skin / eyebrows / eyelashes / everything else that’s on my face by buying nice products and going through my regime in the morning and at night. As I think more about it, it wasn’t me who got the sudden attraction to take “care” of myself through the form of an excessive skin care regime. It was ads in the media that were crowded with successful actors and musicians that I looked up to convincing me that if I had clear skin and thick eyelashes I could do anything. This form of self care is now a habit to me and something that I enjoy as it helps me clear my mind and feel better about myself but I can’t help thinking what would be different if I woke up in the morning and did something else for an hour… meditated, practiced my piano exercises that are stressing me out so much at the moment, did an hour of yoga? These are all things that matter but are not always prioritised due to the sometimes subtle but very influential attitude that “what’s in your head, it doesn’t matter”.
Another aspect of this attitude that’s also reflected through the lyrics of this song is how critical women are when it comes to physical appearance. The pressure to prioritise beauty is accompanied with the idea that you aren’t beautiful enough. “We shine the light on whatever’s worst”. Beyonce touches on the attitude that we always seem to highlight and over contemplate aspects of ourselves that we don’t consider beautiful. I think this is present in the way women look at themselves but also how they view other women. It seems to be a prevalent mindset in society that women are made to compare themselves to each other resulting in a competitive nature between women fuelled by jealousy. When reflecting on how this outlook affects my life I recognised that it has quite a common appearance in highschool with teenage girls. Girls often attack flaws in physical appearance when trying to put each other down. I have found that so many girls in my life are overwhelmed with insecurities even when they are overwhelmingly beautiful because of this attitude of competitiveness and trying to be the ‘most beautiful’. Everyone has imperfections that are unique to themselves and we are often told to embrace them but we will be unable to do so unless we abolish the idea that there is a perfect woman that we are all competing with each other to be. It would be a healthy thing to spend less time focusing on our flaws and trying to fix ourselves. “Blonder hair” “sugar free” “thinner is better” Many, if not all, women I know spend an excessive amount of time finding parts of themselves that don’t conform to beauty standards, labelling it as a flaw and spending money time and energy in attempts to fix it. I personally think that we are all beautiful in our own sense as long as we are confident (very cheesy, very cliche but very important).
The most important aspect of this song personally for me is when the lyrics point out where the real focus should lie. “It’s the soul, it’s the soul that needs surgery”. After discussing aspects of the current situation of beauty standards for women Beyonce reflects on where they should be. Less of a focus on physical appearance and prioritised time, energy and money to what really matters, your soul. As mentioned earlier the lyrics of this song made me contemplate how my life would be if I didn’t wake up and spend time obsessing over my skin and doing my makeup. I could focus on / strengthen my intelligence, moral compass, musical talent and ability and so much more. I think this is one of the more important points expressed through this song as Beyonce also expresses how much more beneficial it is to prioritise the things I have stated above. She begins the song with someone asking her a question “What’s your aspiration in life” receiving the response from Beyonce after much contemplation “to be happy”. The idea that “It’s the soul, it’s the soul that needs surgery” demonstrates how you cannot create happiness or fix a broken mental health with altering or “improving” your physical appearance. You have to go deeper and focus on what really matters. “Plastic smiles and denial can only take you so far”. I can see this as something that’s widespread throughout my community and the rest of the woman I know around the world. The idea that if you were perfectly beautiful you would be happy. If you didn’t have the flaws that you have, you would be able to get anything you wanted. That you can fix how you feel by eating less, buying a new pair of boobs, fake tanning or whatever it may be.
Just as Beyonce has expressed through the lyrics of the I think that it’s all bullshit. “you can’t fix what you can’t see”. You can try attempt to mask your true pain with something physical. Hide your feelings with make up and focus on how you look as opposed to how you truly feel but at the end you have to ask yourself…
“You stripped away the masquerade
The illusion has been shed
Are you happy with yourself?”
EXCELLENCE
Well done!
Make sure you now tick the final criteria of this assessment: 2 extended written texts, 2 shorter written texts, 2 texts (either visual, oral or written).