Visual texts are any illustrations, paintings, photographs, drawings, or videos. A whole story can be played out throughout a visual text. Writers and directors use a certain visual text to get a message to their audience. A certain zoom of the camera or props can play huge roles in the narrative. Music videos are great tools for singers to tell their story and explain their lyrics through images for viewers to watch. Therefore, creating a music video makes it a lot easier for viewers to understand the meaning behind the words in a song. Music videos break down songs by emphasizing the important parts through setting and imagery. In the music video “Pretty Hurts”, Beyoncé, gives us insight into her thoughts and feelings on society’s expectations on girls and their appearances. She creates a whole scenario in which she is involved in a beauty pageant in order for the viewer to see the pressure that is put on girls of our generation. Through the use of visual motifs such as a beauty pageant, the consumption of cotton balls, and Beyoncé drowning the viewer is able to understand that if we don’t stop putting pressure on girls to be perfect, they will never be able to be happy with their true self.

The first visual motif to be discussed is the beauty pageant as a whole. The beauty pageant symbolizes the stereotype of girls in our society. The way to win in a pageant is based on a girl’s looks, which is equal to how girls feel in society. The contestants are constantly reprimanded and forced to put on makeup that makes them nothing like their actual selves and then are required to get up on stage and fake a smile as if everything is perfect. This represents the pressure on girls to feel the need to act like everything is okay in their lives on the outside regardless of what they are truly going through. The viewer sees the transition from Beyonce’s face of struggle and despair to her face with a huge smile, as she goes on and off the stage. It makes the viewer pity her, as a result of her having to hide her true self and emotions. We hear about girls beginning to participate in beauty pageants straight from birth, which is teaching girls terrible morals right from the start. It is making them believe if they don’t win the crown, they are not pretty enough, or smart enough. Beauty pageants tear down a girl’s self-confidence just as the rest of society does, as well. In addition, we don’t see one man participating in the beauty pageant that Beyonce takes place in. It shows the viewer that women are objectified as a gender and that sexism still exists in society. 

Secondly, in the music video not only are beauty pageant contestants required to have a pretty face, but they are forced to be skinny, as well. We see a girl consuming cotton balls in order to fill up her stomach se that she is not hungry. This represents the current rise in girls suffering from eating disorder because they feel their current body is not skinny enough for them to be happy. Girls in our society see edited pictures of girls whose bodies look perfect and therefore want to look like them. They set these girls that they see in pictures as their definition of perfect; however, it is not what these girls look like in real life. This is where eating disorder develop because girls develop a distorted image of what they need to look like in order to be perfect. They believe if they get skinnier they will be happy because all the skinny girls look happy in their pictures. What we do not think of when we look at these pictures is how easy it is to fake a smile; and the amount of time these girls spend making themselves vomit every single day. In the video, we see behind the scenes of what a girl has to do in order for society to view them as “perfect. We see Beyonce making herself throw up and take pills, which brings awareness eating disorder in our society. She shows the world what girls really go through behind closed doors in order to show girls that being perfect is unattainable.

During the music video Beyoncé falls into a pool of water and begins to drown. This visual motif shows the viewer that all the pressure that is being put on her to be pretty, skinny and perfect, is suffocating her. She cannot function anymore living in a society that cares nothing about her other than the way she looks. She is struggling to gasp for air also representing that she feels the world is collapsing on her. Many girls in our society never end up getting that gasp of air because all their insecurities pile up and make them feel like they are not worth it. They take their own lives because they feel it is the only way they can escape and be at peace with themselves. It is beyond depressing that we live in a world, which places so much pressure on girls to be perfect that it sometimes results in girls to take their own lives. 

Through the music viedo “Pretty Hurts” the viewer is able to understand the pressure put on girls to be perfect and the need to end this mentality through the use of visual motifs such as a beauty pageant, the consumption of cotton balls, and Beyoncé drowning. Beyonce brings awareness to sexism, eating disorders and suicide through out her music video. She shows girls that there is no such thing as being perfect so there is no point in attempting to be. Hopefully the pressure put on girls to be perfect can be changed through the use of Beyonce’s video. Girls need to stop comparing themselves to people they see over social media because the girls the =y see in pictures aren’t real; therefore they will never be able to look like them. The first step to changing girls and boys mentalities of what girls are supposed to be like is to get rid of beauty pageants. All these pageants do is put an emphasis on the importance of a girls appearance on the outside, which shouldn’t be what we focus on when observing a girl. If the need to be perfect in today’s society doesn’t change, girls perception of themselves will never improve.