The video I chose to analyze is Beyoncé Knowles’ “Pretty Hurts,” from her album "Beyoncé" which was released in 2013. The music video was directed by Melina Matsoukas. The song starts off with a pageant host asking Beyoncé, who plays a pageant contestant, what is her aspiration in life and Beyoncé answers “to be happy.” To me, the song "Pretty Hurts," means someone who goes above and beyond to try and fit in and be something they are not. In the end, they may become what they have been trying to become but deep down inside they still will not be happy with themselves. The song “Pretty Hurts” is a voice that targets young girls and portrays a mother’s contradiction. The music video however, signifies the reality of life and sets a mood to the viewers. The beginning of the song creates the setting of the video, a pageant scene. The song goes on and Beyoncé begins to sing about how her mother always told her that beauty is all that matters in this world: “Mama said, "You're a pretty girl, what's in your head, it doesn't matter.” The chorus of the song contradicts what her mother tells her because the chorus sings about how women struggle to be perfect to fit society’s standard of beauty. Beyoncé also sings about how people should not focus only on physical beauty because that is not all that matters instead they need to focus on the beauty within which is self-love. The song is about loving oneself and not striving for perfection because we all know no one is perfect.  In the music video Beyoncé plays a pageant contestant who strives to be perfect to fit in with the other girls she is competing with, but no matter how hard she tries she cannot succeed. The music video to “Pretty Hurts” would be considered a conceptual video because the purpose of the video was not to tell a story but to create a certain mood. The mood that the video created for me was sympathetic. After watching the video, I had sympat