Beyonce Metaphors

In the song lyrics’ Pretty Hurts’ by Beyonce, The writer uses repetition and metaphors to show us how society has expectations of females. Some of the expectations and stereotypes are females must be thin, have a big butt and big breasts, long hair, etc. We learn that these expectations put a lot of pressures on females. How females buy into the ideas they must be beautiful and care about their looks over anything else and these expectations formed from society shape our definition of ‘feminism’ today. Finally, we learn physical appearance/body image is everything, and the media and society make a big deal of it when it should not be.

At the beginning of the song, Beyonce shows us how she used her mother as an example of society suggesting

We see the idea is developed when she says, ‘Just another stage, pageant the pain away, this time, I’m going to take the crown without falling down”. This stresses how being “pretty hurts”. The pressure put on girls for them to be beautiful gets to them. They want to be the first one to get to the crown for being the most beautiful. There should not be a competition for who is the most beautiful, everyone should be able to accept and love themselves without having the pressure of having to meet the ideal image of females we observe in the media today. Most are photoshopped or have had plastic surgery to look like the ideal female we identify as ‘perfect’ when in fact they aren't that

This extended metaphor refers to the wanted feeling to be as beautiful as the ‘ideal’ women they compare to in the media, to an illness that has been caused by society. We see this when Beyonce suggest “perfection is a disease of a nation.”
This highlights how girls treat their imperfections and physical flaws as if there is something wrong with them, they need to be seen by a doctor to fix their imperfections to become perfections. That way they can be happier with how they look and feel about themselves. This can affect their mental and emotional health. Their habits of wanting to be perfect can lead to eating disorders which are also harming girls physical well- being. This is further reinforced when she says, “It’s the soul that needs the