Context
'Perfect' is a song by American singer/songwriter P!nk. It was released as the second single from her album, 'Greatest Hits... So Far!!!' on the 14 December, 2010. The song was written by P!nk and Max Martin and Shellback, who also produced the song.
The song's lyrics and content encourages people to accept each other for their true identities. It delivers a controversial message about depression, self-mutilation and suicide.
In the video, Tina Majorino plays the narrative, with P!nk performing in some areas.
It fits into the classification of illustration.
Lyrics
Made a wrong turn, once or twice
Dug my way out, blood and fire
Bad decisions, that's alright
Welcome to my silly life
Mistreated, misplaced, misunderstood
Miss 'No way, it's all good', it didn't slow me down
Mistaken, always second guessing, underestimated
Look, I'm still around
Pretty pretty please, don't you ever ever feel
Like you're less than less than perfect
Pretty pretty please, if you ever ever feel like you're nothing
You are perfect to me
You're so mean, when you talk about yourself, you were wrong
Change the voices in your head, make them like you instead
So complicated, look happy, you'll make it!
Filled with so much hatred... such a tired game
It's enough! I've done all I can think of
Chased down all my demons, I've seen you do the same
Pretty pretty please, don't you ever ever feel
Like you're less than less than perfect
Pretty pretty please, if you ever ever feel like you're nothing
You are perfect to me
The whole world's scared so I swallow the fear
The only thing I should be drinking is an ice cold beer
So cool in line, and we try try try,
But we try too hard and it's a waste of my time
Done looking for the critics, cause they're everywhere
They don't like my jeans, they don't get my hair
Exchange ourselves, and we do it all the time
Why do we do that? Why do I do that?
Why do I do that..?
Yeah, oh, oh baby, pretty baby..!
Pretty pretty please, don't you ever ever feel
Like you’re less than less than perfect
Pretty pretty please, if you ever ever feel
Like you're nothing, you are perfect to me
You're perfect, you're perfect!
Pretty pretty please, if you ever ever feel like you're nothing
you are perfect to me
Content
At the start of the video there is a shot of the actress in bed, as a grown woman, and then we get a shot of a teddy bear that she is looking at. The music starts here, and the camera slowly zooms in on the woman who starts to reminisce about her childhood.
Her memories first start on a screen on her wardrobe door, which helps to establish that she is seeing it clearly still in her head. The scene then changes to the actual time, where a boy statches the girl's teddy bear, laughing. The girl gets up off the bench and tries to statch it back of him, but he laughs and throws it on the floor. The camera then zooms in on the girl looking angry, and then changes to a shot of a teacher looking around at them looking surprised. From a different shot, we learn that the girl has leaped on the boy in anger, and is pulling his hair.
The lyrics 'mistreated, misplaced, misunderstood' clearly support the notion that the girl is feeling upset and misunderstood here when the teacher tells her of, as she is retaliating to the boy for teasing her, but the teacher does'nt see this. The scene is projected on two brick walls here, with P!nk in the middle of them singing.
There is then a shot of the girl looking down on the children playing in the playground on a bouncy castle, while she is inside being punished, and when the boy looks up at her she hides. We see then that the girl has covered herself in paint, perhaps in a tantrum. The scene then switches to P!nk performing part of the chorus, with the scene with the children playing on the wall behind her again.
The scene then moves on to an older version of the girl, being told of by her mum for what she is wearing, (dark clothes and lipstick) and trying to persuade her to wear something else, and they end up arguing.
On the next verse of the song, there is an exterior shot of the mum dragging her daughter out of the house, dressed in the other clothes, to school. The girl is then sitting at her desk with a test paper marked with an 'F' which she doodles over.
Next there is an overhead shot of the girl in a toilet cubicle, to the lyrics; 'change the voices, in your head, make them like you instead'. The overhead shot pans, and the audience see's her scratching and writing over the walls, crying with her make up running down her face. The shot then merges into a scene with another group of teenagers are in the changing rooms, drying their hair and laughing. Because of the previous lyrics, and because they merge into a shot, this connotes that these girls dislike her, and that she wants to be like them. It also connotes that she is thinking about them at the time. We then see that she is writing; 'skinny b****s'.
The scene then switches again to her looking at them wistfully, and the audience can connote that she is thinking about how skinny they are, from what she previously wrote on the wall. In this scene she is in a clothes shop, watching them try items on. "I've done all I can think of" suggests that she can't think of any other ways to win them other, and to make them like her for who she is. She then grabs a dress that is the same as what as one of the girls is trying on, and takes it into the storeroom and puts it into her bag.
P!nk is then singing again, slightly merged into the shot with the girl coming out of the storeroom, which makes it look like she is there. A man then comes over to her, and takes her bag off her, and she looks annoyed, but also looks resigned, as though she had expected to be caught. The audience may connote that she thought that it was typical that she was caught, as her life is full of bad luck. The camera then switches to a point of view shot of the girl looking at the other girls, and they are looking at her with disgust, and then one even gets her phone out to film the scene, to humiliate her. The man shoves her out of the shop, with the girl looking over her shoulder at the others, aware that she is being filmed.
The scene then jumps again to when she is slightly older, looking really skinny standing on the scales in her bathroom. This connotes to the audience that all the trauma at school has made her anorexic, deperate to be like the other girls. We then see a close up shot of her turning on the bath taps, and then getting in the bath and reaching for a razor. The camera then slowly zooms on her in the bath, self-harming herself with the razor. She then lies in the bath, but she then looks at her old teddy bear that is in the corner of the room.
There is then a close up on a pair of scissors, and of her picking them up. There is then a following close up of her cutting of a lot of hair hair and of it falling to the floor. The audience then see's a shot of her in the mirror looking happy after doing this and pushing her hair back with a hair band. The scene is then portrayed onto the walls again with P!nk lip syncing the lyrics again.
After this, there is a scene where the girl is painting onto a canvas, and smiling, and then the shot of the painting disolves into a scene where it is hanging in a gallery. The girl is dressed up in this scene, and looks at the picture happily. She then looks around and the audience can see P!nk in the shot, as part of the scene, and she raises her glass to the girl, and she raises it back. The camera then portrays a point of view shot of the girl looking at a man coming up the stairs, and then she smiles. This connotes that she knows him to the audience, or perhaps that she is interested in him. The scene then dissolves back onto her wardrobe, with the woman in bed. This follows on from the beggining of the music video, and here it connotes that she saw her personal journey in front of her, and she is reflecting on how much happier she feels now.
Lastly she gets out of bed, and grabs her old teddy bear, and goes into a little girls room, and puts it next to her as she is sleeping. We don't know who the little girl is, although we can cannote that she is the girls daughter. There's a shot of the woman looking at the little girl, lip syncing to the lyrics "You are perfect to me". There is then a final shot of P!nk, followed by the camera slowly zooming out of the bedroom, with a shot of the woman and the little girl.
