Lady Dance Lessons

Remember when celebrities used to slink away to foreign countries to make flashy, high-profile commercials so as not to damage their brands and appear to be sellouts? Like, the whole premise of “Lost in Translation” is based on the former practice of quietly going to Japan to shill for major corporations. Those days, clearly, are long gone as capitalism gotta capitalism in every aspect of our public and private lives. What celebrity isn’t trying to sell you a credit card or coffee maker or bottle of over-priced perfume these days?

Anyway, this is an overly complicated way of saying because of the glut of celebrity advertising I somehow missed this commercial for H&M starring Winona Ryder and Elizabeth Olsen (pre-WandaVision) back when it came out in 2018. TikTok helped resurface it to my attention, well a short clip of Winona and Liz dancing at least, that made me hunt for the full clip which led me to the ad which led me to my long-winded intro.

Now, I know this commercial is trying to sell me clothes. But if you stop before the logo shows at the end it plays like a PSA about how boring men are to dance with and how you should try a series of female dance partners instead until a beautiful, mysterious woman shows up to sweeps you off your feet. What? Stop the video at 1:14 and tell me this isn’t your take away from this whole thing. And if that’s the case, I’m buying what they’re selling.