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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   6983 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026

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This week I encountered an artifact at the intersection of my interests. I watched a good movie with Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling, The Nice Guys. The damsel in distress is played by Margaret Qualley, and additional reading about her pointed me towards this. Watch it, it's short.

It's a ten-year-old ad for a (terrible) fragrance, in which Margaret, wearing an evening dress, dances to a banging dancehall tune. It's very obviously inspired by the award-winning music video for Weapon of Choice by Fatboy Slim (and its director and the guy who wrote the music for the Kenzo ad are brothers), but that's not the point. The point is a goofy Christopher Walken doesn't have the same effect on me as a goofy Margaret Qualley. And she certainly does. She was "eh" in the movie, she is "hnng" in the ad.

Why does making faces and doing silly walks make a conventionally attractive woman even more attractive? The effect goes beyond the well-established TikTok practice of dancing and lip-synching. Why don't women use this superweapon? I can only think of (sorry!) Aella that does.

Some hypotheses:

  1. An active face in your twenties gives you more wrinkles in your forties. I don't think it works like that, but maybe women believe it does.
  2. It's another disarmament thing. You have women that can pull it off with ease (because they are attractive and outgoing), and you have the rest, who either have to struggle or can't do silly mode at all. A culture of limited expressivity has evolved to avoid an arms race.
  3. It's a limited masculinization budget thing. Similar to #2, but limited to a single person. Qualley does her routine in heels and an evening dress, the lines of her body unmistakably feminine even when she's walking with a pronounced hunch. Dress her in baggy sweats and sneakers, and the same routine won't have the desired effect. Why invest in a weapon that limits your other options?

I think this is category error, you see Margaret Qualley as attractive, it is hardly something that Christopher Walken can replicate. My two cents is that while Walken is actually goofy but still somehow dignified, Qualley to me seems actually insane, as if she is in the middle of manic episode of her bipolar disorder. But for some reason many men find that highly attractive. I remember way back when Candance Owens had this popular clip of weird voice and crazy look - and many men watched it in a loop finding it fascinating and attractive.

So maybe you are just into crazy women, you would not be the first one. It is well known I can fix her or Manic Pixie Dream Girl effect.

My two cents is that while Walken is actually goofy but still somehow dignified

Walken was a guy nearly in his 60s pulling off dance moves middle aged men are definitely not supposed to be able to, all the while being dressed as for an actually serious film. It’s impressive looking and the juxtaposition between ”serious older guy” and somewhat goofy but quite well done dance moves by a ”he’s not supposed to be able to do that” aged guy is what makes it all work.

In contrast Margaret Qualley looks like she’s literally having a seizure.

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