Mad Men: I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke

When he finally arrived in London, Backer told Billy Davis and Roger Cook what he had seen in the airport café. After he expressed his thoughts about buying everybody in the world a Coke, Backer noticed that Davis’s initial reaction was not at all what he’d expected and asked him, “Billy, do you have a problem with this idea?”

Davis slowly revealed his problem. “Well, if I could do something for everybody in the world, it would not be to buy them a Coke.”

Backer responded, “What would you do?”

“I’d buy everyone a home first and share with them in peace and love,” Davis said.

Backer said, “Okay, that sounds good. Let’s write that and I’ll show you how Coke fits right into the concept.”

 

.. The genius of Mad Men is that it’s as much about what’s invisible and what’s not said as what is. White male privilege is critiqued and dissected with fascinating scrutiny, because of the problem it creates in seeing the value in “others,” and the resulting self-destruction that comes from unchecked power and privilege. The catch is, those “others” have to be present to even begin to be neglected.