Don't listen to Matt Weiner. You get to decide what the Mad Men finale meant.

The creator of a work of art isn't actually the final authority on what it means

Mad Men
(Image credit: Michael Yarish/AMC)

On Wednesday, Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner gave what will purportedly be his one and only interview about the Mad Men finale. In conversation with writer A.M. Homes, Weiner offered his own take on the final scene — which implied that Don Draper created Coca-Cola's famed "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke" ad — arguing that it casts the ultimate fate of Don Draper in a relatively hopeful light:

"I'm not saying that advertising's not corny. But I'm saying that people who find that ad corny are kind of… they're probably experiencing a lot of life that way, and they're missing out on something. Five years before that, black people and white people couldn't even be in an ad together. And the idea that some enlightened state, and not just co-option, might have created something very pure... And yeah, there's soda in there, with the good feeling. But that ad… to me, it’s the best ad ever made, and it comes from a very good place. Which is a desire to sell Coca-Cola, probably. But you know, you shouldn't write everything off. I felt like that ad, in particular, is so much of its time. So beautiful. And, I don't know… I don't know what the word is, as villainous as the snark of today thinks it is."

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Scott Meslow

Scott Meslow is the entertainment editor for TheWeek.com. He has written about film and television at publications including The Atlantic, POLITICO Magazine, and Vulture.