Rubin Essay Summary

Melissa Rubin's essay analyzes a coke ad, which features a prominent Coca-Cola vending machine and "Sprite Boy," a white haired, rosy cheeked individual. The foreground consists of white males, with a few women thrown in for variation. The background displays a growing urban society, full of skyscrapers and factories. It's the country's idea of the average America, predominantly white, male, and growing. There's no diversity in the group, race-wise, but there are military men, businessmen, and blue-collar workers, which is the driving force behind America in the fifties. The significance of the larger than life vending machine are the words written on it; "Drink Coca-Cola: Work Refreshed." It's enticing you, the average hardworking male american, to buy a coke to help refresh you from the long day. The words at the bottom, "A welcome host to workers: inviting you to the pause that refreshes with ice-cold Coca-Cola" are telling you that you're special, that they want you to help yourself to something that will refresh you. The ad reflects what the american people valued at the time; themselves (white people), refreshments after a hard days work, and the cities and factories that they worked in, the places that they lived.