Five Questions With 'Mad Black Men' Creator Xavier Ruffin
Posted in: Uncategorized
Ad Age: What inspired you to start the web series?
Mr. Ruffin: This show is a direct response to Matthew Weiner’s comment, that “there [were] no black people in advertising.” Mr. Weiner may be misinformed or he may be ignorant but either way he is wrong. There were more than a handful of African Americans working in all sorts of capacities on Madison Avenue during that era. As a designer I wanted to be a fan of “Mad Men” like all of my colleagues, but I couldn’t get past its representation of blacks during the first season so I just left it alone. That is Matthews Weiner’s artistic expression and I’m cool with that. Artists should have the right to paint whatever picture they want. However, once I saw him being confronted on the lack of blacks with meaning on his show, and he gave that cop-out of an answer, I just wanted to offer up some “counter” art. So I resurrected an old sketch idea I wrote in 2011 for a grad school application and made a show that paid homage to some of those hard working Black ad executives and copywriters of the ’60s. The point of our show is just to poke a little fun at the situation but try to keep the mainstream a little more honest.
Ad Age: How did you get backing from Dailymotion?
Post a Comment