In the Age of MAGA, Does Kendall Jenner Deliver "Pepsi Power"?

There's a movement happening. It's not explained what it is, what it stands for, or what it's all about, but it's a movement nonetheless, and it attracts the attentions of bored and frustrated young creatives who leave behind their work to join the passing parade.

These creatives include a blonde-wigged Kendall Jenner doing a modeling shoot when she's beckoned to join the throng. She doffs the wig, joins the march, and finds they've thoughtfully provided an ice-bucket full of Pepsi. She takes one and joyously dances to the front of the movement where she steps past the perimeter of the crowd where a line of policemen stand for no apparent reason other than to be a counterpoint to whatever the march was about.

She gives one of them her Pepsi. He opens it. The crowd rejoices. It's a good day for the cause, whatever that cause was. Perhaps it was getting just the right inspiration for a song, or having just the perfect moment for a photograph. Whatever it was, it makes the formerly frustrated (and duly diverse) creatives express rapture.

You can see the long version of the ad for yourselves here:

The advertisement evokes the Bernie Boston photograph, "Flower Power," taken in the sixties when a Vietnam protestor tucked a flower into military policeman's gun barrel.

"Flower Power" by Bernie Boston

But does the ad resonate with the grown-ups from the sixties? Apparently not all that well. The Washington Post declares the ad is cashing in on the Black Lives Matter movement, contrasting the moment with the photo of Ieshia Evans taken during a Baton Rouge protest. Elle says the ad co-opts the Resistance movement. Heat Street, perhaps unwilling to nail it down to any specific protest, says it commercializes Social Justice.

Basically, everybody seems to hate the commercial.

Although I doubt that everybody hates it. I have it on pretty good authority that during all the hew and cry over the commercial, Muhtar Kent is content to have a Coke...and a smile.