In 1909, French journalist-turned-entrepreneur Pierre-Francois Lardet returned from a visit to Nicaragua decided to recreate a beverage he had tasted there.
5 years later, in August 1914, Banania was born.
The arrival of the chocolate-flavoured banana powder drink got here simply as France discovered itself at conflict.
The next 12 months, its mascot – a Black soldier carrying a pink fez – first appeared on an promoting poster.
Throughout World Conflict I, 200,000 African troopers fought for France on the battlefields of Europe, Africa and Anatolia. They got here from French colonies in West and Central Africa. Many had been forcibly recruited.
The African soldier on the Banania poster resembled troopers referred to as the Senegalese Tirailleurs (riflemen), who wore a signature pink fez. This navy corps, based in 1857, was given its title as a result of its first recruits got here from Senegal.
The tirailleurs had been famed for his or her bravery. They had been first despatched to serve within the colonial wars in West and Central Africa, earlier than combating in World Conflict I (1914-18). Throughout World Conflict II (1939-45), they served in France, North Africa and the Center East. At the very least 30,000 tirailleurs died in the course of the First World Conflict, whereas an estimated 8,000 died in the course of the Second.
Banania’s tirailleur is smiling, sitting on the grass with a bowl of the powdered drink and a rifle by his facet. His exaggerated smile and facial options resemble the racial stereotypes in style on the time and seen in ads for chocolate, cleaning soap and shoe polish.
The poster’s slogan, “Y’a bon”, which means “C’est bon” (that is good) within the simplified French taught to colonial troopers, furthered the racist caricature of the cheerful however easy African. The corporate referred to its mascot as “L’ami Y’a bon” – the Y’a bon buddy.
In opposition to the backdrop of World Conflict I, Lardet’s Mascot tapped right into a temper of patriotism and delight in French colonialism. Nevertheless it additionally helped to encourage public acceptance of African troopers combating on French soil, explains Sandrine Lemaire, a historian and co-author of a number of books on French colonisation. Banania wasn’t alone. The French authorities additionally sought to make use of pictures highlighting the loyalty and navy qualities of France’s African troopers by way of propaganda, postcards and information articles.
“The tirailleur was an opportunistic promoting invention from Lardet … which made the consumption of Banania a quasi-patriotic act,” mentioned Pap Ndiaye, a politician and historian, throughout a 2010 discuss about Banania and colonial oppression.
Banania was promoted by way of kids’s comics that includes the mascot. In a single, he returns to his homeland from France, bringing two packing containers of Banania to Africans wearing loincloths. In an illustrated booklet revealed in 1933, he takes Banania to France earlier than going to the West Indies, the Canary Islands and French colonial Indochina to arrange banana plantations.
“Within the 20s, 30s, 40s, Banania was in all places. It had touchpoints in all domains – cinema, packaging, promotional gadgets, notebooks,” mentioned branding skilled Jean Watin-Augouard in a 2014 documentary about Banania.
In the meantime, between the late Thirties and the early Nineteen Fifties, in keeping with the only guide revealed about Banania’s historical past, the corporate tripled manufacturing. These had been Banania’s golden years earlier than Nesquik entered the market within the Nineteen Sixties.
The mascot, which appeared in promoting, packaging and collectible gadgets, resembling toys, was in style all through the twentieth century as a result of it strengthened French individuals’s delight of their colonial empire and their “topics’” contribution to the conflict effort, says Etienne Achille, an affiliate professor of French and Francophone research at Villanova College in Pennsylvania.
Shaken by decolonisation
However because the French colonies in Africa fought for and gained independence within the Nineteen Fifties and early Nineteen Sixties, Banania was additionally shaken by decolonisation.
More and more, Banania – with its slogan and stereotyped mascot – grew to become shorthand for colonialism and racism. The tirailleur, in representing troopers pressured to struggle for France, got here to embody the injustice denounced by anti-colonial actions.
“I’ll tear up the Banania smiles from all of the partitions of France,” wrote Leopold Sedar Senghor, who grew to become Senegal’s first president in 1960, in a 1948 poem devoted to the tirailleurs.
A number of years later, Martinique-born philosopher-psychiatrist Frantz Fanon made a number of references to “Y’a bon Banania” in his 1952 guide Black Pores and skin, White Masks, to indicate how Black individuals in France are seen by way of the lens of racist tropes.
However, regardless of the criticisms, the mascot remained, albeit with updates.
In 1967, when promoting bought fashionable, aspirational life, it grew to become simplified and geometric: a brown triangular face with cartoon eyes and a pink rectangular hat on a yellow background. The slogan, nevertheless, was retired in 1977.
Within the Eighties and Nineteen Nineties, a cartoonish baby’s face was launched on a number of the model’s merchandise, whereas others retained the mascot.
In 2004, after Banania was acquired by French firm Nutrial underneath a holding firm, Nutrimaine, a brand new mascot was unveiled: the “grandson” of the 1915 tirailleur, who, in keeping with Nutrimaine, symbolised range and the profitable integration of migrant communities into French society. However his stereotyped options weren’t so completely different from his predecessor’s, together with his ecstatic smile, white enamel and pink fez.
Over the last a long time of the twentieth century, the French model by no means regained its dominant place and continued to lose floor to rivals like Nesquik. It had struggled financially whereas turning into much less in style amongst youthful generations.
“They needed to return to the golden period of the model to avoid wasting the corporate. There was just one option to do it: to return to the symbol. Only a few manufacturers are so related to their emblem,” defined Achille. “This rejuvenated model successfully performs on the concept of superposition. While you see it, you instantly consider the outdated tirailleur.”
The design additionally caught the eye of writers and activists at Grioo.com, an internet platform for the French-speaking Black group in Europe and Africa. “Can we tolerate that in 2005 we’re represented as our ancestors had been 90 years in the past?” Grioo requested its readers, launching an internet petition towards Banania.
‘Hurtful’ heritage
Greater than 20 years later, the “grandson” nonetheless smiles on Banania packing containers in supermarkets throughout France.
For Achille, Banania’s advertising and marketing epitomises France’s lack of public debate about colonialism and postcolonial racism. “Solely the entire imbrication of the colonial into in style tradition can clarify why Banania can proceed to function with impunity,” he mentioned. “In different nations, this may not be doable.”
A spokesperson for Nutrimaine declined to supply remark for this text.
Awatif Bentahar, 37, grew up seeing Banania on grocery store cabinets and consuming it every so often. She says, “The corporate hasn’t understood how their heritage can really be hurtful to a giant a part of the inhabitants.
“The French ‘kids of immigrants’ see the painful historical past of colonisation and the wrestle we’re waging at the moment to be revered in a society that can’t assist however refer each day to our standing of ‘completely different’ French.”
As a graphic designer and a French girl of Moroccan descent, Bentahar wish to see Banania evolve. As a private undertaking, she created various decolonised packaging, eradicating the mascot and drawing from earlier designs to incorporate playful eyes and a smile.
“I made a decision to attempt to rebrand Banania, not as a result of I hate it, however as a result of I really like the concept of what it could possibly be. Manufacturers are a part of our lives, whether or not we prefer it or not,” she wrote on her weblog.
“This one occurs to be a part of my childhood, and I’d like to see it being on the nice facet of historical past for a change.”
This text is a part of “Odd gadgets, extraordinary tales”, a collection in regards to the shocking tales behind well-known gadgets.
Learn extra from the collection:
How the inventor of the bouncy fortress saved lives
How a preferred Peruvian mushy drink went ‘toe-to-toe’ with Coca-Cola
How a drowning sufferer grew to become a lifesaving icon