Banania is a popularchocolate drink found most widely distributed inFrance. It is made fromcocoa,banana flour,cereals,honey andsugar. There are two types of Banania available in French supermarkets: 'traditional' which must be cooked with milk for 10 minutes, and 'instant' which can be prepared in similar fashion toNesquik.
During a visit nearLake Managua,Nicaragua in 1909, the journalistPierre Lardet was informed of a recipe for a cocoa-based drink. When he returned toParis, he started its commercial fabrication and, in 1912, began marketing Banania with the picture of anAntillaise.
At the outset ofWorld War I, the popularity of the colonial troops at the time led to the replacement of the West Indian in 1915, by the now more familiar jollySenegalese infantry man enjoying Banania.[1] Pierre Lardet took it upon himself to distribute the product to the Army, using the linepour nos soldats la nourriture abondante qui se conserve sous le moindre volume possible ("for our soldiers: abundant nourishment that stores while taking up the least space possible").[citation needed]
The brand's yellow background underlines the banana ingredient, and the Senegalese infantryman's red and blue uniform make up the other two main colours. The sloganY'a bon ("It's good") derives from thepidgin French supposedly used by these soldiers (it is, in fact, an invention).[1]
The form of the character has since evolved to more of a cartoon character. However, the original advertising has become a cultural icon in France. Posters and reproduction tin-plate signs of the pre-war advertising continue to be sold.[citation needed]
In the 1970s and early 1980s, Banania sponsored theYellow Jersey of theTour de France. In France the Banania brand is now owned by the newly founded French companyNutrial, which acquired it fromUnilever in 2003.[citation needed]
This brand of chocolate drink is recognized by its trademark the 'bonhomme Banania': a black man wearing a fez.[2] The company started using this illustration in 1915.[3]
Some feel that the advertising slogans and images areracist andcolonialist as it reinforces the cliché of a friendly yet stupid African.[1] Some French black people connect this stereotype with aggressive colonialist policy in Africa of the global groupUnilever, the former owner of the brand. The Martiniquan psychiatrist and philosopherFrantz Fanon, in his 1952 bookBlack Skin, White Masks, mentions the grinningSenegalese tirailleur as an example of how in a burgeoning consumer culture, the black subject appears not only as an object, but as "an object in the midst of other objects".[4]
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