THE BANANIA MAN (BONHOMME BANANIA)

You mean, Bananaman? "Eric is Bananaman?"

THIS Bananaman?

No siree.

This guy is FRENCH and has a far darker story (if you thought Jean Mineur was dark, you OUGHT to read THIS post!)

For starters, I have been to France but NEVER LIVED there, so I got to learn about this guy from Karambolage (just like Jean Mineur!)

Banania is an instant cocoa drink, Nesquik's main rival. The ingredients are all of them very tropical: chocolate powder, cane sugar, and the special ingredient: banana or plantain starch (hence the name!).

The mascot was originally this Afro-Caribbean girl, quite similar to Chiquita Banana...

But the World Wars changed that, and she was replaced by the Banania Man, a Senegalese soldier (Senegal was a French colony at the time):

Look at that innocent yet ominous smile, "half devil and half child" to quote Rudyard Kipling. And at that uniform: the red fez because he's a Muslim, French blue jacket, and puffy white trousers perfect for the bush, a tropical environment. Instead of saying "c'est bon" in Standard European French, he says "y a bon" in his own regional dialect.

Thousands of men like him were sent to the Western Front, a completely different world, along with TRAINLOADS of Banania powder for the whole French army's breakfast (and it got eaten by bugs and rats too, of course). The Senegalese men and those from other tropical colonies (like Afro-Caribbean and Vietnamese soldiers) were used as a human shield for the European French men and put on the frontlines to be massacres during the warm seasons, the rationale being that, hailing from tropical climates, they would not survive the European winter!

No one mourns these men from across the seas. Their names never appear on those memorials for those "slain for France," crowned by Gallic roosters. Yet their memory survives, for instance, in the form of the Banania Man. Although he is pretty racist, he has been reclaimed as a symbol by the Senegalese immigrants that live within the Hexagon (European France). Like Jean Mineur, he is scary to some people but reassuring to others, even to collectors of his merchandise!

Even ARSÈNE LUPIN had a Senegalese servant that went by "Y a bon," which was most likely a nickname - yes, he has become a literary character!

The modern-day iteration of the Banania Man has less racist features...

His lips have become far thinner and his skin a little fairer, and his smile far more charming, but he's still black and still wears the trademark Islamic fez. I'm so glad this brand does not exist in Spain and I would rather take my chances with Nesquik!

After all, there's NOTHING racist about a brown rabbit!

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PS! SAY GOODBYE TO UNCLE BEN AND TO CHIQUITA BANANA!

The Banania Man and the Sarotti Moor are not the only politically incorrect mascots to have been rebranded.

Uncle Ben, a staple of my childhood summers in Sweden, is now also gone forever. Requiem for a reassuring bald black guy who always reminded me of Sam L. Jackson, the Mace Windu of my childhood. The brand is now the 100 percent Uncle-free Ben's Original!

And Chiquita Banana also got axed!

Which makes me wonder: within half a century, will the Wizarding World and Middle-Earth also be sacrificed on the altar of the Politically Correct Gods? Will Dudley Dursley (pre-dementor's kiss) be no longer be "the size and weight of a young killer whale," but simply "enormous" (like Augustus Gloop or Aunt Sponge)? Will hobbits nevermore smoke pipeweed? And what about the Haradrim? It would be sacrilege to alter all of that...