Seen here in its London incarnation, 30,000 Bananas sees Doug Fishbone give away tens of thousands of bananas in public spaces in the hope of bringing a questioning of capitalism and globalization to the attention of a public used to encountering products in supermarket’s more consumer-friendly dimensions.
Clothing retailer Banana Republic – who’s namesake are the often politically unstable, economically exploited and self-serving corrupt banana republics – is owned by the Gap clothing company itself no stranger to allegations of exploitation.
Neddie Seagoon, who travels to Guatemala with a lone banana in his pocket, attempts to save the last British owned banana tree in South America.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, YEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, SPLASH.
Chiquita’s morally questionable actions aside, their advertising and graphic design is considered exceptional. Gabriel Kuri assimilates their aesthetic flair into collage’s long history of graphic redeployment for this limited edition print for the ICA.
Like all children’s TV programmes, Bananas in Pyjamas uses an abstracted version of reality to ensure children are well versed in the ethical, moral and cultural expectations such as; always appear to be happy even when you’re not, coded anonymity, and distorted relationship to food stuffs.
In her 2011 video Killjoy (Act 1) Lily Keal weaves the malignant history of the Chiquita brand of bananas into an allegorical investigation of cultural amnesia and political impotence.
Andy Warhol’s 16-mm film Mario Banana, starrring Mario Montez, sees Mario seductively eating a banana.
In The Battle of the Century (1927) Boxing manager (Hardy) takes out an insurance policy on his pugilist (Laurel) and attempts to fake an accident for a payout, instead a pie delivery man (Hall) slips on a banana peel intended for Laurel. They attend to their differences with another quasi-violent slapstick staple; the pie fight.
Rebuked European Commission Regulation No 2257/94 outlined quality standards of bananas, categorising the size and curvature of the fruit. Rather than being – as feared by euro skeptics – an attempt to impose technocratic restrictions on the dining habits of European Union, it was a set of regulations to ensure the smooth flow of trade across the EU and avoid arguments over the comparative value of a straight or bent banana. Neither straight nor bent banana were to be banned.
