MovieChat Forums > A Fish Called Wanda (1988) Discussion > Why is the title = a fish called wanda?

Why is the title = a fish called wanda?


Ken had a fish wanda too, so initially at the start, i thought that the whole story has to do with wanda a fish, just as Ace Ventura. But it did not turn out that way!
So, why is the con artist Wanda the fish?


"Why is it not a word called con lady / girl when there is a word con man in dictionary?"

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Same question.
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I thought it was pretty obvious Ken had "a fish called wanda".. The title of a movie does not have to spell out the plot nor does it have to be particularly relevant to the plot.

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Actually, it does play into the plot, as Otto threatened to eat Wanda if Ken didn't tell him where the key to the safe deposit box was.

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"I've had 236 partners & I've fallen in love with every single one of them."---Angie Tribeca

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cuz it sounds cool

(icheckmovies: IMDb vote history-compatible movielist host)

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There are two Wandas in this movie - please learn to write names with a capital first letter, by the way - and only one of them is a literal fish.

I guess Monty Python-people love fish for some reason (if you watch the movie 'Meaning of Life', you can easily agree with this statement), so they assign 'fishness' everywhere.

But seriously, there might be some kind of 'fish-allegory' about Wanda, the character, as she swims in the web of lies like a fish and gets away with everything. Or you could say the barrester fishes her, or that they are fishing for the diamonds or .. I don't know.

It's sort of a disappointment, when you look at the poster and you clearly see an actual, human-size FISH character, that's clearly called 'Wanda' - then the movie is about heist, criminals and stuttering, and not about a fish called Wanda at all.

Then again, if you start looking at movie titles and try to fit them into what's happening in the movie, this movie's title is super relevant to the plot by comparison to most other movies. Is 'Trainspotting' really about spotting trains? Is 'A Clockwork Orange' really about some orange clock, or clock built into an orange, Broken Arrow about archer's arrow that gets broken, Child's Play about a play some child writes or ... ??

Also, why would you ask about 'con lady / girl', and not 'con woman'? Why does everyone avoid the word 'woman', when they want to convert some 'man' into a female form? Just use the word WOMAN, it's right there, damnit!

Also, why even call ANYONE a 'lady'? Especially if gender is a social construct, and we're all equal - why can't men be called 'ladies' or 'girls' as well? Also, 'man' used to mean 'human' anyway, so women can be 'men', but men can't be 'ladies'. Where's the equality in that?

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