The Banana


Why did the women freak out when Veronica ate the banana?

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Basically, because it looked like a penis. And the fact that she put the whole damn thing down her throat. I mean, come on. A professional whore in a company consisting of her patron's wives? What else are they going to be thinking about?
hee hee, that was one of my favorite scenes... like, ever.

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This scene was great- these women were acting so shocked by her behaviour and yet they knew what the banana symbolized and yet they still feigned shock. It just goes to show us how much hypocricy there is. Did I even spell hypocracy correctly? arrg

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that scene cracked me up. she says some stuff in Latin, deep throats the banana, and then says something about how the greatest gift is an eduction.

education on what? the latin, or the banana? ;)

discuss your favorite science fiction movies and more at http://wormsscifi.com/haven/

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This post made me laugh.

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I have only one question regarding this scene (which I loved by the way), is it physically posible to swallow a whole banana?

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While you can fit a whole banana in your mouth, I think it'd have to be awfully mushy to be able to swallow it all in one go

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Well...a banana IS mushy, so I would think it would be possible. I wouldn't do it, though. I'm allergic to bananas.

El Paso, Texas...ever heard of it?

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Yes, a green banana is quite easily swallowed as well is a man's penis.
You swallow it like you were swallowing a glass of water.

As for the meaning of the scene.
I think you all miss the point.

It is about the education of how to please a man.
Veronica was much more a lady than any of those women.

You are transposing woman's rights into the most basic fundamental aspect of being a woman when it comes to sexual interactions with men.

"How obscene" refers to the wives' thoughts on the fellatio. Even today you have a truckload of articles extolling the virtues of pleasing your man with a blow job and how to perform one.

The greatest gift for a woman is the education of the womanly art of pleasing a man.
and Veronica, the lady that she was, was willing to share with the wives just how to do it.

after all the last quote of that scene was the following:
Veronica Franco: [she's pealing a banana] The Latin for banana is arienna. Banana tree is pala.
[she swallows the banana whole, as the wives look on shocked]
Veronica Franco: A woman's greatest, and most hard-won asset... is an education.
Giulia De Lezze: Just because you can say it in Latin doesn't make it any less obscene.
Veronica Franco: Just because you took a vow doesn't mean you know how to love.




Si hoc non legere potes tu asinus es!

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Minuetteg, it wasn't just that though. She was also showing the women how important it is to be educated in ANY subject, like math, reading, geography, politics, etc. Women in that time period were not allowed any of that. Which is why if you remember the scene when Paola, Veronica's mother, said "Courtesan's my dear are the most educated women in the world". She was also telling the women that the reason why their husbands kept coming back to her was because she was educated and sexually liberated. The wives were none of those things. They would be considered "boring" so it's understandable why a husband would want a courtesan, as they are sexually open and highly intelligent.

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Yeah, me too! I just loved how astonished the wives were by Veronica's talents.

As for what she was saying. It was the Latin reference for the word "banana". She swallows it whole to show that the only way a common woman may gain knowledge beyond what they are allowed to read which is pretty much just the Bible, is by becoming a courtesan in their period of history. That's why she says after the banana swallowing, "the greatest gift is an education". Sort of like a feminist burning her bra in front of some June Cleave types. Shock value. ;D

Such a good scene!

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you wouldn't believe me, but back in uni, sometimes in 2000 a colleague asked me, when she saw me buying some babanas and then eating them, if i wasn't embarassed to eat them in front of people...I said, no, it's food, why would I be? (of course I figgured it out, one does need an MA in anathomy to do so). Hypocrisy is perpetual, i guess...

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sz_yang_yang, I am cracking up at your post!!

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xie-kitchin:
I couldn't say it any better!
John
[email protected]

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glad you liked it ;-)

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This is definitely the best movie scene ever existed.

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That scene was great. Just the look on the faces of the wives was funny enough!

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I hope that all of you know that it wasn't meant to be amusing. It wasn't a joke. She was making a point to the women that she had education (the point of her recitation of the latin for banana and banana plant) and that she also had no inhibition sexually. She let them know that a woman's education her best and hardest won asset. Proper women of that time period were neither allowed to read anything (except the Bible) and certainly were not expected to enjoy sex. Oral sex was something only prostitutes performed. The ladies in the room were taken aback because they were never allowed the opportunity to observe anything so obscene and their husbands would never have asked them to perform anything so obscene. The scene also pointed out that Veronica had a compassionate side by informing all of them of their husbands' well-being, even though they hated her for her education and her life.
If you remember, when Veronica was being trained by her mother and she was taken into the library, her mother told her that courtesans were the most well-educated women in the world and that emperors had depended more on advice from their learned courtesans than their lieutenants.

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With all due respect, this scene to me is where the movie completely bombed in being a feminist piece or doing a fair job with the historical Veronica Franco.

Supposedly, Veronica's actions with the banana are to show us just how sexually uninhibited and liberated she is. Not that I have anything against oral sex, but what is so liberating and uninhibited in a woman showing her prowess at an act that is for the pleasure of a man exclusively? Unless she's Linda Lovelace in Deep Throat, she's not getting any enjoyment out of it, so why is this showing her as being sexually free? It shows her professional skill, but given her profession, I would say that makes her more of an object rather than less.

As for courtesans being the most well-educated women and women only reading the bible. I think some abbesses and queens would disagree. I doubt any courtesan could match the learning of Isabella of Spain, for instance. Female saints often could read and write (though not all of them, certainly), and some wrote as well. Women who could read didn't just read the bible, though most of what they would read was spiritual -- then again, most of what everyone read was spiritual.

Another thing that bugs me about this scene -- by using the latin names for banana and banana tree, the script writer is implying she knows latin nomenclature. It wasn't common to use latin names at all until after Linnea, who was around in the 18th century. The reason for latin nomenclature was to have a scientific way of talking about various flora and fauna being discovered around the world, as everyone's use of regional names was getting a bit confusing. Franco was living in the time when everyone used regional names.

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I disagree on both points.

I believe what she is saying is that the cost of her education is that she is required to fellate other women's husbands. However, the act is worth it in order to gain acces to the learned world and ligitimacy in the public forum. This was a time when for women to even speak out of turn - and often speak at all in public - was unchaste. The connection was that a woman used words to lead Adam into original sin.[NOTE: I don't agree with this connection but rather including as perspective taking]

As for the use of Latin, maybe I need to watch the movie again but I don't recall her applying the Linneac nomenclature. She used the Latin word for banana and, while in everyday Venetian life people would have used the Italian vernacular, she was making a point by using the Latin that was really limited to the clergy, learned men, and noble men.

M

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My impression of that scene was that Veronica was focusing neither on education nor sexuality alone, but pointing out that the combination of the two can be extremely powerful. It seemed to me that she was telling the wives that their husbands came back to her over and over again for more than just her body and more than just her mind, but for her understanding of the way the two work so well together. For her ability to use her mind to tease and fascinate. That can be quite powerful, and given the circumstances in which she lived, I think that's a pretty feminist way of looking at things.

My overall impression of the movie was that Veronica, while she wouldn't have chosen that way of life, given her druthers, did choose to live her life to the fullest, to enjoy it as much as possible, to appreciate the benefits of such a life, to make the most of it. She certainly seemed to enjoy herself, and the power of her position (and as for doing something that "is for the pleasure of the man exclusively," my experience is that it can be quite pleasurable to give pleasure).

As for the reading and writing, I understood the movie to be specifically about Venice, not Spain or anywhere else -- there are countries in the world today where women are mostly illiterate (and suppressed), but one wouldn't take that to mean all women around the world are uneducated or illiterate.

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I agree on all counts with what radiogirl wrote.



El Paso, Texas...ever heard of it?

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VERY well put. I am in total agreement with you. At the time, the men in Venice went to the courtesans for everything they couldn't get in their 'marriages of state'. As Veronica's mother put it - marriage was a contract and one had to marry according to their station in society. Veronica's mother also told her that Cleopatra could seduce a man at 20 paces with her mind. In order to have that ability, the courtesans had to be educated because this time period was one of art, music, literature. When Veronica's mother first took her into the library during training, Veronica was reluctant and told her mother, "I can't go in there!" Her mother said, "A young lady can't come in here; a courtesan can!" Veronica's training was all about sex and education in order that she might be able to communicate intelligently and also gratify sexually. When the wives were asking questions of Veronica, not only did they not know what was going on with their husbands they didn't even know where Cyprus was located or why it was important to the Venetians indicating that they were very uneducated.

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The women walking into the library is one of my favorite scenes. It is sad, that even in to today"s world women in various parts of the world are still denied education.

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When you look at this scene, I agree with whoever said the combination of sex and education was the relevant and powerful theme of this scene.

Here is why. First off, an Italian women knowing Latin was an immense sign of knowledge. Whoever was comparing a courtesan to a queen did a bad job, because of course Queen Elizabeth for example would get away with whatever she wanted. Women of that time however, could not. So the Latin translations was to show how smart Franco really was.

And the banana was just merely representing how she was able to become so smart.

And Courtesans were arguably some of the smartest females in the world at the time because they were able to learn about more than just religious studies. Remember the scene at the beginning when her mother wanted her to become a courtesan and she offered the idea of going to a convent. At that time, most women got their education from convents, meaning lots of religious materials and studies. Veronica was holding onto Cleopatra for a while.

This scene was probably the strongest pro feminist statement in the whole movie.

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First, about her use of Latin: I mostly found the use of the latin for banana tree jarring, more than anything else. While the use of latin for banana would be possible, banana tree seemed odd, but I put that on the script writer.

Also, as for women in Venice being particularly limited in education -- I wouldn't say entirely. There were female courtiers. However, that position was limited to women of wealth and status. While Franco, in life and film, had a respectable family name, she lacked the status and certainly the wealth to be a courtier.

I also have a problem saying courtesans were smarter than, say, abbesses because they could go beyond religious studies. At the time, education for men is just starting to move beyond religion. Like a man's, a woman's education beyond religious and semi-religious texts would not be nearly as extensive. Having a strong religious education did make one, in the eyes of that society, smart and extrememly powerful. If it didn't, the inquisition wouldn't have had nearly the power it did. The church had incredible power and it extended beyond just Venice, so for a woman to have power, however limited, in the church gave her far wider reaching power than any other avenue.

The banana scene could have been more of a feminist statement. If the director and script-writer didn't go with the romance novel stock scene of the heroine versus the mean, stodgy women and instead showed some mutual sympathy and understanding, I'd have a better time seeing it as really feminist. As the movie filmed it, it came across as feminism-lite, where the 'liberated' women are sexy, in fabulous dresses, and able to use their bodies and intellects (for the pleasure of men), while the wives were just prudish, dumb women who couldn't turn on a guy.

And if Veronica is so smart and really believes a woman's education is so important, why doesn't she tell the one wife where, exactly, Cypress is?

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<i>The church had incredible power and it extended beyond just Venice, so for a woman to have power, however limited, in the church gave her far wider reaching power than any other avenue. </i>

Even abesses had almost no power in the church, certainly not outside their own area, so the comparison is hardly a valid one. The church may have offered men the chance for far-reaching power, but not women.

<i>If the director and script-writer didn't go with the romance novel stock scene of the heroine versus the mean, stodgy women and instead showed some mutual sympathy and understanding, </i>

What do you call the best friend's defense of her? In point of fact, the room was full of wives, and only one of them got snotty with Veronica. The rest were far more interested in the information she could give them.

For that matter, are you forgetting the scene later in the movie when Beatrice (the best friend) asks Veronica to help Beatrice's daughter become a courtesan? I'd say that's pretty sympathetic. Their friendship is part of what makes the movie as powerful as it is.

<i>while the wives were just prudish, dumb women who couldn't turn on a guy. </i>

Er, that's sort of the point of the movie- wives of that time were kept uneducated, chaste, and dependent on their husbands. They were actively trained to be, in your words, "prudish, dumb women who couldn't turn on a guy". Only courtesans were allowed educations so they could think for themselves. Unpalatable realism is still realistic.

And Veronica didn't tell the wife where Cyprus is because the other woman distracted her by asking about her husband. Real people can be distracted, ya know. :P

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Also, as for women in Venice being particularly limited in education -- I wouldn't say entirely.


Entirely or not, within the film, those women (present at the meeting with Veronica) were of limited education. They were probably brought up in how to manage their household and rear their children, not in politics, philosophy, literature, etc. This was made quite clear in the film when Veronica had to tell them where Cyprus is, and Venice's political situation.

The point is further underscored after the meeting when Veronica is in the boat with Marco's sister, who begs Veronica to take her daughter when she is old enough and make her a courtesan so she won't end up an ignorant doll like her mother.

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I don't think that the movie was meant to be a feminist piece. The movie was meant to portray the life of Veronica Franco.

I'm sorry for you that you feel the way you say about oral pleasures. Not everyone views it as pleasure only for the male. I wasn't aware that one had to be Linda Lovelace in order to enjoy pleasing their male partner (I am female, by the way...).

Your reference to the education of courtesans: The movie wasn't concerned with Spain or female saints. Veronica's mother told her in the library that courtesans were the most educated women in the world and that Cleopatra could seduce a man at 20 paces with her mind. Also, when Veronica was called upon by the wives to find out the status of their husbands, if you noticed - the women had no idea where Cyprus was or why it was so crucial to the Venetian people. Also, when Beatrice solicited Veronica to make her daughter a courtesan, Beatrice's most powerful statement was "I don't want my daughter to spend her life in sewing and reading the Bible (?), rueing the day she was born a girl, and thinking that no biblical hell could ever be worse than this life of perpetual inconsequence." So, even the wives knew they had no future other than giving birth.

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"Not that I have anything against oral sex, but what is so liberating and uninhibited in a woman showing her prowess at an act that is for the pleasure of a man exclusively?"---

spoken like a true (jaded) feminist & a remark that could arguably give feminists a bad name. are we all the same & all enjoy the same things? where is it written that a woman can not enjoy giving pleasure to others, male or female. various women would enjoy doing this for various reasons. your statement seems extremely closed minded and one dimensional. it is this kind of logic that makes this liberal woman denounce being a feminist, if ever asked if i am one. sigh, labels.

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Unless she's Linda Lovelace in Deep Throat, she's not getting any enjoyment out of it, so why is this showing her as being sexually free?


I know plenty of women that would disagree with that.

Stick a blow dryer or something down there and thaw that thing out!!

I don't love her.. She kicked me in the face!!

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Proper women of that time period were neither allowed to read anything (except the Bible) and certainly were not expected to enjoy sex.


Actually during that time period it was believed that a woman was required to orgasm in order to become pregnant and the Church taught that sufficient preparation (foreplay) was required so the husband was supposed to stimulate the wife until she began "to speak as if she were babbling." Also women were considered to be more sexual then men to the point at times of being sexually insatiable.

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Well, they were freaking out because she was similating oral sex with the banana (sort of). Marco's wife rudely asks her why their husbands keep coming back to her (for sex). And Veronica says that the latin word for banana is something (I can't remember what it was) and then she does the whole swallowing the banana thing. This said to me that yes, her most value asset in her education, in the sense of society but as for why the husbands keep coming back to her (and what is her most important asset as a courtesan)....I mean come on...look what she did to the banana. lmao Think about what she would do with those guys! ;)

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Here is the scene:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoMtMeiSyCE



Life is precious, and it’s our own - not any god’s.

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So the only book normal women could read was the Bible. I suppose it had Song of Songs/Song of Solomon cut out of it. :-P

Excerpts from chapter 4:

(The man speaking)

Your teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn,
coming up from the washing.
Each has its twin;
not one of them is alone.

Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon;
your mouth is lovely.
Your temples behind your veil
are like the halves of a pomegranate.
...

Your two breasts are like two fawns,
like twin fawns of a gazelle
that browse among the lilies.

...
You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride;
you have stolen my heart
with one glance of your eyes,
with one jewel of your necklace.

How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride!
How much more pleasing is your love than wine,
and the fragrance of your perfume than any spice!

Your lips drop sweetness as the honeycomb, my bride;
milk and honey are under your tongue.
The fragrance of your garments is like that of Lebanon.

You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride;
you are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain.

Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates
with choice fruits,
with henna and nard,
nard and saffron,
calamus and cinnamon,
with every kind of incense tree,
with myrrh and aloes
and all the finest spices.

You are a garden fountain,
a well of flowing water
streaming down from Lebanon.

(The woman speaking)

Awake, north wind,
and come, south wind!
Blow on my garden,
that its fragrance may spread abroad.
Let my lover come into his garden
and taste its choice fruits.


I once read an article on a conservative Christian website which suggested that this passage describes oral sex. If so, awesome! :-D

I consider myself a fundamentalist Christian and I loved this movie.

The cockroach is a noble beast....

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Actually, at the time, erotic Biblical passages were to be taken metaphorically.

Ex: when King David's ministers stick a young prostitute in bed with him to see if that will revive him when he's dying, and he clasps her to him, that's them giving him young and lovely "Wisdom," which he clasps to himself since he's a good king and all that.

Riiiight....

But your passages do make me laugh XD! Not bad points.

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I think that Veronica was basically telling the wives that their shock over her profession (that is, her ability to swallow bananas whole) is distracting them from what she really is - an educated and therefore powerful person. There is no form of knowledge - whether sexual or philosophical - that she fears, or has not tried to acquire, but she is certainly more dimensional than they're giving her credit for, and it's because of the limits of what they imagine about her that they don't see it.

It's also kind of cool that the banana act was metaphorical, and the women read into it, but the word Veronica gives them is Latin for banana - the literal object. They have to imagine her sexual knowledge, but her Latin education is literal and immediate and very clear. I don't know how feminist you could call this scene, but I think it was well done.

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I admit, feminism isn't something I think about while watching this movie, but I do remember how differently I watched it after taking some classes about Women in Europe from 1200-1700 and some of women from the same time period in Africa, Asia, and other parts of the world.

Before, I watched this scene and got the thoughts that the film makers wanted you to get: that the education she got in order to support her profession made the profession worth it to her, and that while it hurt that she couldn't be innoscent anymore or part of the group of friends she'd once belonged to, you could see that once she'd been set free from her cage, there was no way she could fathom returning to it. And her former childhood friend could see how Veronica blossomed with her knowledge and how she was able to talk to anyone she pleased.

After I took the classes, when I learned about how the women in Venice at that time had basically four choices (at most)- marriage, the convent, servants, or Veronica's path. To be married meant your life was owned and run by a man who was likely a good deal older than you (and possibly you weren't his first wife, so you might inherit his children as well), you were shuttered up with the children, and you were never free again unless you were lucky enough to outlive your husband while being too old to be remarried off and having a kind son who didn't mind supporting you. The convent, while giving you great access to education and keeping you safe from the perils of marriage (this was an age where the biggest cause of death for women of a certain age bracket was childbirth and the complications of it such as husbands pushing for another baby too soon, infections from any tearing during birth, etc. - not to mention, there are some cases of husbands killing their wives and facing no consequence), and it also gave you the ability to exchange letters with powerful people- it also meant you were possibly just as locked away as a married woman, possibly more so. Sometimes, as a nun/woman religious, your family could even insist you be returned to them and they could marry you off as you were still an elegiable virgin. To be a servent meant you were poor, at your employer's mercy (like those husbands who were bored with their chaste wives, not to mention a jealous wife), and it didn't allow you much of an education- if any at all beyond reading your Bible.

I felt very sorry for the women in Venice, no matter where they ended up. I was glad to hear, in my history classes, that there were many women in various locations who took paths like Veronica's where they got educated and were able to enjoy their educations. One that was interesting was one of Cleopatra's daughters, who married an African prince, and they had a small area they ruled together that had libraries, art, great buildings, philosophers, and was considered to be a miniature Egypt.

"There is still hope." - Arwen

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