Did Sheldon Schwartz or the other writers of I DREAM OF JEANNIE consult with imams before releasing their scripts?
Also, how come Jeannie and her master have what looks like a regular Western wedding? I’m surprised they still let this show on in reruns, because it might offend somebody. They always had to check with the Catholic Church whenever they did a Father This or Father That movie (starring Bary Fitzgerald or Bing Crosby), or COME TO THE STABLE with Loretta Young, and probably had to check with the
Episcopal Church when they did that one with Loretta Young about she and an angel, played by Cary Grant, go ice skating. I’m surprised we have any movies or television at all. What about THE GOLDBERGS? But my main question is about I DREAM OF JEANNIE and I hope it doesn’t disappear because of correctness. Oh I just remembered I LOVE LUCY has there been any complaints from Cubans about that?
Take a deeeeeeeeep breath.
First of all, it was stipulated in the show that Jeannie was a lot older than Islam. Since she pre-dated the establishment of the origin, it would be no more necessary to consult Moslem authorities than it would be to consult Christian authorities about a show featureing Jews.
Ditto the wedding. Since Jeannie was not a Moslem, there’s no debate. (Now whether the show was insulting to Middle Easterners in general is a different issue!)
It was not customary to consult with religious leaders about shows unless the show was dealing with a particular religious practice. Just because the Goldbergs happened to be Jewish didn’t automatically make it a “Jewish” program.
The one exception might be when the program was going to venture into untested moral waters. When Lucy got pregnant, priests, ministers and rabbis were consulted to make sure that daring (for the time) storyline was presented in a non-offensive matter.
On the other hand, did the producers or CBS consult with ANYONE before they put Hogan’s Heroes on the air?
Umm, let’s make that “predated the establishment of the religion.” Sorry.
And if I didn’t make myself clear enough, Jeannie wasn’t Moslem, she was genie.
On the other hand, angels predate Christianity, but I would bet the producers of “Touched by an Angel” and other such shows consult with Christian leaders about plot lines. I don’t know if genies (djinni?) are exact equivalents of Christian angels, but they’re certainly Islamic religious figures.
I’d guess that nobody at the time the show was created cared one way or another if it offended Moslems, and anyway, considering Barbara Eden’s outfit, the show would probably offend a devout Moslem no matter what character she was playing.
Off to Cafe Society.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
The producers of “Xena” didn’t consult religious leaders, and they got themselves into a bit of trouble with Muslims.
I’m waiting for the followers of Zeus and Ares to complain, that ought to be interesting.
I was under the assumption that djinn were not a true part of Islam, that they were an element of earlier Arab religions. I just did a search in an online Quran for the words ‘djinn’, ‘djinni’, and ‘genie’ and didn’t find anything. Islam has the same basic types of supernatural beings as Christianity - God (Allah), angels, and fallen angels.
The producers of Xena actually got into some hot water with the Hindus. They did a story in which Xena was “possessed” by Krishna to fight another Hindu diety (I forget which). Some Hindu groups complained that their gods were being portrayed in an unflattering light and that the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle was “immoral” and putting their gods in the same show was an insult.
The producers did some editing of the episode for repeats and tacked on a PSA with someone from a Hindu group, with Lucy Lawless and Renee O’Connor saying what a wonderful religion Hinduism is and that you can learn more about Hinduism by going to your local library.
Actually, Surah 72 is titled “The Jinn”.
And the story of creation says
Jinn seem to have free will in the Koran. Some are good, some are bad, some are Muslim, some are not. The Koran mentions that both men and jinn can go to hell.
Here’s a website.
The Hinduism material reminds me of the Simpsons episode in which Homer gets himself up as Ganesha the Elephant headed god, and I think I remember extra arms too.
I remember that when the “I Dream of Jeanie” reunion TV movie aired it was soon after the Gulf War so every reference to Baghdad (where Jeanie was from) was changed to something else (which I can’t remember).
I don’t know how “devout,” but Michael Ansara, Eden’s husband at the time, is Muslim, I believe. I know he was born in Syria, and I recall a documentary about the faith that he narrated/may have acted in, so I would assume he could have been a source Eden or the producers turned to if they thought they might offend. But again, the land of his birth and his paraticipation in the documentary don’t necessarily mean he is Muslim, so I may be jumping to conclusions.
Also, from the few episodes I’ve seen, “Touched By An Angel” seems to skirt the issue of being a “Christian” show. Usually “God” is mentioned, but I’ve never heard Jesus mentioned. I’ve seen eps that seemed to deal with Christianity, and I recall seeing Kirk Douglas in one where the character was definitely Jewish. But it could probably be claimed, and points could be made, that it is aimed at the Christan audience moreso than the Jewish one, thus making it a Christian show by default.
I thought the Jeannie reunion movie was made in the mid-to-late 80s, before the Gulf War. They didn’t make more of them did they? Please tell me they didn’t.
Sir Rhosis
Mea Culpa, it was Lord Krishna indeed.
I believe they simple didn’t put the show in the overseas package. It certainly wasn’t shown in India.
This isn’t quite it. Lord Krishna did not possess Xena, he merely appeared to her and gave her some advice. Xena later fought a demon, NOT a god. For the battle her appearance altered so that she looked as though she were some sort of avatar of the goddess Kali, but this was not explicitly stated in the episode.
I believe the main objections from the Hindu community were that Xena did not show Lord Krishna proper respect and that Hindu gods do not really belong in campy action-adventure TV shows anyway, although Xena and Gabrielle’s relationship was also a factor.
I don’t think anyone’s ever taken “I Dream of Jeannie” so seriously. It’s just one of those mindless 60’s sitcoms! Did you expect the producers of “the Beverly Hillbillies” to consult real hillbillies? How about “Batman”? Should they have consulted real live millionare playboys who fight crime in their spare time? Television producers in the 60’s were just starting to get over the “Amos ‘n’ Andy”-type stereotype’s, give 'em a break. Let’s just say that the rules of Islam don’t apply to imaginary magical beings who live in a liquor bottle.(except maybe to Osama bin Laden, who knows what that nut-job believes)
I didn’t put a lot of research into this since, well, it’s a 1960’s sitcom. But IIRC, jinn & afreets and all sorts of demi-demons arose out of the polytheistic religions of the early Aryans. When the Indo-Aryans absorbed the mutually polytheistic Dravidians in India, the result was the thousand of deities still present in Hinduism.
Further north in Iran, centuries before the Moslems enforced monotheism, Zoroastianism had tried to impose a single system on a glut of primitive multi-gods (politically always a tough prospect: the more gods and spirits out there, the more self-employment to be scrounged by shamans and priesthoods). In my childhood copy of the Arabian Nights, the Jinn were all rounded up and put into bottles by King Solomon - this time it was the Hebrew monotheist overcoming the polyglot of spirits.
But the jinn are always getting out of their bottles and causing mischief, true to their nature as tickster gods. In Norse mythology, Loki is the trickster, who ends up chained to a rock instead of bunged in a bottle. In modern culture, Bugs Bunny displays a lot of the traditional qualities of the trickster (to give this topic the full Joseph Campbell treatment).
So, like Bugs Bunny, Jeannie’s role goes back much farther than Islam.
I love several of the sitcoms, especially I LOVE LUCY, THE HONEYMOONERS, MR. ED, I DREAM OF JEANNIE, BEWITCHED,GREEN ACRES, MARRIED WITH CHILDREN, LEAVE IT TO BEAVER, but I can’t watch LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY. When you watch something on tv or a movie or listen to a radio show like FIBBER MCGEE AND MOLLY, JACK BENNIE, PHIL HARRIS (with Alice Faye), you come to live in their world and on their set; they become familiar and comfortable. Peg’s couch,
Lucy’s furniture, the comfy home of Archie and Edith, the sheer happiness and cheer of Samantha and June Cleaver! Remember when Lisa bought a truckload of “cosmeteticals?”
Who could forget Granny boiling up a batch down by the cee-ment pond! I don’t like angel or demon or vampire shows, for some reason I can’t watch them or concentrate on them, as with LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY, I try to get into it, but find that my hand is automatically changing channels. I feel that angel and demon shows should be eliminated, as they put disgusting ideas in people’s heads, and whatever that one is called with Roma in it and that gray-haired lady, which is so pious. How can anybody stand these, one wonders? I think we can abandon arguments about whether something is or was good or bad; they used to put out something for everybody, whereas now there is never anything to watch on the television except for reruns of LEAVE IT TO BEAVER, LUCY, BEWITCHED, JEANNIE, HONEYMOONERS, and the beloved MARRIED WITH CHILDREN. (Also, I hate all shows with little children on them or teenagers, which is all they have now. There is nothing amusing about wisecracking teenagers. THE BRADY BUNCH was fairly good because it was so absurd, placing the usual homely, mindless, bad attitude average teen with impossibly sunny, positive, worthwhile people. Richie on THE DICK VAN DYKE AND MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW was not on much, thank goodness, and MARRIED WITH CHILDREN got rid of that little blond kid who was so sickening, and never explained where he went. Little Rickie on I LOVE LUCY wasn’t on more than necessary and he was all right. Carol Burnett used to put her character’s daughter’s baby in the umbrella stand. PETTICOAT JUNCTION was one of the WORST shows ever made. Now you take that one about these attractive people driving that car around, I forget the name, but that was great, and what about CHARLIE’S ANGELS? There’s no faulting a show like that unless you take things literally or seriously. And on and on…
**Route 66? Adam-12? My Mother The Car? The A-Team? Car 54, Where Are You? Highway Patrol? **
No, it wasn’t one of those, but I forgot to add the one about the talking car starring David Hasselhoff. The one I was thinking of had a beauteous blond girl, two blond men, I think, and it was in the country. They were always driving this old car into the woods and it was a comedy I just can’t think of the name of. I think there was an irate policeman or sheriff in it so it was like Smokey and the Bandit movie but it was a tv series. I only saw a few episodes in rerun and it was happy and cheerful. Also, does anybody know why when D.Hasselhoff wasn’t credited (except with a different name) when he was in an episode of MARRIED WITH CHILDREN in which he played the role of a parachute instructor in a plane that Bud Bundy and others were to parachute from?
I mean why wasn’t he credited?