Gurinder Chadha is directing a $90M prequel to the TV series I Dream of Jeannie:
This is, after all, the series that made the line ‘Yes, master?’ famous and kept the busty, blond Stepford djinn in a bottle at home. I suppose her omnipotence makes up for it, but Jeannie’s long since been overtaken by the winky, S&M version of magical subservience at costume shops. Can you still parody a parody?
Manish — dead link!
fixed
… the script Chadha is filming explains how Jeannie became a genie, and starts in Arabia in 200 BC. “She’s a Muslim girl, and the story is about Muslims,” she says. “The notion of women in burkas on a big Hollywood screen is pretty radical.”
200 BC … Islam ? Err, wasn’t the angel Gabriel’s revelation to Prophet Mohammed made in 610 AD ?
Oh well, looks like Jeannie was converted.
Yeah, the 200BC muslim thing confused me too. Chadors are apparently pre-islamic, and were used by multiple religions, but still ….
I wonder if they’ll keep her body type? Barbara Eden was curvy, she had hips and a non-washboard lipoed stomach. Now I’ll bet they’ll use somebody who looks like an Olympic Volleyball player, but with huge implants.
Feh. I don’t know why some men find the whole plastic fembot thing sexy, but I wish it wasn’t the only look the media is putting forth …
muslims believe everyone is born a muslim (your parents brainwash you into believe other religions) and that adam and all the prophets were muslim (that islam is the ‘primal religion’). at least that is the standard model, so the being muslim in 200 BC might have some opening.
but pretty wacked out. I DREAM OF JEANNIE was a stape of my youth.
muslims believe everyone is born a muslim
Yeah, I’ve heard that before. That’s ostensibly the reason why even fundamentalist Wahhabist clerics condemned the Beslan tragedy – cuz killing kids amounted to killing Muslims, eh ?
no, they were brainwashed already probably. turned against god.
thanks Manish for the link on Alexander and his experiences in india. very interesting link. wonder how her feminist sensibilities would make this serial? hmm I guess..why should it be always yes master:-) cant it be a spell where all men for once obey women and say to every woman they see ” yes princess/madam, as u wish”…
Didn’t Jeannie mess up the life of her “master” often and in big ways? She did what she wanted even though she was kept in a bottle, right? At least, that was what I remember the subject of the show as being. I wonder what weird spin Chadha will put on this film? Islam and mainstream American television. Sounds interesting.