This article examines Orientalism in the 1960s American sitcom I Dream of Jeannie. I argue that Orientalism, as defined by Edward Said, is at the core of this show. I Dream of Jeannie is unique in that it transferred existing Orientalist representations from cinema to television. I argue that Orientalism performs two functions in I Dream of Jeannie: (1) imagining Jeannie as an “Other” and (2) being a vehicle for comedy. I note that the show is seldom analyzed for its overt Orientalism, reflecting a problematic “tone-deafness” to anti-Muslim racism that continues in today's television.
Alsultany, E. (2012) Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race and Representation after 9/11 . New York: New York University Press.
Balfe, M. (2004) Incredible geographies? Orientalism and genre fantasy. Social & Cultural Geography . 5(1), 75–90.
Bennison, A. K. (2009) The Great Caliphs: The Golden Age of the ‘Abbasid Empire . New Haven: Yale University Press.
Bird, S. E. (2003) The Audience in Everyday Life: Living in a Media World . New York: Routledge.
Brooks, T. and Marsh, E. (1999) The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946–Present . New York: Ballantine Books.
Bullock, K. (2002) Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil: Challenging Historical and Modern Stereotypes . Herndon, VA: The International Institute of Islamic Thought.
Bullock, K. (2015) Visible and invisible: An audience study of Muslim and non-Muslim reactions to Orientalist representations in I Dream of Jeannie. Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research . 8(2), 83–97.
Cainkar, L. (2009) Homeland Insecurity: The Arab American and Muslim American Experience after 9/11 . New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Carr, J. (2016) Experiences of Islamophobia: Living with Racism in the Neoliberal Era . Oxon: Routledge.
Cox, S. with Frank, H. (2000) Dreaming of Jeannie: TV's Prime Time in a Bottle . New York: St Martin's Griffin.
Douglas, S. (1994) Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female With the Mass Media . New York: Times Books.
Eden, B. (2011) Jeannie Out of the Bottle . With Leigh, W. New York: Crown Archetype.
Edwards, H. (2000) Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures, Orientalism in America, 1870–1930 . Princeton: Princeton University Press and the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.
Giroux, H. and Pollock, G. (2010) The Mouse that Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence . 2nd ed. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Gottschalk, P. and Greenberg, G. (2008) Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy . Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Grandinetti, F. (2005) Forty years later we're still dreaming of Jeannie. Antiques & Collecting Magazine . 110(7), 56–60.
Green, T. H. (2015) The Fear of Islam: An Introduction to Islamophobia in the West . Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
Grotzfeld, H. (2006). The age of the Galland manuscript of the Nights: Numismatic evidence for dating a manuscript? In Marzolph, U. (ed.) The Arabian Nights Reader . Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 105–121.
Hall, S. (2007) Encoding/decoding. In During, S. (ed.) The Cultural Studies Reader . 3rd ed. London: Routledge, 477–487.
Hall, S. (2014) The whites of their eyes: Racist ideologies and the media. In Rodman, G. B. (ed.) The Race and Media Reader . New York: Routledge, 37–52.
Hirji, F. (2011) Through the looking glass: Muslim women on television – An analysis of 24, Lost, and Little Mosque on the Prairie . Global Media Journal . 4(2), 33–47.
I Dream of Jeannie: The Complete Series (2013) 20 disc DVD set. Executive Producer, Sidney Sheldon. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
Irwin, R. (2010) Visions of the Jinn: Illustrators of the Arabian Nights . London: Arcadian Library; Oxford: In association with Oxford University Press.
Jones, G. (1992) Honey I'm Home! Sitcoms: Selling the American Dream . New York: Grove Weidenfeld.
Kahf, M. (1999) Western Representations of the Muslim Woman: From Termagant to Odalisque . Austin: University of Texas Press.
Karim, K. H. (2003) Islamic Peril: Media and Global Violence . Montreal: Black Rose Books.
McIntosh, P. (2014) White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. In Rodman, G. B. (ed.) The Race and Media Reader . New York: Routledge, 33–36.
Marc, D. (1989) Comic Visions: Television Comedy and American Culture . Boston: Unwin Hyman.
Massey, J. and Tatla, R. S. (2012) Moral panic and media representation: The Bradford riot. In Morgan, G. and Poynting, S. (eds.) Global Islamophobia: Muslims and Moral Panic in the West . London: Ashgate, 161–180.
Melman, B. (1995) Women's Orients: English Women and the Middle East, 1718–1918 . 2nd ed. London: Macmillan.
Michalak, L. (2002) The Arab in American cinema: From bad to worse, or getting better? Social Studies Review: The Journal of the California Council for the Social Studies . 42(1), 11–17.
Mittell, J. (2010) Television and American Culture . New York: Oxford University Press.
Nance, S. (2009) How the Arabian Nights Inspired the American Dream, 1790–1935 . Chapel Hill: North Carolina Press.
NASA (n.d.) A Brief History of NASA, https://history.nasa.gov/factsheet.htm.
Poole, E. (2002) Reporting Islam: Media Representations of British Muslims . London: I.B. Tauris.
Rane, H., Ewart, J. and Martinkus, J. (2014) Media Framing of the Muslim World: Conflicts, Crises and Contexts . New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Rodman, G. B. (2006) Race … and other four letter words. Popular Communication . 4(2), 95–121.
Ross, S. D. and Lester, P. M. (eds.). (2011) Images that Injure: Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media . 3rd ed. Santa Barbara: Praeger.
Rowe, J. C. (2012) Arabia fantasia: US literary culture and the Middle East. Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics . (32), 55–77.
Ryzik, M. (2016) Can television be fair to Muslims? The New York Times . Available at https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/30/arts/television/can-television-be-fair-to-muslims.html?_r=0 (accessed 11 October 2018).
Said, E. (1979) Orientalism . New York: Vintage Books.
Semmerling, T. J. (2006) “Evil” Arabs in American Popular Film: Orientalist Fear . Austin: University of Texas Press.
Shaheen, J. (1984) The TV Arab . Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University Popular Press.
Shaheen, J. (2009) Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People . 2nd ed. Northampton: Olive Branch Press.
Shay, A. and Sellers-Young, B. (2005) Introduction. In Shay, A. and Sellers-Young, B. (eds.) Belly Dance: Orientalism, Transnationalism, and Harem Fantasy . Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers.
Sheldon, S. (2005) The Other Side of Me: A Memoir . New York: Warner Books, 1–27.
Shirazi, F. (2001) The Veil Unveiled: The Hijab in Modern Culture . Gainsville: The University Press of Florida.
Spangler, L. C. (2003) Television Women from Lucy to Friends . Westport: Praeger.
Spigel, L. (2001) Welcome to the Dreamhouse: Popular Media and Postwar Suburbs . Durham: Duke University Press.
Stockton, R. (1994) Ethnic archetypes and the Arab image. In McCarus, E. (ed.) The Development of Arab-American Identity . Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 119–153.