It's Barbie as Jeannie from "I Dream of Jeannie", the TV series, which ran for five seasons, from 1965 to 1970.
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| Sorry she's a little dusty. She's been in Ivy's room all these years. |
The dolls use the vintage style Barbie head and body.
There are two major controversies surrounding the "I Dream of Jeannie" TV series. One is the question of sexism. Jeannie was a provocatively dressed female 'slave' to a male 'master',there to fulfill his every wish and answer his every whim. The other controversy is which was better,"I Dream of Jeannie" or "Bewitched". I can't discuss the one question without bringing up the other. As far as the first one is concerned,here are my responses.
1. Ok. She's wearing a harem outfit. What are genies supposed to wear?
2. Jeannie was supposed to be limited in what she was able to do by being a genie in the first place. She was supposed to do whatever her master told her to do. But Jeannie rarely did what Major Nelson wanted. Instead, she found loopholes,or outright disobeyed,and did pretty much whatever she pleased. She often gave Major Nelson what she thought was better for him, rather than what he wanted. Kind of the way Ken shops for me. In short, Jeannie was supposed to be a 'slave', but she still was less under Major Nelson's thumb than Samantha was under her husband Darrin's thumb on "Bewitched". (Even if she did occasionally get banished to her bottle.She was a genie, after all.)
And that brings me to the other question: which was better? Let me preface my answer by saying I don't like Darrin...especially the second one. The first one was basically a hapless loser at his wit's end most of the time. The second one was just obnoxious for no reason. But both of them demanded that Samantha not use her powers at all. She was just supposed to totally suppress her instincts,and give up everything that made her who she was. He was rude to her family, especially her mother,who might not have hated him so much had he not treated them both the way he did. And Samantha was willing to give up who and what she was, just for Darrin. Darrin threw constant fits about not wanting any help from Samantha's powers, and yet she was constantly saving his job by being better at it than he was. Major Nelson was happy to enjoy the perks of having a genie once in a while. He just didn't want everything done for him, and he wanted to be an astronaut,something he needed no help at. (Unlike Darrin, who hardly ever managed to come up with a winning advertising slogan on his own.)
Other than the Darrin problem,almost everybody on "Bewitched" was unlikable. Darrin was a jerk to Samantha's family,and most of them were happy to screw his life up whenever they could. Larry, Darrin's boss was a bigger,crabbier,bossier pain in the butt than Dr. Bellows ever was.
The outfit is fairly accurate. It has the little tassels on the sleeves and the...bodice?
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| It's missing the lower tassel though. |
The hat is pretty good. It's hard to see, but her hair is braided below that hat.
She's even wearing Jeannie's pearl necklace.
The bottom half has the cutouts on the hips.
This was the second version of the outfit on the show. the first had a more conservative top.
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| That one hair! |
She came with her bottle.
The lid,tiny as it is, even comes off!
Tomorrow we'll see another version of Jeannie.
