Magic Jinn. Love it or hate it?

[Beachball]

Tonight I learned of a Hasbro toy called "Magic Jinn". It's an electronic blue cat "genie" that tries to guess the animal the user is thinking of. I was browsing a network site with links to many people's blogs about life advice and hobbies and came across a Muslim parent with small children being offended by this toy. He/she had snail-mailed a bunch of protest letters to Hasbro and wants the toy recalled. I'm sorry the parent is upset by Magic Jinn but I don't want to help him/her fight Hasbro over it. I myself think the toy is pretty cool and I want one. Magic Jinn can sit next to my ceramic figure of Genie from Disney's Aladdin that plays "Friend Like Me".


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Magic Jinn in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aXGZPDzEFw

[Mkia]

Awww he's cute!!

Uhhh why was a Muslim family offended? I'm confused.

[Beachball]

Awww he's cute!!

Uhhh why was a Muslim family offended? I'm confused.

In Islamic culture, it's forbidden to interact with jinns because they can possess people. There are good jinns and evil jinns and to not interact with any of them is protection from the evil ones. The complaining parent also states Magic Jinn has characteristics that makes it look evil (pointed ears, devil tail, and glowing eyes. He/she could be talking about the Western generic devil with a goatee on the chin and a pitchfork in one hand) and the toy is just something else to fuel the "anything associated with Muslims is evil" fire.

[Wardah]

I think it's the same kind of thing as a very religious Christian family being offended by Harry Potter because of "witchcraft or Halloween because it is "the Devil's Day". I doesn't bother me.

[Mkia]

Gotcha! I guess I can understand, but then don't buy the toy?

[ThriftyPony]

If I were Hasbro, I would have never picked the name Jinn in the first place. Jinn, Djin, genie all those things have negative connotations. Genie is the anglicized watered down version of jinn. I would have chose genie, maybe?

Still, there are a lot of other toys that upset other cultures that haven't been banned/changed. I used to babysit a boy when I was a preteen/teenager whose parents refused to let him have any Pokemon, because they saw the pokeball as capturing the pokemons' souls. (He still had a secret stash!) And I had a friend in high school who wasn't allowed to watch Looney Toons as a kid.

Any toy that involves some kind of "magic," is bound to hit a nerve with somebody.

[kaoskat]

It's kinda strange looking. Not really my sort of toy.

[melipuffles]

I unboxed these things at work and I just have to say, they give me really eerie vibes. I knew Jinn was something mystical (didn't know evil though) and it just looked vaguely demonic to me from the start. I usually have no problems with "odd" toys or anything (heck even ouija boards don't freak me out, though I wouldn't play one myself)... but this guy just gave me a weird "do not like" vibe.

 I thought nothing of it until I saw the thing in a display at Toys R Us a while back and pressed the try me button on the display....its voice matched my "vaguely demonic" feelings perfectly! Seriously, if you haven't heard it talk, find a video, because it's kind of unsettling! xD

It may just be me being weird. I've never had a reaction to a toy like this before but it just creeps me right the heck out.