Get Up Out of That Bottle
Thursday, August 21, 2008
I was commenting on someone's post yesterday and I made a reference to Captain Anthony Nelson from I Dream of Jeanie and it got me thinking. Remember I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched? Tony would get mad at Jeannie every time she folded her arms and did the head nod and Darren disapproved of Samantha wiggling her button of a nose.
If you had any of these types of powers, would your husbands get angry at you for using them?
If I said “Yes Master” when my husband asked me for something, I think he'd fall on the ground laughing, holding his side. Then he'd probably make me do it again, but he would never discourage me from using the full range of my powers to make our lives easier.
Take for example when we bought our last car. Of the two of us, I am the better negotiator. I was a salesperson for years and I know exactly how to manipulate the situation to my advantage, oh, and I can totally charm strange men(I mean strangers that are men, not strange like wierd men). I would have made a great hooker, there goes FormerlyFun they'd say, she's got a heart of gold. So would my husband want me to squelch these gifts and be less of myself? Never. Especially if it means saving thousands of dollars and getting an almost no cost extended warranty.
If you had the power to clean the house with a head nod, make a gourmet meal with a nose wiggle or blink and all of a sudden the kids are in bed fast asleep and you're in his lap with nothing on but a pair of FMPs would your husband stop you? He'd want you to use these gifts, he'd treasure them. He'd brag to his friends about it. He'd dream up lists of things for you to do.
I can see it now," First, I want you to make my manager's pants fall down during the meeting, then I want you to help me win at basketball with the boys later, and oh, fix my PC would you and really, how many times do I have to remind you, I want the silver Bugatti Veryon, 'k?"
Remember when Tony would put Jeanie in her bottle when she was bad. I'm s
ure there are times when my husband would like to put me in a bottle and cork it. I kind of wish I had a bottle, as long as the kids couldn't come in it. I'd love to sit on a retro couch with big soft pillows and read for punishment. Oh master, I have been a bad Jeanie.
Though they were entertaining and I spent my summers glued to reruns, I think these shows were about men's subconscious fear of female power. Look girls, they were telling us, don't try and exercise your power or things get all screwed up. Now we have the girls from Heroes, Zena, Buffy, Aeon Flux, the girls from Charmed and Kim Possible. Long way to go to get to real equality but we have come a long way.
6 comments:
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I loved this. You're 100% dead on today.
By the way, I think that in the end of each of those shows I remember that the woman solved the problem so that it ended up looking like the man was really bright, smart, witty and the woman was just his sweet wife who looked at him adoringly. I think that the men also looked like they believed that they had fixed it and made it all right again. That's sad.
Yep, you're right. And so's Queen Mutha. All the men were sharp and witty and competent and the women were ditzy and cute. Gah. Makes you puke.
I still enjoyed the shows, though! LOL!
I always wondered that too, I think Gypsy has it right. I would be thrilled if Dr. O'C could do magic, go on with it!
She's the negotiator in our family as well.
I did love both those shows, though. Used to watch the reruns on TBS. Mmmmm, Barbara Eden.
I have this odd ability to remember random bits of useless knowledge. My husband's father used to pride himself as being "the smart one" at family gatherings. My husband sprang me on his father for a friendly game of Trivial Pursuit. My father-in-law hasn't liked me since that day!
This had my colleague and I cracking up at work earlier (shhhhhh, we don't blog at work).
There is something to be said about the fear of power bit. I work in a law office and it's ALL women. On occasion we encounter people who have a serious problem with that.
All I can remember about I dream of Jeanie was Barbara Eden's belly button ... Did she have a speaking role in this series?