By global Netflix standards, its first original Arabic series "Jinn" hardly pushes the envelope. But when the show debuted last week, many Jordanians were shocked and appalled by a program that had been billed as a point of national pride.Some Twitter users blasted the series as pornographic. Government ministers vowed to censor it. Jordan’s grand mufti denounced it as "a moral degradation." Lawmakers called an emergency session. The attorney general demanded the cyber-crimes unit "take immediate, necessary action" to pull it from Netflix.
While the government has not made good on its threats, the outrage nonetheless has shaken Jordan’s self-image as a bastion of tolerance in a turbulent region. It reflects a cultural gap between the reputation of the country’s Western-allied ruling elite and conservative Muslim public, many of whom consider it "haram" ‐ forbidden ‐ to drink alcohol, smoke marijuana or even kiss before marriage, and look to television to deliver morality.
The five-episode thriller centers on a private school in the capital of Amman, a bubble of liberalism and privilege in the country. School buses cart the teenagers off to a wide-open desert haunted by ancient demons that make strange and terrifying things happen.
Hence the name of the film - Jinn.