This is an interesting topic. I'll preface by saying that I would not advocate for removing these creatures from the game. I am currently playing a genie warlock, so that would be quite hypocritical of me. But, per the request of the OP, just want to try to add to the discussion. Also forgive me if what I say below is well known.
Here is the 5e Djinn:
I would say that this depiction is an iteration in the more long standing orientalist tradition in art, literature, and culture. To crudely summarize one of the insights of Edward Said's Orientalism (1978), knowledge=power. In the 19th century (and earlier), European powers (he mainly analyzes the French, and to a lesser extent the British) developed an idiom for characterizing the "East," as a place that exotic, mysterious, and sensual but also autocratic, barbarous and unchanging. This had little to do with the actual complex reality of those cultures, but instead was a fantasy for European audiences, one used in part to motivate and justify colonialism.
The 1001 Nights played no small part in defining qualities of the "East" for generations of European children. Various translators took considerable liberty in adapting the stories and adding in stories, including famously Antoine Galland's inclusion of Aladdin and the Magic Lamp.
I would even suggest that the 1001 Nights--as a product of European orientalism--was foundational for the fantasy genre. It was certainly a childhood favorite of innumerable Western authors (including, of course, the Brontes, rpg-players avant la lettre).
This is where it gets tricky for all of us interested in fantasy gaming. The harm, arguably, of orientalism-as-fantasy is that it was taken as reality. Historically, for many in the West, the Eastern woman was a figure like Scherezade, ruled by a despotic tyrant and in need of saving (i.e. colonial intervention). Wouldn't it be possible to take the fantastical elements and treat them as fantasy instead of as reality (especially as filtered through the grab-bag kitsch aesthetic that is dnd)? Perhaps in the same way we include a fantasy feudalism in our games without denying that the reality of medieval feudalism was much harsher and exploitative than the gloss that exists in our games?
Perhaps, but it's also the case that many facets of orientalism--the East as a place of irrational violence in need of saving--still motivate contemporary politics and culture, and to disastrous effect. So you can put a Djinn in your game of course, but it might be a worthwhile exercise to query the cultural baggage that you also might be (inadvertently ) including as you do so. It's also worthwhile to be self-reflexive about why you find these tropes and figures so exciting.
ps.
fwiw, a couple products that get it wrong
Hot Springs Island: the main antagonist is a slave-owning, resource-mining efreet with a "harem" and heavily implied sexual violence
Yoon Suin: a setting inspired by south Asia, in which the third paragraph of the text reads as follows:
Here is the 5e Djinn:
I would say that this depiction is an iteration in the more long standing orientalist tradition in art, literature, and culture. To crudely summarize one of the insights of Edward Said's Orientalism (1978), knowledge=power. In the 19th century (and earlier), European powers (he mainly analyzes the French, and to a lesser extent the British) developed an idiom for characterizing the "East," as a place that exotic, mysterious, and sensual but also autocratic, barbarous and unchanging. This had little to do with the actual complex reality of those cultures, but instead was a fantasy for European audiences, one used in part to motivate and justify colonialism.
The 1001 Nights played no small part in defining qualities of the "East" for generations of European children. Various translators took considerable liberty in adapting the stories and adding in stories, including famously Antoine Galland's inclusion of Aladdin and the Magic Lamp.
I would even suggest that the 1001 Nights--as a product of European orientalism--was foundational for the fantasy genre. It was certainly a childhood favorite of innumerable Western authors (including, of course, the Brontes, rpg-players avant la lettre).
This is where it gets tricky for all of us interested in fantasy gaming. The harm, arguably, of orientalism-as-fantasy is that it was taken as reality. Historically, for many in the West, the Eastern woman was a figure like Scherezade, ruled by a despotic tyrant and in need of saving (i.e. colonial intervention). Wouldn't it be possible to take the fantastical elements and treat them as fantasy instead of as reality (especially as filtered through the grab-bag kitsch aesthetic that is dnd)? Perhaps in the same way we include a fantasy feudalism in our games without denying that the reality of medieval feudalism was much harsher and exploitative than the gloss that exists in our games?
Perhaps, but it's also the case that many facets of orientalism--the East as a place of irrational violence in need of saving--still motivate contemporary politics and culture, and to disastrous effect. So you can put a Djinn in your game of course, but it might be a worthwhile exercise to query the cultural baggage that you also might be (inadvertently ) including as you do so. It's also worthwhile to be self-reflexive about why you find these tropes and figures so exciting.
ps.
fwiw, a couple products that get it wrong
Hot Springs Island: the main antagonist is a slave-owning, resource-mining efreet with a "harem" and heavily implied sexual violence
Yoon Suin: a setting inspired by south Asia, in which the third paragraph of the text reads as follows:
