I really don't see what use your brain is to me when I only want you to make babiez ;_;
After much obnoxious wheedling, I've finally succeeded in getting my mom to read Death Note. Which is awesome, really. She's just finished the second volume, so we were talking over the whole Raye and Naomi arc.
And, uh. Uck. As much as I love this manga, the truth is that it's really fucking sexist. Raye and Naomi's conversation (the "I know you're really smart and were an awesome FBI agent, but now you're my wife so you don't get to have an opinion, even though hearing your opinion might help me. And stuff." one) is pretty depressing, and it bothers me that it's written in a way that implies the mangaka thinks this is totally normal. Raye is played as a nice guy character throughout, so I doubt the intensely asshole-ish way he comes off in this scene was intentional. I find it really unsettling that apparently that's a way of looking at gender relations that's so ingrained for the author that he never stopped to consider whether a character from a culture different from his own would even act that way in the first place.*
Given the very high percentage of the OMG JAPAN SO AWESOME; I WILL GO THERE AND BE FAMOUS MANGAKA DESU!!! crowd that is female, I really wish people would stop to actually consider the way female characters are treated/presented in Japanese media. >.>"
* Not that I'm trying to say that it's somehow impossible/particularly unlikely for an American character to take that view. Plenty of people in America are sexist as well. But it is also the case that a character in a present-day American series who decided that a woman was no longer allowed to think once she married him would be regarded as having serious character flaws, to say the least.
And, uh. Uck. As much as I love this manga, the truth is that it's really fucking sexist. Raye and Naomi's conversation (the "I know you're really smart and were an awesome FBI agent, but now you're my wife so you don't get to have an opinion, even though hearing your opinion might help me. And stuff." one) is pretty depressing, and it bothers me that it's written in a way that implies the mangaka thinks this is totally normal. Raye is played as a nice guy character throughout, so I doubt the intensely asshole-ish way he comes off in this scene was intentional. I find it really unsettling that apparently that's a way of looking at gender relations that's so ingrained for the author that he never stopped to consider whether a character from a culture different from his own would even act that way in the first place.*
Given the very high percentage of the OMG JAPAN SO AWESOME; I WILL GO THERE AND BE FAMOUS MANGAKA DESU!!! crowd that is female, I really wish people would stop to actually consider the way female characters are treated/presented in Japanese media. >.>"
* Not that I'm trying to say that it's somehow impossible/particularly unlikely for an American character to take that view. Plenty of people in America are sexist as well. But it is also the case that a character in a present-day American series who decided that a woman was no longer allowed to think once she married him would be regarded as having serious character flaws, to say the least.