Wakarimashita wrote:
Hime-Chan wrote:
Can my feminist side get angry at Sonoko who is expecting Ran to live off her father in law's money when she's married? WHAT THE HECK?
Ran is the (young) representation of the typical japanese housewife, so it's not really surprising. I don't think you should apply your western feminist schemas on a japanese manga anyway.
There's this, and also the fact that Sonoko is clearly joking around to make Ran embarrassed. I mean, it wouldn't really be funny if Sonoko said "In the future when you've got an independent job of your own you won't need your father-in-law's money!" because the whole "an independent job of [Ran's] own" part would come out of nowhere and come out forced. Even if this were in a western comic, I personally would find it to just be a joke for the sake of embarrassment on Ran's part (though if it were western I know that many people would call it "anti-feminist" :/)
Basically, the butt of the joke is not Ran's supposed dependence on other people's funds in the future, but rather to poke fun at her and Shinichi's relationship. It's a sliding scale of comedy that's often overlooked for the sake of "good causes" when really: it's just a joke. Yeah, when things like anti-feminist or racist material are used as the butt of jokes that's not cool, but often if they're just at the side of a joke, it's just offhand comments that shouldn't really mean anything. ...Even when they are the butt of the joke, sometimes it works due to the format and the underlying message that: "No, we didn't
really mean that."
It's like a joke that I know from a show:
*after a whole bunch of insults to races and countries that were followed by kind words under a "The more you know" section*
Last guy: Heh, yeah. Not like those lazy Canadians.
*background changes for the More you know segment*
Last guy: *looks around confused before finally looking at camera* What? ...Canada sucks.
In the case above, I laughed, since...well, it's a comedy show. Things like that aren't meant to really be taken seriously.
I guess in a tl;dr version: don't take it too seriously xD