‘Funny Or Die’ Mom’s Video Another Casualty Of On-Screen Breastfeeding

funny or die breastfeeding

Facebook previously got into some hot water after taking down photos of nursing babies, but even in the world of comedy, a mother can’t make a silly snippet for Funny or Die breastfeeding.

Ahna Tessler, like a lot of first-time mothers, found herself totally isolated in her home following the birth of her twins, Madelyn and Elliot. The comedian decided to channel her energies into creating a video satirizing her situation, telling viewers that she hates kids, even though she depicts herself nursing both her babies at the same time. But after sharing the video on the Funny Or Die website, new mom Ahna found that her account had been suspended and all her videos have been removed — and not because she had been swearing.

Funny or Die eventually reinstated the mother’s account and gave back her videos, but they told her on the site that her content had been “flagged as obscene” specifically because she filmed herself breastfeeding in her video “Leah got a job!” The comedian gave this quote to The New York Times, saying that she could have been a lot more “obscene” with her breasts to warrant that flagging:

”If I wanted to shock them,” Ms. Tessler said in a telephone interview, ”I would have shown my breasts in a very sexual manner. I wouldn’t have been feeding my children. ”

Funny or Die addressed the video with the Times as the VP of engineering told the publication that a short video of someone breastfeeding isn’t necessarily “obscene” but could easily constitute spam. He confirms that anything that looks in the least bit like spam or that simply isn’t in the “spirit of the site” can be flagged and taken down, which was probably the case for Ahna’s video.

And to keep the lactivists from cropping up on their premises and doing a mass nurse-in, the site’s press representatives said that ”Funny Or Die supports breast feeding in all forms, especially among consenting adults. ” But the knee-jerk reaction to this new mom’s video still suggests that where there are exposed breasts, there is still suspected obscenity — no matter who they’re feeding.

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(photo:funnyordie.com)

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