When straight, well-documented news stories based on case studies and research can’t make a difference, perhaps humour and satire can. TVF’s new video on marital rape is provocatively titled How I Raped Your Mother and just like the title, the content of this 13-minuter is something that makes you sit up and take notice with canned laughter and awwws in place.
Like AIB’s Honest Indian Weddings showed the hypocrisy behind the traditional Indian arranged marriage, TVF takes it a step further to mock our society for turning a blind eye to the very idea of the existence of the issue of marital rape.
Taking the outrageous idea of the title further, the video puts an Indian family together, wherein the daughter reveals that she’s being raped by her husband, only to find herself being brainwashed into believing that it’s just (what the Naani defines as) “intense love making.”
Without going into details or taking itself too seriously this new episode from Girliyapa questions traditional gender roles and also picks on Maneka Gandhi for changing her stand on marital rape.
Though not absolutely compelling, How I Raped Your Mother is a fine attempt at exploring a serious issue by using humour without trivialising it. The best punch comes at the end when the video states: “To report Marital Rape call these numbers:”
Now that bit was a stroke of genius!
Watch the episode here:
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