Does This Brutal Takedown of Todd Akin's 'Legitimate Rape' Remark Go Too Far?
Rarely does an Internet parody video need a trigger warning for rape victims, but Funny or Die's "Legitimate Rape" faux-pharmaceutical ad is so unreptentantly brutal in its mockery of Rep. Todd Akin's now-infamous remarks that it probably needs more than one.
Co-penned by and starring motion-capture actress Laura Napoli, the pretend-ad for a form of birth control called "legitimate rape" features a mock-rape scene that may bring the whole thing a little too close to home for some.
Does the end justify the means here? Some say no.
"It was reprehensible for Akin to raise this preposterous notion in the first place," says one commenter at Joe My God, "but just plain disrespecful to women (many of whom have been sexually assaulted), to depict a woman being 'throttled around' for popular amusement."
Another commenter disagrees: "It isn't supposed to be satire. Satire is when you take a real situation to the extreme for humor. This situation literally is what Akin and other repubs tried to write into law, and is what is on the GOP plank."