The body-positive video 'Mama's Got Bump' celebrates postpartum bodies
The internet is a treasure trove for mom parodies — those viral song-and-dance videos depicting the brutal realities of motherhood. But one comedy trope is doing less complaining and more empowering with a musical tribute that celebrates postpartum bodies.
“Mama’s Got Bump,” a music video spoofing the Sir Mix-a-Lot tune “Baby Got Back,” features the women of “Mothers You’d Like to Friend,” a Los Angeles, Calif.-based comedy troupe created by Cat Deakins, a mother-of-two and Masha Sapron, a mother-of-three.
“I like my belly and I cannot lie,” raps mom and actress Quin Walters in the video that’s received almost one million views, 3.5K comments, and 7K reactions since it was posted to Facebook on Monday timed to #LoveYourBodyDay on October 18.
With Deakins, a cinematographer, behind the camera and Walters and Sapron shaking their booties, along with other volunteers, the moms take over their local playground singing about “ripped up” post-birth vaginas, “belly’s feelin’ like jelly,” and postpartum depression. “Ooh, extra loose skin. Is it ever gonna go away? Well screw it, screw it, you know my body’s gonna get through it. My belly’s a badge of honor. Proof that I am a spawner. I’m soft, I’m large, and I got a lot of new discharge.” (Yes, they go there).
Deakins and Sapron concocted the group idea in 2015 right before Deakins gave birth to her second child. “We would walk to each other’s houses and vent about clogged milk ducts and laugh so we wouldn’t cry,” Deakins tells Yahoo Lifestyle.
Sapron adds, “I found myself advising Cat to eat figs to in order to loosen her perineum before childbirth and I realized I was a caricature of a mom.”
However, when the women posted a Facebook call-out asking for volunteers to appear in their video, along with a photo of Sapron wearing a pair of jeans, the response was ironic. “I received lots of messages from women offering to help me lose the baby weight,” she says.
The women, who shot the video over the course of four days in a “bubble of self-confidence,” felt it was important to bare their bodies. “We all try to cover ourselves up, but the fat has to go somewhere,” Sapron says, referring to a scene in the video featuring a woman wearing a too-tight corset. “It was important to normalize what our bodies can look like months or years after having children. Can we all be OK with the fact that our bodies may never go back to what they once were?”
And while the pair’s take on motherhood is sarcastic and playful, their message is deep. “There’s a lot of shaming on social media and we want to be positive and inclusive,” says Sapron. “Let’s love our bodies.”
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