Watch the Frida Mom postpartum ad Oscars rejected for being too graphic

The Oscars aren’t woman enough to air an advertisement about the raw side of motherhood.
The ad, which was barred from showing during the Academy Awards’ three-hour broadcast, opens with the sound of a crying newborn. On-screen, an apparently exhausted and suffering new mom trudges into a bathroom, wearing a thick, diaper-like mesh underwear — typical postpartum garb, though most probably wouldn’t know that.
“Postpartum recovery doesn’t have to be this hard,” the title card reads at the end. The commercial side of the ad is revealed at the end, when products from women’s health company Frida Mom appear on-screen.
Now, Frida CEO Chelsea Hirschhorn is pushing back on the idea that their 60-second spot is “too graphic” to air on TV.
“We were really surprised to hear that feminine hygiene was put in the same category as guns, ammunition, sexually suggestive nudity, religion and politics,” Hirschhorn told Today Parents, referring to the academy’s commercial guidelines. “I was surprised, in this day and age, to see that whomever at whatever organizational level at the academy and at ABC put in writing that they would analogize feminine hygiene to some of those other, more offensive categories of advertising.”

The Academy Awards and ABC did not respond to The Post’s request for comment on Frida Mom’s criticisms.
According to Today Parents, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences prohibits commercials including “political candidates/positions, religious or faith-based messages/positions, guns, gun shows, ammunition, feminine hygiene products, adult diapers, condoms or hemorrhoid remedies.”
Now, celebrities and television viewers are throwing their support behind the ad, which can only be seen on Frida Mom’s social media accounts.

“I legit teared up when I just watched it. Partially because this is clearly an ad made by women who have been there and get it and partially because I DO believe so strongly that the more we can NORMALIZE A WOMAN’S BODILY EXPERIENCE IN MEDIA, the better off our culture and society will be,” wrote actress Busy Philipps on Instagram last week.
“I’ve never related more to a commercial. Why are postpartum realities too graphic to show?” asked fitness book author Sara Dussault, who also shared the ad on Instagram.
On YouTube, one supportive husband shared his partner’s plight: “My wife had to do this as well. She gave Birth to all 3 of our children, and on the first one my oldest daughter, she was in the bathroom doing exactly what this lady was doing. I came in and told a joke and she was laughing but it hurt her soo much. She was in pain and then threw tissue paper at me, I love her so much.”

On Monday, CNN producer Sonia Moghe added to the controversy with an opinion piece, urging for “more honest depictions” of postpartum life.
“What does it say to women giving birth — or the partners who watch them struggle — that an ad that offers them self-care products to cope with one of the most difficult times of many women’s lives is ‘too graphic’ for family viewers?” Moghe wrote.
Frida Mom has been known to push the envelope in the past. In 2018, the feminine hygiene company dared to run a billboard campaign for a post-pregnancy perineal irrigation bottle. According to Vox, ad gatekeepers took issue with their cheeky tagline: “Trust us, your vagina will thank you.”
Hirschhorn blames a culture of squeamishness surrounding women’s health issues that keeps so many young mothers in the dark about the expectations of pregnancy.