I'm trying to figure out if there is a quick way to test my django view functions form either the python or django shell. How would I go about instantiating and passing in faux HTTPrequest object?

The django.test.client would be the way to go.

From the django docs

from django.test.client import Client
c = Client()
response = c.post('/login/', {'username': 'john', 'password': 'smith'})
response.status_code