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With the next sentence, any hipster
cred I might have will evaporate like cool water in the Austin sun: I feel sorry for Martha Stewart. There it is. My shy confession now
hangs in pixels in front of you, my own scarlet "A" to pin to my
ample bosom. Modern grrrls don’t dig Martha, I’m told. This one, however,
does. Rest assured that I harbor no
illusions about this former untouchable domestic goddess. I am fully aware
that her magazine, TV show and countless products are not based in any
recognizable reality. Even if I styled my life after what she demonstrated,
until I had a staff of 200 and almost endless access to cash, I could never
have what her brand of home improvement promised. In my real world, there
would still be cat puke. Toilets would still overflow. Clutter would still
invade. Once I realized that my homemaking
skills could never reach her levels of sheer outrageousness, the world that
she created was a welcome one. The magazine was porn for a homeowner, an
air-brushed, art-directed vision of a drool-inducing kitchen or a chintz
settee. The world in Living’s pages is as real as Playboy’s,
with Martha playing the Hugh Hefner role. This isn’t a bad thing. Wild
fantasies are just as important to life as realistic goals and whole wheat
bread. Most men are well aware that Pamela Anderson is not going to call them
up for a quickie in the back of some hay loft. Most women are hip to the fact
that they will never pluck cerulean eggs from beneath their own Aracuna
chickens or stitch gorgeous monograms onto their fine linens. Assuming
otherwise is to also assume that either reader is dumber than a bucket of
hair. And while there are some that dim, the vast majority of us are aware of
the divide. Until the Diva entered my life, I
didn’t have time for the television show. Martha in person was just too
unctuous. Her studied diction made it worse. In the flesh, Martha was hard to
watch, even when she was lampooning herself on Saturday Night Live or Rosie.
Plus, it was on during the hours that I wasn’t home. But during the first three months of
my momitude, when I was home full-time with the Niblet, I became a Martha-teer.
I scheduled around that blessed hour of home-making tips and soft, yet rich
pastels. If I was lucky, the wee child would sleep through the show and give
me some precious time to swoon into the idiot box. Even awake, however, the
baby seemed soothed by the very things about Martha’s voice that set my
teeth on edge. It was more than mere entertainment,
then. The show, broken as it was into easily digested and generally unrelated
segments, was the perfect match for my postpartum attention span. There was
no plot to follow and character development was marginal. While that alone
was nice, my addiction was really to the comfort the show provided. It was
reassuring, somehow, that someone gave two craps about the perfect way to
fold bed sheets or the perks of molding your own soap. In Martha’s world,
there was order and control, which gave me hope that mine could have that,
too. At a time when I couldn’t get through a day without bursting in to
tears, Martha suggested anything healed with busy hands or fresh paint. I
still don’t think she’s wrong. And life did improve, of course.
When I went back to work part-time, I started to tape the show and would
watch it during late-night feedings or early-morning awakenings. What was
nice about video was that I could fast forward through all of the commercials
and segments that didn’t really appeal. There was a downside, of course. My
husband thought that I’d really flipped out. Eventually he realized Martha
was a cure, somehow, more than a symptom. One of the bigger blows resulting
from our recent move is that the new cable system doesn’t carry a Martha
channel. At first, I was devastated, feeling like I’d lost another good
friend. It passed. Now when I infrequently catch the show, all of my initial
irritations with it return. Even though I don’t watch it anymore, I’m
still saddened to hear that it is going on indefinite hiatus while Martha’s
legal issues are resolved.
(continued at right)
What I also am is pissed-off. I have
no doubt that Martha is guilty. I also have no doubt that she is everything
rumor alleges she is -- cold, driven, controlling. But no person is only one
thing. Most of her magazine and TV associates have been with her since the
whole project began, despite the fact that they could have jumped ship once
they’d made their names. You don’t spend that much time with someone you
despise. No one on the outside has ever seen the real Martha Stewart. Even if
she is a shrew both inside and out, that isn’t a crime. Perjury, however, is (just ask Bill
Clinton). But her punishment, when other like criminals are compared with
her, doesn’t fit the crime. Clinton lied about a continuous affair with an
intern in the Oval Office, when he was responsible for an entire fucking
nation, and received no real penalty other than embarrassment. The Enron
gang, who lied to their corporation’s employees, still have yet to see
their real punishments meted out. I somehow suspect they’ll do okay,
frankly, and that also pisses me off. Yet Martha faces prison, unless the
recent developments about a lying witness earn her a new trial. Still, Martha’s
sins are minor in comparison to what some powerful white men are up to.
Gender may be the crux of the
issue. Here was a woman who made a frightening amount of money, who built a
business dynasty and kept it growing for the better part of 20 years. That
alone put a big red target on the chest of her tasteful linen button-down.
Add to that her overlying message, that what women do to, and in, their
homes has some merit beyond keeping her man happy; that there could be some
satisfying, artistic element to her inner life is the stuff that can fuel a
revolution -- where a housefrau begins to realize that her contributions are
urgent and valuable, even if they never achieve Stewart-like grandness. That
is seditious talk that must be muted. Now it has been, at least in the
public arena. But in private, where we hide our most basic hungers, an
inner-Martha will always be alive, waiting for her next opportunity.
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About the Author:
Adrienne Martini has been a theatre technician, apprentice massage therapist,
bookstore bookkeeper and pizza joint waitress. Eventually, someone started paying her for her words and an editorial mercenary was
born. She has written theatre reviews and features for the Austin
Chronicle, blurbs about tofurkey and bottled water for Cooking Light and a piece about
knitting summer camp for Interweave Knits. She is a former editor for Knoxville, Tennessee's
Metro Pulse and recently picked up an AAN award for feature writing. During the day, she fields freelance gigs and crams
knowledge into the heads of college students in Upstate New York. At all hours, she is mom to Maddy, and wife to Scott. Email Adrienne at: shaken@austinmama.com
