Martha Stewart Gets Snark From Insane Daughter
Are there any outlets left NOT trying to be ironic and meta? Because even Martha Stewart, the icy queen of sincere homemaking, is launching a parody of herself. The show, "Whatever, Martha!", will be run by Stewart's daughter Alexis who, judging from a fresh New York profile, is still acting as self-consciously over the top as she was three years ago, when she first got her satellite radio show. She hates on a paraplegic! She has casual sex, sometimes even with women! She bought a handgun in preparation for a U.S. invasion! And now she's going to run a show where she'll make fun of her mom's old shows on a show co-produced by that same company. In the process we'll all get an uncomfortable look behind the scenes in the Stewart family, which involves learning the following:
- Alexis Stewart is a slightly rude oversharer, and seems to find her own antics delightful. "Rarely are there guests; after Alexis’s spat with 'He’s Just Not That Into You' author Greg Behrendt—she hassled him for avoiding eye contact—the Sirius talent department [attached to her radio show] stopped sending people. ('I didn’t know he had a lazy eye!' Alexis swears.)"
- Martha Stewart does not always find Alexis' antics so delightful. "Martha listens to 'Whatever' [the radio show] when she’s in the car if the topic of conversation is something that she feels comfortable listening to with her male driver. A discussion of the phenomenon of 'middlesmertz'—'when a woman ovulates and her panties get all goopy,' Alexis explains—precipitated a hasty channel change."
- Alexis hates Candace Bushnell, the Observer columnist who inspired Sex And The City. "My media training was when I was 22 and some C-U-N-T named Candace Bushnell came to interview me about my mother... I learned very quickly."
- Martha Stewart got the idea for "Whatever, Martha!" from the cable show Mystery Science Theater 3000, which she watches in her jammies.
- Neither Stewart parent spent enough time with the kids, so Alexis hates to be touched. "I can’t deal with it... Hugging is not my shtick.”
- Martha Stewart holds a grudge against Andy Rooney. "Martha stays put as her daughter tells the story of Rooney’s 1993 visit to the Martha show, and how he took a patronizing tone with her mother. 'After we did the segment, my mother comes in and says, "Do you hate Andy Rooney like I hate Andy Rooney?" Alexis says."
In other words, it's the same basic premise as Postcards From Yo Momma — making fun of your mom in an ostensibly lighthearted way — but with the budget of a media mogul's daughter. And mom actually gets some benefit, in this case, in the form of some younger demos for her media company.