Jezebel: whatever, martha

Martha Stewart's Daughter Talks Sexless Marriage, Sort Of

Sadie — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:20:00 EDT

Alexis Stewart's show, Whatever Martha, kind of makes us uncomfortable, feeling as it does like an extended case of public adolescent rebellion. To wit: they talk about "sexless marriage!" Which Martha would never talk about!

This is one of those news-show booking crams where they randomly had Alexis and her cohost Jennifer Koppelman Hutt on with some economist who was talking about how some couples stay together because it's cheaper than divorcing. This had exactly nothing to do with the fact that this one time some "female" called into Whatever to talk about her sexless marriage - however, it was obviously necessary to put them on a split-screen with the economist for a chaotic 30 seconds, with a banner headline reading: "Show hosted by Martha Stewart's daughter mocks Stewart's show."

Alexis Stewart On Momma Martha: "She Didn’t Like Me" As A Child

Jessica — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:00:00 EDT

When I first wrote about the forthcoming show Whatever, Martha, in which Martha Stewart's spawn Alexis mocks old episodes of her mother's show, I thought it would be distinctly not a good thing. I remain resolute in my feeling that the show will hit the wrong notes who wants to hear a daughter telling people that her mother, a beloved television hostess, didn't like her own child very much? but after reading New York Magazine's profile of Alexis in this week's issue, I think the show will, at the very least, be amusing because Alexis has a disease that laypeople call "diarrhea of the mouth". (I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure Alexis has a fatal case.) After the jump, the best quotes from the NY Mag profile, including a very special dig at a very famous c-u-next-Tuesday and Alexis's unvarnished opinion of Martha's mothering.

Alexis on her incipient OCD: “If you listen to the show, you’ll know that my area has to be calm before I can calm down…Not my vaginal area. I just meant my work area.”

Alexis on the source of her "honesty": “Maybe it was because [co-host Jennifer Koppelman Hutt and I] were raised where we didn’t really have to kiss anybody’s ass."

Alexis on the East Hampton gym she owned in the 90s: "If you’re nasty to me in my place of business, I’m going to be really nasty back. I’d be like, ‘Get the F out … And then they’d say, ‘You can’t do that!’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I can. I can’t kick you out because you’re short, or gay, but I can kick you out because you’re an asshole.’ ”

Alexis on Koppelman Hutt's friends: “I hate all her friends, and if I don’t do exactly what they’re expecting me to, they’ll freak out because I’m a bitch. I don’t tap-dance…[Her] Jappy Long Island friends."

Alexis on her "media training": "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."

Alexis on Martha: "She didn’t like me. But then again not many people do like me…People like to say that Martha didn’t pay attention to me, and that’s just not true. [Beat.] Maybe not the right kind of attention."

How Did Martha Stewart End Up With Howard Stern’s Baby? [NY Mag]

Earlier: Martha Stewart's Daughter Takes Therapy Sessions Public With New Show

Martha Stewart's Daughter Takes Therapy Sessions Public With New Show

Jessica — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:30:00 EDT

Reformed jail bird Martha Stewart, in a desperate bid to appeal to a younger audience, has sanctioned a TV show starring her daughter, Alexis, and Jennifer Koppelman Hutt, the daughter of the chairman of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, in which they mockingly recap old episodes of Martha's show from the 90s. Does anyone else find this deeply weird? I mean, I am no stranger to making fun of my mother but I do so gently and anonymously. The meta-Martha show, called Whatever, Martha, sounds incredibly hostile: According to the New York Times, "Alexis Stewart said in an interview that the sometimes harsh opinions — nothing is off limits, including her mother’s clothes, fastidiousness and habit of mixing sexual innuendo with her household hints — is simply the truth."

I realize Martha thinks that this sort of snark is going to keep her relevant, after all, Whatever, Martha was her idea, but I think it's going to backfire. If there's one thing that's sacred in this country, it's the mother-daughter relationship, and a show based around a daughter calling her mom's outfits "hideous" and mocking her with the gloves off is going to hit the absolutely wrong emotional pitch. Martha's publicist, Sheila Feren, seems to agree with me, according to the Times, "During the preparation of this article, Ms. Feren repeatedly said, 'Oh, my God. Please tell me this is not happening.'"

Alexis Stewart and Jennifer Koppelman Hutt will also attempt to do the crafts and recipes that Martha made on her own show, and the bloopers that result from that will play a lot better than what Alexis describes as her "honest" opinion. There have been rumors in the past that Alexis and Martha's relationship had its drama in the past, but the pair reconciled when Martha was in the slammer, and in some ways this show seems like a very public therapy session in which Alexis is working out her considerable anger towards her mom. Of the show, Alexis says that she doesn't say anything Martha wouldn't "say herself…Given a drink or two." Which is exactly the problem: this experiment may reveal the inner bitch of the world's favorite domestic goddess, and it might not be pretty.

[Image via Martha Stewart]

Show Skewers Martha Stewart, With Her Blessing [NYT]