“Martha” a new documentary that follows the life and career of the iconic businesswoman, Martha Stewart, was released on Netflix last month on October 25th. Although I’ve never been curious about Martha Stewart, or have ever known very much about her, I decided to give it a watch as I am on a documentary kick and needed something different to break up all of the true crime programs I’ve seen lately.
After watching the doc, I feel that everyone should hear Martha’s story and recognize that she is yet another successful woman who has been demonized by the media.And in this case, the government due to the cultural intimidation the world feels towards powerful women.
Prior to my viewing, I only knew that Martha Stewart taught people how to cook and went to jail for some reason that had to do with money. For this generation, she seems socially irrelevant and her character is only recalled in reference to Snoop Dogg. But again, the documentary effectively illuminated her story for viewers to observe.
Martha is now 83 years old and was born in 1940s New Jersey. She was one of six children and her father’s favorite, taking after his perfectionism and harsh willfulness. To provide for her family, she began modeling as a teenager before moving to the city, finding a husband, and having a baby girl.
In 1967, Martha got a job as a stockbroker on Wall Street, the only woman in the firm. Imagine being a beautiful blonde woman and former model thrown into the boys’ club that was Wall Street in the late 70s. It sounds like a money-hungry nightmare but Martha was good at it. She was charismatic with her clients but left the job after some time as she hated losing people’s money when making false predictions on the market.
Her family moved to Westport, Connecticut where she fell into blissful domesticity. But Martha was not your typical housewife of the 1950s and 60s who prepared gelatinous meals that came from cans. She brought beauty into the act of homemaking and emphasized aesthetics for any social class. She started a catering company that took off and eventually began publishing books on entertaining, cooking, weddings, parties, flowers, etc.
The businesswoman started a line of home products that she sold at Kmart, a choice that was looked down upon by some investors who thought that Kmart was too low-brow for Martha’s aesthetic vision. But Martha’s “vision” was for any woman to experience perfection in their lives regardless of socio-economic standing.
Fast forward to 1997: Martha Stewart has a “how to” program on television and created her own Home/Women’s magazine that was picked up by Time, another boy’s club that Martha managed to gain admittance. Martha Stewart Omnimedia was founded, a revolutionary company that relied on the woman at the center of it all; the founder, the CEO, and the brand itself. This is the same year that Martha Stewart became the first self-made female billionaire in history.
It seems that her life is pretty incredible and “perfect”, as she wanted the public to think. But she went through a difficult divorce involving infidelity and was then indicted in June of 2003 for securities fraud and obstruction of justice. I’m no Econ or Pre-Law major so it’s better if you read about the circumstances of her conviction in the New York Times Article “PROSECUTING MARTHA STEWART: THE OVERVIEW; Martha Stewart Indicted by U.S on Obstruction”.
So, Martha Stewart’s empire collapses. In my personal opinion, Martha Stewart was not guilty of anything, as the documentary also supports, but was rather demonized by the public for being an overbearing, cruel, perfectionistic b*tch. But I wonder if it’s possible to achieve so much success without collecting enemies.
Martha served five months in prison and two years on probation. After her release, she went back on TV and tried to save her business while stock plummeted. After an attempted comeback, Martha went off the air and resigned herself to her Hamptons home.
Her world changed once she was invited to join a group of celebs at the “Comedy Central Roast of Justin Bieber”. Bieber had just been arrested himself and Martha was asked to comically warn Bieber about what prison is like. Her set killed. On stage next to all of these rappers, comics, and athletes, Martha was an oddity. No one expected her to perform as well as she did against the other celebrities present. Martha Stewart was suddenly back in the game. In a totally new and unexpected way.
Her performance on Comedy Central led to her show with Snoop Dogg which was a hit, a real “odd couple” kind of schtick that people loved.
Martha Stewart is now relatively retired and still living between Westport, Connecticut, and the Hamptons. She received tons of criticism in her career for being a b*tchy female executive with lots of money, high-strung, unattainable perfectionism, and a short fuse with her staff. While that shouldn’t be discredited, these traits could have increased her success if she had been born “Martin Stewart”. Martha continued to get beaten down by societal qualms about her behavior and the legitimacy of her career yet she still managed to continue changing the mold and creating a brand she was proud of.
I think we should all be fans of Martha Stewart.