By Nathan Tipton

She comes to us, like clockwork, every morning at 9:00 a.m. We (my partner and I) never know with what good things she will entice us, although sometimes we tune her out. Sometimes we miss her altogether, being shamelessly caught up in other, more important matters du jour. Occasionally we ignore her completely, but never for more than a day. We still look forward to her daily visits, welcoming her into our home much as she welcomes us into her home. She is Martha Stewart.

I freely admit it . . . we like to watch. I’m fairly sure it’s not with quite the scopophiliac vis-à-vis erotic devotion hinted at in Jon Tevlin’s hilarious confessional "Martha Stewart Makes Me Hot," but watch we do and watch we must. 1 As middle-class gay men in a committed, long-term relationship, my partner and I have never really considered nor questioned our acknowledgment and acceptance of Martha Stewart, outside of the occasional remark about seeing "what fabulousness she’s offering this morning,"2 or the rarer quip "I wonder which queen she’s got on today." To us, Martha is simply "just Martha," a reassuring genderless presence who provides a daily dose of good ideas and good things. But is she something more insidious? Is she another example of a gay icon who, under the aegis of "compulsory heterosexuality,"3 assimilates us into the hetero-normative hegemonic structure and thereby negates our "gayness"?

Assimilation is a popular buzzword for pre-millennial Queer Theorists, particularly with regard to gay icons and their concomitant iconolatry, read as "diva worship." Martha Stewart lends herself to this form of queer adoration particularly among middle- and upper-middle class gay men who, contrary to heterosexual women, find her persona non-threatening and her lifestyle4 appealing and, more importantly, achievable.

Hazel Kahan and David Mulryan, writing in American Demographics, note that "[t]he gay and lesbian market is an untapped goldmine. Because gays are highly educated and usually have no dependents, they have high levels of disposable income. . . . And because these consumers are disenfranchised from mainstream society, they are open to overtures from marketers."5 While almost ridiculously reductive in its conclusions, Kahan’s and Mulryan’s report nevertheless informs the motivations behind Martha Stewart’s business acumen. Like many other gay "icons," she shares with the gay community this sense of disenfranchisement and, as a shrewd businesswoman, has parlayed this alienation-factor into her unacknowledged yet palpable marketing to the gay community.

This lifestyle promulgation to the gay community, however, comes with an important caveat. Middle- and upper-middle class gay men can more easily afford to buy in to her lifestyle while also acknowledging her excesses. For these gay men, Stewart’s lifestyle empire contains equal elements of content and camp. Daniel Harris’s incisive study "The Death of Camp" includes a telling explication of this duality. Harris writes, "While camp is fueled by the ability of film to record the ravages of time . . . it has also been shaped by the rise of investigative journalism and the invasiveness in modern life of the media, which suddenly brought gay men in closer proximity, not only to the divas’ deteriorating bodies, but to their chaotic private lives. Within the last 25 years, a rash of tell-all biographies has catered to the public’s insatiable desire for information . . ." .6 This is no better illustrated than in Jerry Oppenheimer’s unauthorized biography, Martha Stewart: Just Desserts.7 Oppenheimer mercilessly skewers Stewart from every angle, positing her as a manipulative bitch-goddess who alternately condescends to or browbeats all who enter her sphere.

Oppenheimer further reveals, in surprisingly throw-away fashion, an element of homophobia lurking in Stewart’s persona. Oppenheimer relates, "’They’re my little gay boys,’ Martha told McCully. ‘I have a crew of faggots – didn’t you know? -- and that’s one of the keys to my success.’ Martha would watch them and laugh and say, ‘Clare, when you start your business you have got to hire them. They’re the best. They make such wonderful waiters." Stewart’s use of the word "faggots" notwithstanding, her comments do not support Oppenheimer’s charge of overt homophobia. Rather, it is clear that Stewart and her "little gay boys" form a symbiotic relationship. Clare McCully, Stewart’s "informal apprentice," notes that "Martha had a lot of unemployed actors working for her, good-looking, gorgeous guys . . . (t)hey were hoping that while working at the fancy events Martha was catering, they might run into a director or producer and get an acting job."8 Further, Stewart’s admission that gays are one of the keys to her success can be read in its most universal sense, as her tacit acknowledgment that gays are a commodity to be explored and exploited.

Stewart’s appeal for gay men is, in part, her propounding, to the (almost exclusively heterosexual) "great unwashed,"9 the aspiration for a mythically-gracious, elegant way of life, heretofore the provenance of upper-middle-class heterosexuals and upwardly mobile homosexuals. Ironically, while Stewart’s socially elite "peers" have openly characterized her as a nouveau-riche outsider, and the middle-middle-class targeted market has criticized her for promoting an impossible fantasy lifestyle, Stewart’s gay following has remained steadfast, with no hint of residual resentment. It is precisely this targeting of heterosexuals that "normalizes" homosexuals and raises the comfort level between two different worlds. It is therefore only logical that Martha Stewart should act as an emissary between heterosexuals and homosexuals. Is this, then, a good thing?

One of the many stereotypically (albeit more flattering) perceived "traits" of homosexuals is their uncanny sense of style and good taste. LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy) chairman Bernard Arnault’s has stated, "When you cannot differentiate yourself from others with money, then you must differentiate yourself with something that indicates that you know how to recognize the best."10 For those operating under the assumptions of this stereotype, homosexuals would be the ideal "other" to turn to with regard to matters of style, and Stewart, of course, buys into and exploits this clichéd notion.

But Stewart’s urbanity and sophistication, while appealing to and for homosexuals, instead promotes an undercurrent of homophobia within her targeted vis-à-vis heterosexual market. Joseph Litvak’s incisive study Strange Gourmets hints at the roots of this homophobia:

Martha Stewart’s strategic deployment of homosexuals (who are self-consciously evident) throughout her media empire further enhances her own worldliness. Like her "cater-waiters," the obligatory gay garden experts/ interior designers/ handy craftspersons serve a dual purpose; their raison d’être is, of course, to show off a particularly "good thing" while providing a reassuring air of sophistication. "Look at me," Stewart seems to say, "I am worldly and open-minded! I can surround myself with smart, talented, charming little gay boys whenever I choose!" But in so doing, Stewart, in effect, seduces her targeted market with promises of decadence, vicariousness, and sophistication. This decadent sophistication both attracts and repels her heterosexual audience and to them, in the cold light of reality, comes frustration, resentment, and anger which manifests itself as homophobia.

This resulting homophobia draws its strength from the inherent contradiction which Stewart furthers through her lifestyle. Her home-and-hearth imagery, reeking of traditional (heterosexual) family values, nevertheless adds the decadent, über-sophisticated variable of homosexuality and, in so doing, subverts the idea of "normal." You can have one lifestyle without the other12 (pun intended), Stewart implies by power of suggestion, but you’d be better off combining the two. But this duality, for the vast majority of her devotees, is unthinkable. After all, what would the neighbors say?

For Stewart’s homosexual audience, the duality is equally as chilling. She not only exploits her homosexual "connections," but does so in order to increase her heterosexual market share. She, true to Marxist dictum, sets the homosexual oppressed "others" in direct conflict with the hetero-normative hegemony by virtue of incorporation. However, she never promises equal footing or equal recognition for her "others." As stated earlier, Stewart’s target market is heterosexual, career-minded, preferably married women to whom Stewart’s lifestyle would most logically appeal. Her homosexual audience, content to see a token "family member" or to learn a "good thing," subsists happily on the crumbs which Martha throws from her spotlessly clean oven. Recognition is one thing, acknowledgment entirely another.

Martha the Marxist? Martha the Agent of Homophobia? The concepts echo Jerry Oppenheimer’s risible accusations, and Martha seems guilty by association. For all her good things, she nevertheless cultivates a palpable arena of competitive envy hinted at by Margaret Talbot in New Republic:

Talbot’s posit that time (and the lack thereof) roots the frustration directed at Stewart from her devotees is both curious and reductive. Stewart’s own obsessive workaholic drive suggests that time is merely a nuisance to be worked around. Rather, the unwritten variable in Talbot’s quote is perhaps the source of the biggest friction between Stewart’s homosexual and heterosexual devotees: children. In order to be a "Be-Martha," you can have children, but your life would be simpler and more gracious without them. Worst still are the "Do-Marthas," who are caught in the double bind of having children and tighter finances.

It is very easy to locate homosexuals within the sphere of "Be-Marthas" because of their vaunted, sought-after DINK (Double-Income-No-Kids) status. Their purportedly high levels of disposable income suggest that they are, for all practical purposes, Stewart’s ideal market. This, however, is not the case, for one overriding reason: societal mores. "Society" vis-à-vis the hetero-normative status quo informs all aspects of Stewart’s empire. Children are encouraged to appear – this is particularly apparent in the early years of the magazine when multiple spreads were dedicated to fun, "family-friendly" activities. Legions of happy, smiling heterosexuals regularly cavort through Martha’s picture-perfect estates with nary a care in the world. Homosexuals, however, are only tolerated because of their limited exposure (read: camera time). Homosexual couples are nonexistent and "obvious" homosexuals14 appear restrained or disappear completely when the camera rolls or the shudder clicks.*15*

While there is no surplus of evidence to confirm Stewart’s overt homophobia, she nevertheless acts as its catalyst. Behind the camera, homosexual "guest-stars" and staff members appear merely as tokens subject to excising by film editors or exacto knife cropping. Those who survive the cut are strongly encouraged to play it "straight." In front of the camera, Stewart’s most potentially lucrative market is treated as ancillary to her "target" market. And perhaps most disturbing is the fact that the homosexual devotees view Stewart with blinders on, willfully ignoring her discrepancies, her contradictions, and the tacit homophobic atmosphere which pervades beyond her idyllic façade. We buy into Martha’s mystique at our peril, and this, assuredly, is not a good thing.

ENDNOTES

¹Tevlin, Jon. "Martha Stewart Makes Me Hot." Twin Cities Reader 22 (1996): 5.

² This also extends to her magazine, Martha Stewart Living, her catalog, Martha By Mail, the occasional book offers from her publisher, Clarkson-Potter, and her website, marthastewart.com.

³ The idea of "compulsory heterosexuality" is not new to Queer Theory. It derives from the hetero-centered notion of "normal" or "expected behavior." Adrienne Rich’s essay, "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence" (1982) is perhaps the first instance in which the term was used. Reference is made to Rich’s essay (Abelove 227-254) and M. J. Chapple’s, et. al, study "Semi-Straight Sort of Sex" (Journal of Homosexuality 35.2 (1998): 65-83) for further commentary on this notion. Abelove, Henry, Michèle Aina Barale, and David Halperin, eds. The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. New York: Routledge, 1993.

⁴ I use the term "lifestyle" in its universal sense. Stewart produces and propounds a WASPishly comfortable "way of life" filled with simple and do-able, yet beautiful, things.

⁵ Kahan, Hazel and David Mulryan. "Out of the Closet." American Demographics 17.5 (1995): 40+. See also Dr. Lisa Peñaloza’s study, "We’re Here, We’re Queer, and We’re Going Shopping! A Critical Perspective on the Accommodation of Gays and Lesbians in the U.S. Marketplace," one of the many insightful articles found in Haworth Press’s Gays, Lesbians, and Consumer Behavior: Theory, Practice, and Research Issues in Marketing. Wardlow, Daniel L., ed. New York: Haworth, 1996, pages 9-41.

⁶ Harris, Daniel. The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture. New York: Hyperion, 1997, page 31.

⁷ Oppenheimer, Jerry. Martha Stewart: Just Desserts. New York: Morrow, 1997.

⁸ Page 240.

⁹ Stewart consciously aims her marketing to "middle-middle" class heterosexual (and preferably married) career females, more because of their upwardly mobile mindset than their disposable income. However, it is important to note that Stewart herself has remained steadfastly single, outwardly showing no regrets over her failed marriage to publisher Andy Stewart. New Republic’s Margaret Talbot wryly notes, "Despite the ritual obeisance that Martha pays to Family, moreover, she is not remotely interested in the messy contingencies of family life." (Tres Riches Heures 36). New Republic 214.20 (1996): 30+.

¹⁰ Brubach, Holly. "And Luxury For All." The New York Times Magazine 12 July 1998, National ed., sec. 6: 24+.

¹¹ Litvak, Joseph. Strange Gourmets: Sophistication, Theory, and the Novel. Durham, NC: Duke U P, 1997, page 3.

¹² I purposely use the word "other" because of its tacit, binary association to homosexuals. For further elucidation of the idea of "Other," particularly with regard to incorporating identities within a dominant structure, see Raymond Williams’s explication of base, superstructure, and hegemony "From Marxism and Literature" in Richter, David H. The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. 2^nd ed. Boston: Bedford, 1998, pp. 1154-1172.

¹³ "Tres Riches Heures," 39.

¹⁴ This plays into the stereotypical notion that there are two types of homosexuals: "straight gays" and "queer gays." Reference is made to Morton Hunt’s Gay: What You Should Know About Homosexuality and Christine Jenkins’s eloquent critique of Mr. Hunt’s work, "From Queer to Gay and Back Again: Young Adult Novels with Gay/Lesbian/Queer Content, 1969-1997." The Library Quarterly 68.3 (1998): 298+.

¹⁵ Oppenheimer relates an telling anecdote from "former party coordinator" Rafael Rosario, "He recalled how Martha became upset if particular waiters were what she described as ‘overly effeminate.’ She would instruct Rosario to have them ‘tone it down’ because she believed their appearance made her clients ‘feel ill at ease and put them off,’ he said. ‘I just laughed and said, ‘Well, we may be gay, but we’re doing the job’" (241).