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.

[New York]