Why Martha Stewart's Popularity is Bad for You
How to Avoid the Costly Extravagances of TV's Design Gurus
Feb 6, 2009
Lifestyle broadcast channels crowd the digital universe, a trend traceable to 1990 and a PBS Christmas lifestyle show hosted by an as yet unknown Martha Stewart. She was a statuesque model/caterer who lavished love on butter, copper pots, naked turkeys and woven placemats. It was surreal, unapologetically domestic and post-feminist, post-Julia Child.
It was the beginning of lifestyle porn. She stood up to here in cranberry bogs praising them in the most ecstatic terms, made gorgeous turkey stuffing and a zillion other dishes from her own kitchen. The show closed as Martha welcomed remarkably good-looking friends to chow down and a genre was born. It wasn’t a big leap to Martha Stewart towels. Over the next decade, Stewart conquered décor and fashioned it into broadcast gold with three different TV series. Despite a fraud conviction, she has armies of acolytes.
Martha's Legacy
But time has marched on and Stewart has let new DIY talents slip through the door. The new design TV posse is young, good-looking, skinny and bossy and invariably armed with daffy sidekicks. While they lack Stewart’s elegance, they have their own charms, enough to create a niche industry. Lifestyle TV is aimed at world domination just the way Stewart was. Hundreds of design reality shows churn out celebrity paperhangers and cooks whose websites are heavy with breathless adoration from the fans. It’s embarrassing.
These shows replace the stuff of the feel-good movies of the Depression, to distract and entertain a world rocked by loss and financial hardship. They wrap us in the comfortable, scented arms of conspicuous consumption. They offer us magnificent room stylings, luscious, expensive fabrics, art and accessories, flowing rebuilt spaces, glossy surfaces and crisp white accents. A few candles, a blossom or two and voila!
How to Avoid Diaster
Beware the spells they cast. Following their design dictates means leaving personal taste and evidence of your existence behind. It may mean we will become a nation of hotel-like personal spaces that veer towards operating theatre clinical. Family and friends will search for the mini-bar, the list of regulations and wonder when the maid’s arriving. Life will not become suddenly rosier and you won’t likely be lying in that smart divan reading in front of the fire, because there is no time.
But there’s a much higher price to pay. TV celebrity-approved rooms may cause our hearts to take flight, but they’ll come crashing down at the cash register. A TV designer recently suggested that a reasonable living room makeover budget should be around $30K. She didn’t laugh and the host smiled encouragingly. This was fully three months after the bottom dropped out of the Dow and changed our lives.
Why Remodel?
We remodel our homes because we can’t afford to move to nicer places. When TV designer says decorating is affordable, remember that they rely on sponsors for product. It’s no longer true that a home remodeled to the hilt will send your home’s value skyrocketing. It’s unlikely that such lavish renovations repay the homeowner. Not in these times.
Here is the breakdown. TV designers will bring in tradespeople, designers and environmental gurus keen for media exposure. Brawny guys with the hammers may be called in to correct others guy’s mistakes. The homeowner may have to pay upfront for the redo. They may get a 10% discount off items designers are getting at 40% discount. And there is almost always a significant cost overrun.
Trust Yourself
The point is that we are unsure of our own taste and fear we may not have any. TV designers are there to entertain, not necessarily to help us. They are paid to be larger-than-life and impose their dreams on others’ homes, the homes of people who are mystified and seduced by the process. At their hearts, design shows make us feel we aren’t enough, that our homes, lives and selves, need rehab. Expensive rehab that offers no guarantee of happiness and prosperity.
Martha, you got some ‘splainin’ to do.
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