"One thing you need to know about me? My obsession with Martha Stewart knows no limit. I have watched over 70 hours of her television shows, I own several of her books, I have seen her speak in person, and I keep up with her social media like it’s the most important news in the world. When I learned that Netflix launched Martha, a documentary on Martha Stewart’s life, from childhood in New Jersey to her Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover, I knew I needed to watch it the second it dropped.
No matter your relationship with Martha Stewart—whether you’re as fascinated by her as I am or you spent your formative years annoyed by her constant perfection—Martha is worth the watch. Just because Stewart herself slammed the documentary, calling it “lazy,” doesn’t mean this movie shouldn’t be on your watchlist this weekend. The documentary breaks down the life, motivations, secrets, and stories of America’s first-ever influencer, pulling back the curtain on one of the most important cultural figures of the last half-century. Here’s everything I learned from the show as a Martha Stewart superfan:
Martha Stewart was the original influencer
OK, fine, I already knew this one, but it’s worth restating. Martha runs chronologically through Stewart’s life, from her childhood in Nutley, New Jersey, to her time modeling, her quick run as a stockbroker, her catering business, and her media empire. When the storytellers (including Stewart herself) arrived at the moment when she published her first book and everything started coming up Martha, they made it incredibly clear that she was the brand. As she signed with Time, Inc. and published the first Martha Stewart Living in 1990, everything Stewart created was about how she lived—content that we’re all familiar with now but was revolutionary at the time.
“She was the first true lifestyle content creator, turning domestic work into a bona fide business.”
Watching the documentary, it’s incredibly clear how today’s lifestyle influencers follow in Stewart’s footsteps. Like her, they start with one form of media—perhaps not a magazine, but maybe a TikTok account—and then branch into books, podcasts, websites, and physical products. In the documentary, Stewart says, “People attack me for being a homemaker, but what am I doing? I’m celebrating something that’s been put down for so long. I think I’m like the modern feminist.” She was the first true lifestyle content creator, turning domestic work into a bona fide business.
Martha Stewart is more than a brand
If you think you know Martha, I promise—you don’t know her as she appears in this documentary. Martha Stewart notoriously keeps her personal life close to her chest, but Martha pulls back the curtain on both her marriage and subsequent romantic relationships. Though Stewart herself barely addresses the events leading up to her divorce from publisher Andy Stewart, the documentary reveals the content of dozens of her personal letters from the time. As Stewart reflects on Andy’s affair and their split, it’s a rare show of emotion from a notoriously practical celebrity, showing us a little bit of Martha Stewart the person instead of Martha Stewart the brand.
“As a successful and allegedly ‘difficult’ woman, she became the perfect symbol.”
Like any influencer, Stewart has a public persona that she carefully maintains as the cornerstone of her content. However, that doesn’t mean that she is always Martha Stewart, domestic expert and media mogul. Martha dives deep into Stewart’s personal life, taking care to show the person behind the brand. The film is thorough without being voyeuristic, allowing Stewart to retell the story of some of the more painful moments of her life through her letters and diaries instead of forcing her to recall the events on-camera.
Martha Stewart got “canceled”—and she came back from it
You probably remember that Martha Stewart went to prison for lying to the federal government back in 2004—but do you remember the full story? Stewart still adamantly denies engaging in insider trading in the documentary, but the focus of the film is less on did-she-or-didn’t-she and more on the media frenzy that surrounded her arrest. As the first self-made female billionaire in the United States, Martha Stewart went public with Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia in 1999—she dominated the early 2000s. Martha detailed the “witch hunt” that turned Stewart into a token of the federal government’s crackdown on federal crime—as a successful and allegedly “difficult” woman, she became the perfect symbol.
In a chronically online world, it’s easy to forget that influencer cancellations happened before the days of YouTube takedowns and Instagram story notes app apologies. Martha reminds us that even Stewart fell from grace in the public eye and had to “rebrand.” The documentary recounts how she slowly but surely remade her image, starting with her appearance on the Comedy Central Roast of Justin Bieber in 2015. Instead of falling off the face of the earth after her time in prison, Stewart leaned into the shift in her image, poking fun at her own jail time and eventually rebranding herself as the expert chef and gardener—who also likes to garden, if you know what I mean.
She’s not done yet
Even though Martha reflected on the life of America’s first influencer, it by no means implied that Stewart is done reinventing herself and her brand. The end of the movie focuses on Stewart’s social media presence, showing just how capable she is of meeting the moment. And her influence? That’s not going anywhere. In one of the closing lines of the film, the current editor-in-chief of Martha Stewart Living said, “She has branded herself not as a superwoman, but as every woman.” Sound familiar?
Emma Ginsberg, Associate Editor
Emma is a writer, editor, and podcast producer who has been creating at The Everygirl since 2021. With a degree in American Studies, Emma is especially passionate about evaluating the impact pop culture and internet culture have on the day-to-day lives of real women. You can read Emma’s public scholarship on Martha Stewart here.