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Heigl is blunt; Hollywood is irked

By Erin Carlson Associated Press

NEW YORK — When Katherine Heigl opens her mouth, people listen. They don't always like what they hear.

If the media loves a celebrity lightning rod, then Heigl certainly delivers the goods. The Emmy-winning actress has taken heat for her blunt public comments and doesn't seem to give two winks.

According to her detractors, the Grey's Anatomy star's outre behavior includes: demanding a higher salary in contract negotiations with ABC; slamming the megahit comedy Knocked Up, in which she starred with Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd, as ”a little sexist“ in painting women as ”humorless and uptight“ and men as ”lovable, goofy“; and recently, refusing to seek an Emmy nomination because Grey's writers failed to deliver the goods for an awards-worthy performance.

At times, Heigl comes off like a reality-show contestant who says, ”I'm not here to make friends. I'm here to win.“ That attitude, as any avid viewer of shows from Survivor to The Bachelor would agree, wins few allies on the island (or in the ­mansion), but it sure makes for good TV.

But in a world of bland, media-trained celebs, is it such a bad thing to speak your mind?

After all, celebrities have spouted off for years, bashing presidents, fellow actors and directors. But Hollywood is like high school — only meaner — and hammering the popular kids might have consequences that take years to undo.

”There's a long tradition of actors who have disdained the Hollywood establishment and then had some retribution for it within the Hollywood establishment,“ said Neal Gabler, an author and cultural critic whose books include Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality.

Gabler named screen legend Paul Newman as an ­example. Newman, now 83, shunned the movie-industry hoopla and never showed up in 1986 to accept his best-actor Academy Award for The Color of Money, after having been nominated seven times before.

”He didn't live the way a star was supposed to live. There was an expectation ... placed on him, and he didn't satisfy that expectation and Hollywood took retribution,“ Gabler said, citing Newman's awards snubs.

And yet, that tough-guy persona enhanced his public image as a man of integrity who lived on his own terms, Gabler said.