Hating on the Heigl

By Sherrie Gulmahamad on August 24th, 2009

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I’ll start this post the way I start many of my posts for Twilit. Full disclosure: I don’t watch Grey’s Anatomy. I haven’t seen a single second of it.  So you may say I am “unqualified” to discuss the public’s on-again, off-again love affair with Katherine Heigl.  Well, I’m at least as “unqualified” to talk about this as Elizabeth Hasselbeck is “unqualified” to talk about anything. SO. THERE.

But anyone with two eyes and enough spare change to pick up an Us Weekly knows that since her break out performance in “Knocked Up,” we the media-gobbling public have had to deal with her on a pretty consistent basis. It always seems like one moment she’s a gem for her feminist views, the next moment, she’s annoying us by emasculating her husband and biting the various hands that feed her.  Let’s break this down.

Heigl Cons:

1) Heigl is one of those actresses that didn’t finish high school

She dropped out her sophomore year to pursue her acting ambitions. This means she possibly doesn’t know how the book 1984 ends. Or the Awakening. Or Huck Finn. Kinda sad. I know I have no proof that she hasn’t read these books – it’s just always disappointing to hear that yet another actress thought getting an education was holding her back.

2) She’s a big time, class A whiner

Heigl recently whined to David Letterman that ABC was making her work a 17 hour day.  Sources later revealed that it had to be arranged this way to accommodate HER schedule while she promoted her new film, The Ugly Truth.  This is not her first act of defiant whining when it comes to her Grey’s gig.  She also pulled her name from Emmy consideration, supposedly in reaction to the quality of the writing on the show and the plot lines her character Izzy was given.  Damn, this girl likes to chomp on the hand that pays for her cigarettes, huh? (see next)  She also recently complained about having to fake orgasms in her scenes with Gerard Butler in her latest film, The Awful Truth.  Yeah, that is some awful truth.

3) She’s a chain smoker

Google the phrase “Katherine Heigl smokes too much” and you get 25,400,000 results.  Not a joke. You go do it now.  Now listen, I smoke.  Lots of ladies smoke.  But Heigl’s mother nearly died of breast cancer.  You’d think something pejoratively referred to as “cancer sticks” would be a no-no.

4) She makes her husband seem extremely wussy

This is left over a bit from Defamer.com’s glory days, but they were awfully fond of pointing out all the sweetly disparaging comments Heigl makes about emasculated husband Joshua Kelley.  It seemed to reach an apex in 2008 when Kelley told US Weekly that he helps her curling her hair. It’s enough to make a grown man cry.

5) Heigl says one thing, and then does the other!

This chicka claimed that Knocked Up was an misogynistic movie (that catapulted her ass to stardom) – “It’s a little sexist. It paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys. It was hard for me to love the movie.” YES, and what did she make after Knocked Up?  27 Dresses and The Ugly Truth, two more movies that do nothing for women-kind, just provide more rom com light and fluffy frippery.

Heigl Pros:

1) There’s no doubt she’s an opinionated woman who says what’s on her mind

She recently admitted that she pursued (the now emasculated) Joshua Kelley, and did so without hesitation: “I didn’t wait for him to call me, I thought, ‘Screw it, I’m going to call him!’  That’s some sassy business and we approve.

2) She’s now moved on to producing her films

This is always a plus in Hollywood, and may help her fight perceptions stemming from Con #5 above. Women that make their own movies take control of their own artistic destinies, and we need way more women behind the cameras to help make better (read: less annoying) films.  Her newest movie, Escape, is about a young woman who fled from her polygamist Mormon sect and later would help convict Warren Jeffs.

Alright, I’m out of proof.  Heigl Cons wins 5 to 2.  Prove me wrong in the comments.