February 09, 2010

Indians in the Celebrity 100

Here's Forbes magazine's listing of its Celebrity 100:

The Celebrity 1001  Angelina Jolie 27 3 5 3
2  Oprah Winfrey 275 4 8 2
3  Madonna 110 9 6 8
4  Beyonce Knowles 87 2 20 16
5  Tiger Woods 110 54 4 4
6  Bruce Springsteen 70 32 19 25
7  Steven Spielberg 150 48 26 48
8  Jennifer Aniston 25 6 30 21
9  Brad Pitt 28 11 7 6
10  Kobe Bryant 45 53 10 15
11  Will Smith 45 37 18 17
12  Dr. Phil McGraw 80 74 55 10
13  Britney Spears 35 10 16 11
14  David Letterman 45 35 36 9
15  Coldplay 70 64 17 57
16  Adam Sandler 55 25 43 44
17  Harrison Ford 65 13 48 75
18  Michael Jordan 45 19 33 39
19  LeBron James 40 58 15 27
20  Tom Cruise 33 33 13 19
21  Bon Jovi 50 20 57 50
22  Donald Trump 50 57 47 26
23  Rush Limbaugh 54 80 45 22
24  George Lucas 170 71 65 85
25  Simon Cowell 75 62 97 40
Comment:  The four numbers following the name are Pay ($mil), Web Rank, Press Rank, and TV Rank.

Annie of NativeCelebs says:I only saw one bona fide Native on that list (I skimmed quickly, so may have missed a name or two): Carrie Underwood (no. 75). She's enrolled. OK, so Tiger Woods, Cameron Diaz, Angelina Jolie are rumored to be part Native.As I said in Questions About Carrie Underwood, her enrollment status is doubtful. It may be more correct to say there are no Natives on the list.

Beyoncé is another one who's part Native, and there may be others. If you add up these few "part Natives," you could say about 1-1.5% of the list is Native. That's roughly the proportion of full and part Natives in the US.

So we can't complain too much. But it's kind of a shame that there isn't an established Native on the list: someone like Wes Studi, Adam Beach, or Chris Eyre.

Annie adds, "BTW, where's Johnny Depp?" Looks to me like the list is some sort of weighted average of the four columns. Depp could have a bad ranking in the Press and TV categories.

I'm not sure this list tells us much. It's Forbes idea of who's the biggest celebrity based on a combination of earnings and Web, press, and TV rankings.

For more on the subject, see Debating Carrie Underwood and The 200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons.

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