Public Votes for Movie Characters--Resulting List Heavy with Whitey

I came across a list of the top 100 movie characters as voted on by readers of the magazine, or site, or whatever. I didn't keep really tight notes, but they were tight enough for me.

I made some observations I wanted to put up somewhere, and here seemed like the best spot.

Cutting through the treacle:

10. Vito Corleone
9. Ripley
8. Cpt. Jack Sparrow
7. the Dude
6. Indy
5. Hannibal Lecter
4. Han Solo
3. the Joker (Heath Ledger version)
2. Darth Vader
1. Tyler Durdin, Brad Pitt, Fight Club

To start: Tyler Durdin? Okay...wouldn't have been my choice, but what can you do? It's not the worst choice, now that I think about it, but...wow.

I was kinda bummed that Charles Foster Kane isn't there, or Jake Gittes, but I guess I didn't really expect that, especially with today's voters.

Also: Harrison Ford twice, Star Wars franchise twice.

One girl, Sigourney Weaver as the badass alien killer. And, this is a pretty white list. Very white. All you have is James Earl Jones' voice, but it is number 2.

The next black face? Which is actually the first black character on the list? Clocks in at #19: Jules Winnfield, Samuel Jackson in Pulp Fiction.

The list is so white that a computer character, Gollum, ranks higher, #13, than Jules. This list is pretty light on the minorities, and I'm trying to figure out if it's just because the voters were mostly guys my age and skin color, or if there's just a dearth of good roles for the non-white actors and actresses.

Well, shit, it's gotta be both. That, and the institution of the cinema in this country is inherently racist, but...that's fodder for another post.

So, I move on with the observations. Sticking with the minorities:

19. Jules
22. Red, Morgan Freeman, Shawshank Redemption
33. Tequila, Chow Yun-fat, Hard Boiled (I saw this in a theater in Sacramento in 1996 or '97)(badass)
47. Blade, Wesley Snipes
78. Axel Foley

Wow. 4 black guys and Chow Yun-fat. Tony Montana was on there somewhere, but since that was Al Pacino, I didn't write it down, but I guess you could make the case that a Cuban should count.

Does this put into perspective the three computer animated characters, two puppets, 1 actual computer and 1 cell animated character?

13. Gollum
25. Yoda
63. Wall-E
74. ET
94. Buzz Lightyear
99. HAL

I didn't mention the cell animated character because it's Jessica Rabbit, a lady. The Ladies are better represented in the latter half of the list. Some of these should rate way higher, and I'm sure any of the few people reading this might agree. Here're the women:

9. Ripley
41. Mary Poppins (32 spot wait for Mary Poppins?)
45. Amelie
56. Juno
62. Mathilda, Natalie Portman as a young lady in movie of the same name
66. the Bride (fucking number 66?)
75. Marge Gunderson, Fargo
88. Jessica Rabbit
89. Princess Leia
90. Wicked Witch
91. Scarlet O'Hara
97. Carrie

Random "Luke" observation:

53. Luke from Cool Hand Luke
54. Luke Skywalker

Right next to each other. Go figure.

Jake Gittes, Jack Nicholson, Chinatown

Where's his number? Oh yeah, he was left off the fucking list. Who was that other guy I mentioned earlier...CITIZEN fucking KANE himself?

98. CharlesFoster Kane

I guess this is what you get when you let regular folks vote for something as important trivial as a movie character list.