Rainbow List

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The Rainbow List (called the Pink List until 2014) is a list of the most influential openly LGBT individuals in the United Kingdom, published annually in the British national newspaper The Independent on Sunday . The list was started in 2000 to recognise individuals in public life who are openly gay, but has since grown to "[honour] those who have long and brave histories of standing up for equal rights". [1]

Contents

History

Pink List

The list was first published in 2000 to recognise openly gay individuals in the public sphere, and initially listed 50 people. [2] Janet Street-Porter, then editor of the paper, wrote in 2012 that she started the list at the time "to celebrate the huge contribution [that gay people] make to every aspect of modern life". [3]

Rainbow List

The list was renamed for the 2014 edition to be "more inclusive, less old-fashioned and far less like the 'girls' aisle in a toyshop". [2] The first edition as the Rainbow List was topped by Labour Peer and former actor Michael, Baron Cashman. [1]

Criticism

Stephen Fry criticised the list in 2010 for its portrayal of Louie Spence as a "gay stereotype", whose 15 minutes of fame was already running out. [4] [5] Fry later stated that he had been told that the section in which Spence appeared, the "Rogue's Gallery", had been written separately by a journalist "without the deliberators' knowledge or consent." [4]

The list has also been criticised as being unsystematic in its compilation. The Huffington Post columnist "The Guyliner" complained of the 2012 list that "[n]o complicated formulae accompany any piece about the list to tell you how this influence is calculated", and that "it is nothing more than an inventory of names". [6]

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References

  1. 1 2 "Rainbow List 2014, 1 to 101". The Independent on Sunday . 9 November 2014. Retrieved 25 November 2014.
  2. 1 2 Guest, Katy (5 October 2014). "The Rainbow List 2014: Why we changed the name from the Pink List". The Independent on Sunday . Retrieved 25 November 2014.
  3. ↑ Street-Porter, Janet (4 November 2012). "Why The Pink List is a cut above". The Independent on Sunday . Retrieved 25 November 2014.
  4. 1 2 "Stephen Fry attacks Independent on Sunday's Pink List for 'sneering' at Louie Spence". Pink News. 11 August 2010. Retrieved 25 November 2014.
  5. ↑ "The IoS Pink List 2010". The Independent on Sunday . 1 August 2010. Retrieved 25 November 2014.
  6. ↑ The Guyliner (4 November 2012). "Why the Independent's Pink List Makes Me See Red". The Huffington Post . Retrieved 25 November 2014.

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